Microsoft Ending Support for Windows 7, 8, & Older Apps in the Microsoft Forums

[Starbuck]

Over the weekend, Microsoft announced that starting on July 1st 2018 they are no longer offering support for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and a wide variety of older applications in the Microsoft Community forums.

This does not mean that volunteers will not be able to answer questions, only that Microsoft staff themselves will no longer respond to them.

The announcement posted to the Microsoft Community forums states:

Effective July 2018, the Microsoft Community forums listed below will shift support scope and Microsoft staff will no longer provide technical support there.
There will be no proactive reviews, monitoring, answering or answer marking of questions.
The forums will still be moderated by Microsoft agents to ensure participants can engage in a safe and positive environment.

Microsoft Community participants are welcome and encouraged to continue to use the forum to ask questions and post answers with each other.

The support for the below products will be discontinued across different forums in the Community.

* Windows 7, 8.1, 8.1 RT
* Microsoft Security Essentials
* Internet Explorer 10
* Office 2010, 2013
* Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2, Surface RT, Surface 2
* Microsoft Band – this topic will be locked. Users are invited to participate in Microsoft Band 2
topic.
* Mobile devices forum – Microsoft support will continue in "Other Windows mobile devices" topic
* Zune – this topic will be locked, but will remain available for browsing

Thank you for being part of Microsoft Community!

As you can see all of the products mentioned are old with mainstream support already ended.
Therefore, it does not come as a surprise to see Microsoft assigning their staff to responding to questions for newer products that are still under full support.


Source:
Microsoft Ending Support for Windows 7, 8, & Older Apps in the Microsoft Forums

 

[KenB]

Why does this not surprise me ??
I wonder how may millions of people still use these "obsolete" systems?