Credit: Microsoft/Ask Leo
Looks like someone forgot to turn the lights off before they sold the house.
Microsoft officially ended ongoing support for Windows 7 a couple of weeks ago. They announced this quite a while ago, and made sure that everyone knew it was coming up. This was going to be the big one, they said, no more updates at all. Unfortunately, a chunky bug slid under the shutters before the store closed, and despite their multiple announcements of ending support, Microsoft had to open the store one more time.
When the last update for Windows 7 was released on January 14th, a bug appeared in the system that would cause a user’s background to turn pitch black if their wallpaper was set to “stretch.” Thankfully, it’s not a debilitating bug, but it is annoying and unseemly, and people wanted it fixed. Originally, Microsoft was only going to fix this bug for users of Windows 7 Extended Security Updates, which is a paid service intended for larger organizations that still use the OS. After some public outcry, though, they quickly changed their tune, announcing that all Windows 7 users would have a new patch made available to them, no strings attached.
This is the first time Microsoft has ever had to go back and add something to a product or service that was marked as finished, save for some minor security fixes for Windows XP. It’s a bit of an embarrassing gaff, but better it be fixed now right after support has ended rather than people discovering the bug months or years down the line and being left in the cold.
