Research from application migration outfit Cloudhouse has found that a fifth of local councils have no plans to migrate away from Windows 7.
Cloudhouse gathered the data using a Freedom of Information (FoI) request. Microsoft will withdraw support for the popular but ageing operating system on 14 January 2020. Despite this, 83 percent of Windows machines in local authorities are still running Windows 7.
Some 17 percent of the 317 councils that responded said they are yet to plan a migration away from the OS, while just one percent have completed a migration to Windows 10, it also found.
Despite this, 35 percent of IT teams who responded said that previous migrations have taken between one and two years.
CEO, CTO and founder of Cloudhouse Mat Clothier said that the perils of running applications on Windows XP and 7 were highlighted by the widespread impact of the WannaCry ransomware attacks in 2017.
“Security patches are not produced for legacy systems, such as XP, and Windows 7 will join the list of legacy operating systems at the start of 2020.”
Local councils are not alone in clinging on to Windows 7, with the latest data from Netmarketshare finding that the much-loved operating system still boasts a market share of over 43 percent, compared with 33 percent for Windows 10. Windows XP has a five percent share of the market, despite support for it being withdrawn in April 2014.
