Windows 10

Windows 7 – End of Support January 20, 2020

Windows 7 will officially reach end of support on January 20, 2020. (You can read more about that here and here.) After that day, Windows 7 will no longer receive any patches, fixes, or security updates from Microsoft. The lack of security updates is of concern because cyber-criminals will still be looking for (and finding) flaws in Windows 7 and without any updates from Microsoft they will be able to exploit them much more easily. This puts your computer, the data it contains, data on network shares, and potentially other computers on our network at risk. IT Services will be working with faculties and departments to upgrade all computers running Windows 7 to Windows 10 prior to January 2020. Planning is in progress for these upgrades, and more information will be provided soon.

In the meantime, to be ready for a move to Windows 10 you should examine the applications you use every day and ensure that they are compatible with Windows 10. The following Lab Software list has been confirmed to work on windows 10. If your software is not listed on the attached list, please contact the software vendor to confirm compatibility. Most applications that work on Windows 7 will also work on Windows 10 but it’s always good to ensure your applications are up-to-date. While you are taking stock of the applications you use, it’s also a good time to make sure that any data, documents, etc. that you have stored on your computer are backed up elsewhere (Office 365 OneDrive, network drive, USB key, portable hard drive, etc.)

We understand that there may be a small number of computers, typically connected to research equipment, which cannot be upgraded to Windows 10 without breaking required functionality. If you believe that one of your computers is in this category, please fill out the attached form with your name, contact #, the UofL Barcode of the system, office location, name of software/device and any additional pertinent information.

While are working out the details of the plan, you can get ahead of the crowd by contacting IT Services using the following link to request an upgrade of your computer system to Windows 10.

Windows 10 Fall Creator’s Update (a.k.a. 1709) Coming Soon!

On March 27, 2018 Information Technology Services will be approving the Windows 10 Fall Creator’s Update (a.k.a. Windows 10 1709) for installation via our internal Windows Update Server. If your computer is running a version of Windows 10 which is older than 1709 it will be updated to this latest version. Computers running any version of Windows older than Windows 10, such as Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 will NOT be affected by this.

You will not have to do anything to receive this update as it will be applied in the background like any other update to Windows. The main difference you will notice with this feature update is that when you restart your computer after being prompted that there are updates to be applied, the restart will take longer than normal; usually about 20-30 minutes, give or take.

NOTE: Your files, settings, and data will be unchanged by this update however we do remind you that we recommend you frequently back up your important files and data to a network drive, OneDrive, USB thumb drive, external hard drive, or some other medium.
If you would like to see what to expect during the upgrade process read on below!

Should you open the Update & Settings section of your Settings application and look under Windows Update you might see something like this as the update is being downloaded from our update server and is installed to your system:

Once the update has been downloaded and applied to your system you would see this:

Note that if you like, you can choose to schedule the restart at a later time here:

However if you aren’t checking the Settings application and you just attempt to restart your computer the dialog may look slightly different:

You may also receive other prompts to restart that can come as a pop up window or notification toast.

Note once more that if you receive this notice you may choose to restart and install now or pick a different time:

Once you choose to restart or your system restarts at the time you chose you will see this:

Your computer will restart and then you will see this:

Finally, once your computer has likely restarted a few more times you will see your normal login screen:

Once logging on with your normal credentials Windows will have a few more items to take care of and you will see the following screens:

Finally, you will be back at your normal desktop.

At this point the update has been applied and you can use your computer as you normally do. If you would like to know what some of the changes are in this update Microsoft has a blog post on that very subject:
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/10/17/whats-new-windows-10-fall-creators-update/#teYsWj4XmI1iH127.97
If you have any questions, problems, or concerns please contact the ITS Solutions Centre at (403)329-2490.