Microsoft's monthly Tuesday Patch has started rolling out this week and the latest Windows operating system upgrade marks the demise of both the Internet Explorer and Windows 8. No further support will be extended to IE users using the web browser below version 11 as well as for Windows 8 holdouts. 

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The January 2016 Windows update, described by PC World as the most significant software patch deployed by Microsoft in recent months, will point to the exit of old IE versions. The specific casualties are IE8, 9 and 10 and the retirement applies across the active Windows platforms.

But there will exception, though temporary, which will be for Windows Vista users who still happen to surf the Internet with IE9. Microsoft has committed to provide updates for the legacy web browser at least until the end of the OS' lifecycle, which the Windows-maker has scheduled to expire April 2017.

That would mean Vista and IE9 will join Windows XP and other OS and applications earlier sent by the Redmond-based tech giant to retirement.

Now what could come as a surprise to many is Microsoft's decision to push Windows 8 out of circulation while keeping its support line very much open for Windows 7 users. But as noted by PC world, the move is hardly earthshaking in the PC ecosystem as majority of Windows 8 users would've migrated either to Windows 8.1 or Windows 10.

Abandoning Windows 8 was made a lot easier by Microsoft when 8.1 was released as free option for millions of PC users. The same thing happened when Windows 10 was launched July last year. The free upgrade offer prompted Windows 8 and 8.1 users to jump at the first instance that Windows 10 became available, setting off one of the biggest migration, and perhaps the fastest even, in recent memory.

As PC World has observed, Windows 8, which was first touted as a major breakthrough by Microsoft as it claimed to marry mobile and traditional computing, proved a product that its maker would rather consign to forgettable history.

So when the smoke clears, it is Windows 10 that truly matters to Microsoft and Windows fan alike. As for IE11, it has largely become an optional Windows browsing tool as the spotlight is currently trained on the freshly-made Microsoft Edge.

Yet for most PC users, IE11 has become irrelevant as the automatic choice nowadays in exploring the World Wide Web points to two familiar names - Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.