There are plenty of other worries for businesses. Proctor believes that most companies have already upgraded their desktop software, but he warned that it wasn’t just about PCs. “Look at medical equipment,” he said, “it could be that a hospital has MRI machines that are linked up to Windows 10 machines. If the decision is taken to upgrade all PCs to Windows 11, what’s going to happen to that [MRI] machine? Is it still going to work?”
He said that there were three reasons why PIRG was looking for an extension. “First of all, there’s the environmental waste in dumping computers, as well as the effect of mining for rare earth minerals to power new machines. Then there’s the cost to consumers to upgrade and, finally, there are going to be major security problems when these machines aren’t updated.”
Pearce is bracing himself for disruption after October 14 since, he said, “we know that there are certain features that aren’t going to work.” He expects that the public sector will be particularly hit; “they haven’t got the money to complete all the upgrades,” he said.
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