Photo: Reuters

Microsoft ended support for Windows 8 on Wednesday, which means the three-year-old operating system will no longer receive the necessary security updates to keep hackers at bay, reports.

This leaves more than 40 million users with the only option to upgrade to a later version of Windows to remain supported.

Microsoft still supports Windows 7 and Windows Vista, which surprises several users about the end of support for Windows 8. Technically, Windows 8 users must be supported till 2022, as per Microsoft’s 10-year support policy. But a quirk in the support life cycle changes that and requires Windows 8 users to upgrade immediately.

Users upgrading to Windows 8.1 Update will be supported till 2023, according to Microsoft’s lifecycle page.