Windows Embedded products availability and lifecycle

John announces on his blog the end of Windows 3.11 licensing... This is not a typo! you really read Windows 3.11 which used to be available for OEMs through the Embedded channel. That will end on November the 1st.

This is sad and good news at the same time don't you think so? Sad because it is the end of an era and good because that means Microsoft commits to make his products available for a long time: industrials do need that! This is a particularity of the Embedded channel: products are available longer.

That goes along with a specific support life cycle for embedded products. So basically Embedded products benefit from a 5 years of mainstream support and 5 years of extended support. When a major release of a product is released, the previous version sees its mainstream support reduced to 2 years. And extended support still ends 5 years after mainstream support ends. That means that an actual Windows Embedded product will still be supported by Microsoft 7 years after the release of a new major version!