Proprietary OS End‑of‑Life Risks

When a vendor declares end‑of‑life for a proprietary operating system, patches, drivers and installation media often disappear from public access, leaving running installations unpatchable and archivally orphaned. That loss creates security, continuity and forensic gaps for businesses, research labs, and critical infrastructure still running those systems. — Policymakers and infrastructure operators must treat vendor EOL announcements as public‑interest events that trigger archival mandates, transitional funding, and incident‑response planning to avoid unpatchable legacy risk.