Microsoft had never released any officially supporting news about the Windows RT until now, though it was allegedly used on the PCs and Microsoft Surface Tablets. At Last the mystery has been solved by the statement of Microsoft updates that was on the support Lifecycle page, which announced that Microsoft will be supporting its initial Surface releases for the next four years. This was an official announcement made by the makers of the Windows systems. Microsoft usually supports the business and consumer versions of the Windows introductions with the mainstream support phase , while the business versions usually get another extended five years of support.
As we all know, the Surface tablet that has been loaded with Windows RT is a perfect combo package of the hardware and software exclusively and therefore plays with a different set of rules. Microsoft has declared that the Mainstream Support End Date will be four and a half years later to the date of release that is – April 11, 2017. Since Surface is considered as a consumer device there are no extended period of support end date considered for the device.
Let us go through the update in the separate page to understand better.
“On a separate page (see the Support Lifecycle Policy heading), Microsoft has updated its policy to provide additional support details for consumer hardware. Microsoft’s current policies offer “a minimum of … four years Mainstream Support for Consumer Hardware products.”
During the Mainstream Support phase, “Hardware repairs or replacements and parts are available throughout the support lifecycle. Services are free for products under warranty and available for a fee for products out of warranty. … Updates are available for the software/firmware and OS that is embedded into the hardware (except for Surface devices, which is covered by the support lifecycle policy for the Operating System on the device).”
Additional details are available in this FAQ, which notes: “For Surface devices, any Surface software installed, embedded or downloaded on the device is subject to the software lifecycle support policy for that software (unlike other HW devices such as Xbox). … The hardware support lifecycle policy applies only to the Surface hardware (and as stated above not the Surface software). For Surface devices, that policy affects only the tablet device and hardware based accessories (and for example not to soft goods accessories such as cases).”
According to this versions any person who buys the Surface with the Windows RT are eligible to receive updates until April 2017. And for the five year period of time the Windows RT will be providing Student 2013 and Office Home software for minimum of five year period of time. There are Google’s track record with orphaned Android devices, that will be supported for more years. There are chances for Microsoft to extend the end date. However there are other computer devices other than Surface such as Samsung, Acer and Dell that runs with the Windows RT system, and Microsoft support lifecycle page has never revealed any expected support dates.
