If you are running Windows Vista you may want to check whether your operating system is up to date. Microsoft announced that it has ended support for Windows Vista RTM without service packs installed.

Microsoft is quickly winding down its support efforts for Windows Vista in a move to transition customers to Windows 7. General support for the original Windows Vista, released on January 25, 2007, has ended on April 13. While mainstream support is available until April 10, 2012, users will either need to install a service pack (1 and 2 are available) or a custom service contract with Microsoft to receive further support.

Windows Vista SP1 will be supported until July 12, 2011.  If you are running Windows XP SP2, you may want to mark July 13, 2010 in your calendar as you will need SP3 to continue support from that date on (as there is no SP3 for Windows XP 64-bit, Microsoft will support Windows SP2 64-bit until April 8, 2014.)

According to Microsoft, support for Windows Vista SP2 will “24 months after the next service pack releases or at the end of the product’s support lifecycle, whichever comes first.” No specific date has been provided for the end of support of Vista SP2.

Even if the end of support is reached, Windows will still run as usual. The most significant implication of running a Windows version that is out of the general support cycle means that Microsoft will no longer provide security patches. Given the fact that Microsoft has just announced nine upcoming Windows security updates for this month alone (11 total), updating Windows may be a good choice.

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