Today Microsoft announced the end of forum support for a wide variety of products, from Zune to Windows 7, as well as IE10 and a variety of office products.  The official end of life of these products was some time ago, but users could still access the technical support forums and occasionally get an answer from a Microsoft representative or forum VIP.  This is coming to an end as at least some of the forums are being locked, which will prevent users from helping users.  On the plus side, this also means that those threads will not receive posts from users who only want to vent and bury any previous answers that they may or may not have tried. 

Slashdot commenters are somewhat agitated by this move, as you would expect.

"Microsoft has announced that starting next month it will no longer be participating in the technical support forums for Windows 7, 8.1, 8.1 RT and numerous other products. On the software front, the company says that it will also no longer provide support for Microsoft Security Essentials, Internet Explorer 10, Office 2010 and 2013 as of July."

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