January 14th, 2020 is a big day for IT professionals that follow Microsoft operating systems in the enterprise. On that date, the following products will go out of Extended Support:

• Windows 7 (SP1)
• Windows Server 2008 (SP2)
• Windows Server 2008 R2 (SP1)

What does this mean exactly?

Microsoft has a Lifecycle Policy that are guidelines for the availability of support throughout the life of a product. It is broken down into two categories:

• Fixed Policy (formerly the Business, Developer and Desktop Operating System Policy)
• Modern Policy

To answer our question on Mainstream and Extended Support, we examine the recently renamed Fixed Policy.

The Fixed Lifecycle Policy applies to many products currently available through retail purchase or volume licensing and offers a minimum of:

10 years of support (a minimum of five years Mainstream Support followed by five years Extended Support) at the supported service pack level for business, developer, and desktop operating system products. To be eligible for support, customers may be required to deploy the latest update. See the Lifecycle product search for specific details. Some products may offer less than 10 years of support. See this article for exceptions.

Five years of Mainstream Support at the supported service pack level for consumer and multimedia products.

This information gets us closer to the heart of the matter, as Mainstream and Extended Support are defined later down that page.  At the time of this writing, Microsoft defined them like this:

Mainstream Support

Mainstream Support is the first phase of the product lifecycle. At the supported service pack level, Mainstream Support for products and services includes*:

Incident support (no-charge incident support, paid incident support, support charged on an hourly basis, support for warranty claims)

Security update support

The ability to request non-security updates

NOTE: Incident support benefits included with license, licensing programs (such as Software Assurance or Visual Studio subscriptions) or other no-charge support programs are only available during the Mainstream Support phase.

Extended Support

The Extended Support phase follows Mainstream Support. At the supported service pack level, Extended Support includes:

Paid support

Security updates at no additional cost

Ability to request non-security fixes for select products, for eligible Unified Support customers.5

NOTE:

Microsoft will not accept requests for warranty support, design changes, or new features during the Extended Support phase.

Extended Support is not available for consumer, consumer hardware, or multimedia products.

Enrollment in a paid support program may be required to receive these benefits for certain products.

Service Packs are Important

Now there is a critical phrase in those statements that needs attention. That is “At the supported service pack level”. 

As well as Microsoft’s Lifecycle Policy, there is also a Service Pack Lifecycle Policy that you must consider when you are keeping track of what is supported. That policy states:

Service Pack Policy

When a new service pack is released, Microsoft provides either 12 or 24 months of support for the previous service pack, varying according to the product family (for example, Windows, Office, Servers, or Developer tools).

When support for a service pack ends, Microsoft no longer provides new security updates, DST updates, or other nonsecurity updates for that service pack. Commercially reasonable support will continue to be available, as described in the following.

When support for a product ends, support of all the service packs for that product also ends. The product’s lifecycle supersedes the service pack policy.

Support timelines for service packs remains consistent within the product family.

Microsoft publishes specific support timelines for a previous service pack when the new service pack is released. 

For example, Windows 7 SP1 is in Extended Support until January 20^th, 2020, but Windows 7 RTM is not.  In a nutshell, this means that Microsoft will require you to install at least SP1 to a Windows 7 RTM system before provides support.

Microsoft recommends staying on a fully supported service pack to ensure they are on the latest and most secure version of their product.

For customers on supported products with service pack versions that have left full support, Microsoft offers commercially reasonable support as follows:

Commercially reasonable support incidents will be provided through Microsoft Customer Service and Support and Microsoft managed support offerings (such as Premier Support). If the support incident requires escalation to development for further guidance, requires a nonsecurity update, or requires a security update, customers will be asked to upgrade to a fully supported service pack.

Commercially reasonable support does not include an option to engage Microsoft product development resources; technical workarounds may be limited or not possible.

For more information on Microsoft’s Lifecycle Policy, see its website for details:https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/hub/4095338/microsoft-lifecycle-policy