
The forecast was based on Microsoft's behaviour five years ago, when it kept cranking out malware signature updates for Windows XP users of MSE in the months after that operating system's April 2014 retirement.

Windows 7, though, has been stuck with MSE.Ĭomputerworld previously speculated that Microsoft would provide updates to MSE even after Windows 7's retirement, slated for 14 January. Since then, Defender has been baked into each follow-up version of the OS, including Windows 10.

Two years after that, MSE was replaced by Windows Defender with the launch of Windows 8. However, in 2010, Microsoft expanded the licensing to small businesses, defined as those with 10 or fewer PCs.
