As Hardwareluxx reported on Monday, Windows 7 itself is enjoying great popularity over a year after the end of support. However, this does not only apply to private users. The federal government and the federal ministries also currently have a total of 63. 922 Computers are used on which the operating system, which is now almost twelve years old, is installed.

Im January 2020 the number was still at 33. 000 PCs. However, no additional computers with Windows 7 should have been set up, at the time of the request by the Green parliamentary group in January 2020 the published figures were still incomplete. According to official information, the additional costs for the first mentioned systems amounted to around 800. 000 Euro.

However, the costs for additional support from Microsoft currently amount to just under 1.9 million euros. However, it will be over in two years at the latest and Microsoft will no longer offer updates for Windows 7 to customers willing to pay. It remains to be seen whether the government and ministries will be able to replace all computers that are currently still using the said operating system within two years. Among other things, 27. 326 computer at the Ministry of Defense to be replaced. Since this is an extremely sensitive IT infrastructure, it can be assumed that the affected computers cannot be exchanged so easily. On the other hand, it is particularly important here to keep all systems up to date in order to prevent outsiders from being able to attack.

Even if the “Bund IT Consolidation” initiative has completed the planning phase, this is by no means a guarantee that the modernization will go smoothly. This could mean that Microsoft has to be persuaded with an appropriate payment to offer appropriate security updates for Windows 7 beyond January 2023 .