Microsoft Ends Support for Windows 8

Microsoft has ended its support of Windows 8 as of this week. The operating system will no longer receive any updates or patches, so anyone still on the old OS is advised to upgrade to Windows 8.1 or Windows 10, as the company will no longer offer security updates to deal with new threats.

The company says it will be treating Windows 8.1 as a service pack for Windows 8, so if you're still running the old version, you should download the upgrade immediately.

"Unlike service packs that are typically just a collection of fixes, Windows 8.1 has new features and enhancements," wrote Microsoft in 2013. "We designed Windows 8.1 to give customers an ability to deploy this update in a manner that is similar to how customers deploy service packs, therefore we are applying the existing service pack support policy to Windows 8.1."

Micosoft plans to hit a billion installs for Windows 10 by 2018. With support for DirectX 12 and new graphics cards and CPUs on the way in 2016, Microsoft may well meet its goals. The first game to use DirectX 12 is Ashes of the Singularity, which is currently available in Early Access on Steam.