Microsoft Will Now Pester Windows 7 Users To Upgrade To Windows 10 With Pop-ups

Mark Wilson writes: Anyone who is still using Windows 7 doesn't have much longer until the operating system is no longer supported by Microsoft. Come January 14, 2020 only those enterprise customers who are willing to pay for Extended Security Updates will receive any kind of support. Microsoft has already done a lot to encourage Windows 7 diehards to make the move to Windows 10, and now it is stepping things up a gear. Throughout 2019, the company will show pop-up notifications in Windows 7 about making the switch to the latest version of Windows.

The company will, but I won't

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I turned off updates years ago.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

They try, but I'm letting the "You May Be A Victim" message stay as a badge of honor.

I am the victim; I have a Windows box after all. I'm not about to pay the mugger to rape me too.

Re:The company will, but I won't

[supremebob]

Yeah, I don't remember the Windows XP update warning messages being all that effective, either. I just disabled them, and then hacked my Windows XP box into thinking that it was a POSReady 2009 system to get another 5 years worth of updates.

POSReady 7 still gets updates until 2021. I wonder if that same registry hack will still work...

Re:The company will, but I won't

[DickBreath]

> Because I turned off updates years ago.

Popup dialog decorated with Clippy says:

Hey, it looks like you haven't yet upgraded to Windows 10! I'm from Microsoft and I'm here to help you!

To automatically upgrade to Windows 10 do any one of the following:
* Click Yes, I want to upgrade!
* Click No, I do not want to upgrade
* Click the X to close this popup
* Immediately pull the computer's power cord from the electrical outlet to have Windows 10 automatically installed at the next reboot -- for your convenience!

With Windows 10, nothing can go wrong. Nothing can go wrong. Nothing can go. thing can go wrong. go wrong.

Re:The company will, but I won't

[exomondo]

macOS is just as bad, it does exactly the same thing if you don't upgrade. Periodically popping up a notification in the top right hand screen which, unlike most notifications that display there, you can't simply hit "Dismiss", the only options are "Install" and "Details", the latter opens up the update in the App Store program.

Re:

[exomondo]

Bullshit.

It has the "Remind me" Option. Yes, it does suck that the most you can defer it is "Remind me tomorrow"; but it does only ask once per day, and is happy to be dismissed like that forever.

No, that's for general updates, not for the OS update which only has the options to either "Install" or "Details". Perhaps 10.9 doesn't have it but certainly that is how 10.12 behaves.

Re:

[exomondo]

2009 just called and solved your problem for you... go to Preferences in the App Store and untick: Automatically check for updates.

But I don't want to disable updates. I just don't want to upgrade the OS, if there's a setting for that somewhere it's not clear and it's certainly not presented simply like normal updates are where you can just dismiss and say 'remind me at X time'.

Re:

[nukenerd]

Because I turned off updates years ago.

So did I. I can cope with malware and hackers better than I can cope with Microsoft.

Re:

[Joce640k]

ClassicShell is free.

Sounds like a lawsuit

[Rockoon]

Maybe not in America, but pretty sure this will be considered illegal in the E.U.

Re:

[geekmux]

Maybe not in America, but pretty sure this will be considered illegal in the E.U.

Curious, when exactly did they outlaw pop-ups, marketing, or advertising in the EU?

Re:

[jellomizer]

It is illegal to notify users that the product is no longer in support and you may no longer receive vital security updates?

For a company even the size of Microsoft, how long should we expect them to keep maintaining old software for? Should there be a team of developers being paid to make sure MSDOS 1.0 is updated and patched? GWBASIC 1.9 With NVidia Support?

Re:

[DickBreath]

Even in the EU if you are using Windows, your obvious level of masochism is considered to be sufficient demonstration of consent enough to allow Microsoft to abuse you in whatever way it deems is in its corporate interests.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

It should be illegal everywhere. Forcing someone to buy into a product they don't want is known as 'theft'

Unless they use deceptive popups that are hard to cancel again, it's not forcing anyone. Of course, I wouldn't put that past them, especially given history...

Re:

[Dunbal]

Also known as "marketing".

There is a quite easy way to kill win7

[Z80a]

Release another good windows.
Worked wonders with windows XP.

Re:There is a quite easy way to kill win7

[Anonymous Coward]

Or allow Professional users to disable telemetry and turn off automatic updates instead of keeping it to inaccessible Enterprise licenses. Some of us need the stability of planned rollouts but aren't large enough to get Enterprise licensing yet and the telemetry is a no-go for many professionals.

Re:There is a quite easy way to kill win7

[ctilsie242]

I just wish MS would release Windows 10 LTSB/LTSC as a standalone OS. No telemetry, no Candy Crush. Just does its job.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, release Win10 LTSC as a standalone OS instead of keeping it to inaccessible Enterprise licenses.

Microsoft is EXTREMELY poorly-managed.

[Futurepower(R)]

My understanding: Microsoft is an EXTREMELY poorly-managed company. I think much more attention should be given to that.

Microsoft trash talks Windows 10 LTSC -- again [computerworld.com] (Dec. 5, 2018)

Microsoft scrambles to limit PR damage over abusive AI bot Tay. [theguardian.com] (Nov. 30, 2017)

Guess what country sued Microsoft over abusive user data collection! -- Brazil [windowsreport.com] (Apr. 28, 2018) Bad adjective: "beloved" Windows 10.

Apparently the present worsening management began with Ballmer-osis: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book [businessinsider.com] (May 23, 2012)

But Microsoft was always abusive, apparently: 'Crush Them': An Oral History of the Lawsuit That Upended Silicon Valley. [theringer.com] (May 18, 2018)

Bill Gates still runs Microsoft: Two years ago, during a Jan. 17, 2017 discussion with Charlie Rose [charlierose.com], Bill Gates said he spends "15 percent" of his time managing Microsoft. I interpreted that to mean that Gates is still extremely involved and very influential. Did Gates want the mess that is Windows 10?

From the transcript at that Charlie Rose web page:

08:42
"Bill Gates: I'm there about 15 percent of the time. And I get to work just on the R and D part, brainstorming with people, thinking, OK, how are we going to take this artificial intelligence and make it understand, help you use your time better. It's a very exciting time in software. There's five companies that are, you know, in a really strong position. Microsoft is leading in some really cool stuff so --"

It seems obvious that Bill Gates still has a huge amount of overall influence on the management of Microsoft, even if he mostly focuses on other subjects.

Lately, Windows users are not allowed to know what Windows updates actually do. In the past, for example, users were pushed to Windows 10, without giving their permission. So, now Windows 7 customers will be paying for updates that may be abusive.

Some of the many stories about Windows 10 indicate deliberate abuse of customers:

Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. [networkworld.com] "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." (Aug. 4, 2015)

Microsoft's Intolerable Windows 10 Aggression [ecommercetimes.com] (May 27, 2016)

Microsoft is infesting Windows 10 with annoying ads [theverge.com] (March 17, 2017)

Microsoft, stop sabotaging Windows 10. [infoworld.com] (March 21, 2017)

Re:There is a quite easy way to kill win7

[Anonymous Coward]

Release another good windows.

Exactly.

Windows 10 is useless garbage. Endless bugs, glitches, inconsistencies and a horrifically bad UI.

Re:

[Joce640k]

Release another good windows.

Exactly.

Windows 10 is useless garbage.

No it isn't, but it's fugly, has a completely shit start menu, insists on installing candy crush and it's full of "telemetry".

Microsoft would gain more converts by fixing those few things than by nagging.

Re:There is a quite easy way to kill win7

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

There's still a significant amount of useful Windows-only software out there. The lock-in effect is growing weaker as other platforms develop competitors and particularly as online services displace desktop software for a lot of users, but it's still there.

Re:

[gweihir]

I do not think Microsoft has that skill anymore...

Re:

[dryeo]

Windows XP was hated when released with its Fischer Price interface and took a few service packs to be liked.
Maybe in a decade or two we'll be wishing for a good Windows like 10.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Windows XP was hated when released with its Fischer Price interface and took a few service packs to be liked.

That was some serious My First Windows shit, but at least you could turn it off and just go back to the Windows 95 interface.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Windows XP was hated when released with its Fischer Price interface and took a few service packs to be liked.

That was some serious My First Windows shit, but at least you could turn it off and just go back to the Windows 95 interface.

Um, not that I recall. The FP interface was there to stay, more or less.

Then your recollection is wrong. It was literally a pulldown in the display preferences.

It's been so long I don't remember the specifics of the UI, other than going back to 95/98 or 2K is butt ugly utilitarian.

First you complain about the candy coating, then you complain about the simple interface that preceded it. It looks to me like you just want to complain.

Re:

[PPH]

Maybe in a decade or two we'll be wishing for a good Windows like 10.

Windows 37 (or whatever it is by then) will have to be pretty abysmal for people to start thinking that Windows 10 was 'good'.

Re:There is a quite easy way to kill win7

[dryeo]

Well, I'm sure Microsoft can deliver that.

Re:

[LinuxIsGarbage]

On XP I liked Luna Element [deviantart.com]

Re:

[thegarbz]

No it didn't. What worked wonders for XP is the same thing that worked wonders for previous versions of windows: IT was moving at pace and your 2 year old computer was a slow dog that needed upgrading. People got XP predominantly via OEM licenses, something that doesn't happen as much these days where a 5 year old computer is actually quite sufficient for most tasks.

Re:

[Jason1729]

But whenever they release a good windows like XP or 7, people stay on it for 10 years until MS forces them off of it. There's no money in it for MS when people hold onto software that long. It's a lot more profitable when they produce garbage that people can't wait to "upgrade" from right away. Windows 7 is probably the last good windows we will ever see.

Re:

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Windows 7 is probably the last good windows we will ever see.

Yep, that's my feeling too. Win7 had everything I needed and little else, it was perfect for 99.9% of what I need to do on a daily basis. So of course they had to shitcan it.

Re:

[chispito]

Release another good windows. Worked wonders with windows XP.

I like Windows 10 more than Windows 7.

Re:There is a quite easy way to kill win7

[Z80a]

I don't consider an OS that comes bundled with malware as a good OS.

Re:

[Joce640k]

They're already doing it. Windows 10 users wake up every few months to a message along the lines of, "We've added new features to Windows while you were asleep! Aren't we awesome!!"

HTPC

[An Ominous Coward]

Has Windows Media Center, with CableCard support, been added back to Win10? No? Then eff off.

Re:

[ZiakII]

Try https://www.nextpvr.com/ [nextpvr.com] what I wound up using for Windows 10

Re:

[Guyle]

Doesn't work if they're encrypted channels. Currently WMC is the only easy turnkey solution for watching and recording encrypted channels requiring a CableCARD. The new HDHomeRun software "kinda" works, but it's not exactly living room friendly to use. I have two PCs running Windows 8.1 w/media pack for this sole purpose that'll never get upgraded unless a) it's added back to Windows 10, b) something better finally comes along, or c) it finally breaks for good. I'm fixing to firewall them from everything

Security

[forkfail]

So, at least some of us try to train folks not to click on popups that they don't understand or expect, as often that enables permissions for malware.

Now, MS is going to make an eminently spoofable popup as part of their release?

What could possibly go wrong?

Too bad MacOS isn't broken beyond repair

[crgrace]

I'm a Mac user since 1987 and a PC user as well since about 1998. Also a Unix user since 1993 (Linux from about 1997).

For decades Mac was miles ahead of Windows in usability, ease-of-use, and "just working". Sadly, this is no longer the case and now I will have to upgrade to Win10 kicking and screaming. Windows 7 is a quite nice system. I know how to use it by now and it doesn't have any terrible problems.

I don't want to go to Win 10 and deal with the telemetry and the ads and so on (or have to waste my tim

MacOS need better hardware NOT super thin hardware

[Joe_Dragon]

MacOS need better hardware NOT super thin hardware.

Also an real pro system with PCI-E slots not just pci-e X4 TB.

Re:

[Joe_Dragon]

that is not the point also end users don't really want to deal with having to redo Hackintosh stuff for each mac os update.

Apple is missing the market. People will buy $1,499 apple desktop with stuff that non apple price is $1000-$1100. they may even sell a few $1899 gamer systems.

Also missing is the $2500+ workstation systems.

Re:Too bad MacOS isn't broken beyond repair

[demon driver]

Linux is out, because of specific software packages I use that do not support Linux.

May I ask which ones? I ask because that was what I thought until the end of 2017, when out of sheer frustration with the idea of having to move to Windows 10 in the foreseeable future I just gave Linux a try. The plan was to resort to Wine and/or a Windows 7 VM for those Windows applications I really cannot do without yet. I wasn't too optimistic, I saw a less-than-fifty-percent chance for it working out well. But it did. A few weeks later, all machines in the household (the other inhabitant had been very sympathetic to the plan, too) had been converted to Linux as the only or primary OS, and we have never looked back. There's just one thing I've been asking myself once or twice – why did I wait that long?

Re:

[mark-t]

May I ask which ones?

Not the OP, but one of the major grievances I have with Wine is trying to use is Genetica 4.0, which does not work in Wine. Genetica is no longer being actively developed, as far as I know, so I expect there will be no plans to ever port it to Linux either.

I played around a little with Substance Designer, which does work on Linux, but I found it was nowhere near as intuitive to use as Genetica, which had dozens upon dozens of different wizards for designing different material types.

Re:

[mark-t]

I'm not sure how that's a selling point for Linux.... leaving aside that this would still require me to own Windows, in terms of workflow, there is no difference between using a virtual box and just owning a whole separate computer that might be networked with it, with the down side is that the virtual box takes up a lot of system resources on the Linux workstation while running while a separate computer would not.

Re:

[Maelwryth]

I have never got this sort of comment. To put it another way

I am not sure that is a selling point for VHS....I am not sure that is a selling point for DVD...etc..It's content, not format. Use Virtualbox to make your content available. The number of times you are actually going to use it is probably minuscule and if you really really need it. It's still there.

Re:

[mark-t]

Perhaps you didn't see what I said.... I said that if one is going to use a virtual box, why wouldn't they just use a whole different computer? It takes up just as much resources as a virtual box does, after all. And suggesting that they use a different operating system (which is what they are doing when they are using virtual box) is not going to be any kind of selling point for the operating system that virtual box might be running on.

Re:

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

You can a free version of Win7 from Microsoft that works fine in VirtualBox, which is what I did.

I don't use it much, but every once in a while.

POs, for one

[DogDude]

How about a decent, usable, PCI-compliant point of sale system?

Re:

[mark-t]

Are they still doing that? I thought Blizzard had smartened up after they were found to be in the wrong and had to start giving refunds to some of the players they they found they had wrongfully banned.

Re:

[ctilsie242]

Depending on the software packages, you can go with Linux, and use something like KVM, Virtualbox, or VMWare Workstation to run a VM of Windows 10 for the applications which require that.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[MrLogic17]

>Sadly, this is no longer the case and now I will have to upgrade to Win10 kicking and screaming

Why? I'm staying on Windows 7 until I have no choice.
What's dragging you to 10? Are you *sure* you have no choice?

Re:

[steveb3210]

Slower hasn't been my experience - at least in the last two updates.

I updated my mom's 2011 MacBook Air with the release before Mojave and it actually got faster...

I can't say I've noticed any slowdown with Mojave either.

Good luck with that

[xack]

China still has 10% market share for Windows XP. There will still be substantial Windows 7 usage in the 2030s. Businesses wih critical workloads that can’t be rebooted all he time for “updates” means that 7 isn’t going anywhere.

Re:

[RickyShade]

Businesses wih critical workloads that can’t be rebooted all he time for “updates”

Well, I hope businesses can find competent techs that know how to disable automatic updating/rebooting.

Another "upgrade" to block

[gweihir]

Clearly, MS does not have the maturity to responsibly decide what to install and what not.

Fuck You Microsoft.

[UnknownSoldier]

Microsoft doesn't respect your time, space, or money. Fuck 'em.

The community needs to send a letter to MS:

Dear Microsoft,

Here is a fucking clue-stick:

1. It is NOT your fucking machine regardless of how much of your software we run on it.

2. Instead of nagging people to upgrade to your latest spyware how about you produce a better replacement with the option to disable all your Telemetry shit? Oh, wait, that would involve work. /sarcasm

Re:

[ChromeAeonuim]

Microsoft hears you, they just don't care.

Re:

[thegarbz]

Implying that people actually give a crap about telemetry? Here's a factbomb for your cluestick: MS doesn't care about 100 or so vocal Slashdot users. The vast majority of users who haven't upgraded couldn't give 2 shits about telemetry.Windows 10 not working on their hardware on the other hand is something people care about, Windows 10 interrupting them is what they care about, moving of their cheese is something that they care about.

Re:

[Jason1729]

So what to use instead?
MacOS where you can pay 5 times the price for 1/5th the hardware, soldered ram, and soldered SSD? No way.
Linux where you need a hobbyist's devotion to work as part time netadmin on your home computer to keep everything running smoothly? Please,I just want to enjoy using my computer...I'll suffer though a Mac before that option.

Microsoft can keep windows 10...

[blahplusplus]

... the thing is a drm ridden piece of spying garbage. The fucking "service agreement" gives them absolute authority to invade your computer. A giant wtf. Anyone with any clue of the great evil of windows 10 wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.

To think it only took the stupid and ignorant masses getting internet to allow corporations to steal software and force drm on the planet and the entire world bent over and forked over their money. A Fucking dystopia brought to by the average citizien moron who can't make rational purchasing decisions.

Re:

[thegarbz]

So you've never read the service agreement for previous versions of Windows then.

Re:

[blahplusplus]

So you've never read the service agreement for previous versions of Windows then.

Except you seem to not realize that Windows 10 is designed to feed all of your information to microsoft. To gather data on everything you've ever done. Windows 7 does not have that awful feature. Sorry to tell ya and I can forcefully disconnect win7 from the corporate hive mind and still have a functioning computer. Good luck on future versions of windows.

Re:

[blahplusplus]

You don't seem to understand the dynamics of political power in capitalist society and all the software we've already invested in being wiped out by microsoft politically engineering the internet putting drm in everything because the population cannot defend itself from these attacks.

The gullible vote with your dollars free market ideology you subscribe to is 100% bullshit. You can't hold accountable a giant mega corporation that has billions of dollars when you are 100 miles away from it and expect to inf

Car analogy

[kaur]

I bought it.
I own it.
I drive it as I like, traffic laws permitting.

How can the factory decide where it will drive?

Re:

[jythie]

Heh, within that analogy, could you imagine the outrage if computers had to have yearly inspections in order to remain internet legal?

Re:

[Major_Disorder]

Heh, within that analogy, could you imagine the outrage if computers had to have yearly inspections in order to remain internet legal?

It could get some of the Spyware/Malware/Virus infested wrecks off of the information superhighway. :)
But someone would probably tack on an "Approved OS only" list, so I would prefer governments stay away from attempting to regulate technology that they do not understand. (Most old men are just not qualified.) (Written by a 50YO white guy.)

Re:

[Virtucon]

you leased it.
we don't want you having it anymore.
you agreed to this when we first met and we can change those rules as we see fit.
don't make us brick you.

ReactOS

[ASCIIxTended]

We have software that doesn't work on Windows 10, works great in Windows 7, and as I just discovered works on ReactOS. Anyone else in this situation may want to take a look at https://www.reactos.org/ [reactos.org]

Re: ReactOS

[Picodon]

I might have considered it if was not managed by a Russian foundation running with the blessing (or more) from the Russian government.
But to each his own, I guess...

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[account_deleted]

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[account_deleted]

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Re:

[thegarbz]

Sorry but the differences between Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise are the differences that only Slashdot users and tech heads salivate about. The overwhelming vast majority of the world doesn't give a shit about telemetry, or selecting exact updates to install and having access to Windows 10 enterprise doesn't change the big problems: Windows 10 is different, it has different requirements, different interface, different way of operating, and people don't like their cheese moved.

MS isn't targeting a bunch of n

offer upgrade for free again...

[roc97007]

...and I might consider it.

Re:

[Pitawg]

Nothing has been free from MS. 10 is the slurpiest thief they have made. They are starting a campaign now to steal more of past customers' future days with this harassment of the most definite NOs they have yet to receive.

With this move, the last VMs of mine will be deleted, as even my coding for a MS Shop is completely done from linux now. No more MS, not for work, nor games. Even their domains fail to translate on my net.

Re:

[MatthiasF]

You can upgrade for free. I've done it for several people in the last year.

They don't advertise it broadly because they do not want small companies to migrate to Windows Home edition to save money on upgrading, but you can upgrade Home edition for free using the installer.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-u... [microsoft.com]

If it doesn't accept your serial number in Windows 7, then you can just reverse the upgrade back.

Time to disable MS patches again

[sinij]

Will they ever learn that nagware will just get people to turn off updates?

Why no class action lawsuits?

[Nocturrne]

Lawyers must be foaming at the mouth with excitement. Why haven't we seen any big lawsuits about the forced loss of privacy and no options to buy a private non-spyware version?

Like I said on the free Win7 update promise.

[Oligonicella]

Suddenly you will find yourself on a Windows 10 machine.

Support older video hardware

[Mike Van Pelt]

I tried upgrading my mother's PC to Windows 10.

It could only operate the display in hideously eye-hurting unreadable "not the right resolution for the LCD monitor" mode, because Microsoft did not support the on-motherboard graphics and there was no driver update. So I rolled it back to 7.

She's gone over to the iFruit side now, she is happily using her iPad while sitting in her easy chair, and has no interest in the PC any more, so it'll probably remain at 7 forever.

Stop it!

[duke_cheetah2003]

If someone hasn't updated to Windows 10 by now, they will never upgrade. Hell, even I have a few Windows 7 holdbacks I have no intention of upgrading, ever.

Just stop. There is absolutely no point in turning Windows 7 into nagware.

So, MS are writing drivers for older Nvidia GPUs?

[YuppieScum]

The laptop I'm using right now is running Windows 7, but is unsupported by Windows 10 as NVidia don't provide a driver for the GeForce Go 7400 GPU it contains.

In addition, HP, the "makers" of this machine, have chosen to hide the links to all the drivers they host, so I'm boned if I need to reinstall... unless I can remember all the SP numbers for the audio drivers, etc and pull them direct from their site.

Over the years, it's had an SSD to replace the old HDD, a new WiFi card to get 5GHz and "n" (and a pat

Maybe at first...

[Kargan]

...but I give it no more than a day before the information is out on how to disable them, which update to remove or which registry key to alter.

I remember when they first let Win7 and 8 upgrade

[Daralantan]

I remember back then they were like: "Do it now or lose your chance to upgrade!"

Now it's just: "DO IT NOW"

This reminds me ...

[PPH]

... of Childhood's End [wikipedia.org]. Where the Overlords come down and sell humanity on a new, higher level of consciousness. And then at the end, they have to destroy the Earth. To keep humanity from reinstalling the old version, I guess.

Oh yeah. And there's that bit about Microsoft, er I mean the Overlords actually being the devil.

I'll Miss The Games

[ewhac]

Some of us remember the jaw-dropping arrogance and hubris Micros~1 demonstrated with their Get Windows 10 (GWX) initiative:

• The new icon in the systray that was an advertisement, and couldn't be disabled (unless you knew the exact KB numbers to uninstall),
• The pop-up windows nagging you to take the upgrade before it was "too late,"
• Downloading a multi-gigabyte hairball containing the update to your system drive -- without your knowledge or consent -- "just in case" you finally said yes,
• Turning your PC into a Bittorrent node to distribute the update to other PCs, because why should Micros~1 pay for their own bandwidth when they can leech off everyone else's,
• Using maliciously confusing prompts to trick people into accepting the upgrade, even -- and especially -- after they'd already explicitly said No several times,
• The upgrades that failed,
• The rollbacks that failed,
• The machines that Win10 just plain didn't, and never would, support,
• Arrogating all system administration to themselves, and still constantly fscking it up,
• The promises and features that, to the surprise of no one who's been paying the slightest attention for the last 35 years, were never delivered -- shitty security, shitty performance, shitty UI, system updates that could break the machine at any given time, and device driver updates that never worked.

So I guess my question to Micros~1 is: What in your brain-worm-infested minds do you imagine has induced us to change our opinions on this matter? You are every bit as incompetent and every bit as untrustworthy as you were five years ago, ten years ago, 20 years ago...

Windows exists in my house solely to play games. If you feel you can't handle that duty any longer without completely fscking over my machine, then I guess I'll have to learn to live with just NetHack.

TL;DR: The Answer Is No.

Wow, that sounds annoying as hell!

[Rick Schumann]

Sure glad I'm using Ubuntu. :-)

People still update Win7?

[buck-yar]

I thought most anyone not wanting 10 stopped updating windows 7 after the change from individual KBs to rollups.

On the positive note

[dmt0]

A few more people will stop using IE, as the big blue E icon that they call "Internet" will now launch a fairly modern Edge browser.

Too late

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Too late, I ditched Win7 for Linux Mint a while ago and I'm never going back.

I liked Win7- it was everything I needed and not much else. But the shaky updates and the constant push to upgrade upgrade upgrade upgrade were wearing on me.

The final straw was an 'update' that blasted me off the net and nothing I could do would fix it. I finally had to roll back to a save point, and that was that- no more updates.

So yeah, MS finally pissed me off enough to bail. Linux Mint is good, fairly well done and perfectly

Re:

[rudy_wayne]

w0ho shit out a new OS every couple of months and wipe their hands of it. Leaving end users to flail about desperately trying to figure out what to do.

You just described Windows 10. At least twice a year you get to experience the joy of getting fucked by a new mandatory update.

Re:

[Moryath]

Then they should re-enable the free upgrade mode.

Also, "SJW freetards"? Really? No wonder you posted as an anonymous coward, you must be a real blast at parties.

This is where the party ends / I can't stand here listening / to you and your racist friend... [youtube.com] [youtube.com]

Re:

[supremebob]

Really? The last time I tried upgrading a version of Ubuntu, it totally hosed my laptop. The install got so screwed up that couldn't even boot into the GUI after the upgrade.

Re:

[tepples]

For the common man, phones and tablets are going to take over.

Once programming enters the high school curriculum of "the common man", how will this be practical on "phones and tablets"? Will students who own only a phone have to buy a tablet and a keyboard?

Re:

[roc97007]

Most of us left are downloading security only updates at best and carefully monitoring what W7 is doing. After GWX everyone is super wary of this behavior. Businesses are going to have their own update servers and/or pay the extension.

The only way 7 is going to obsolete is vendors dropping support in their software. After that we move to windows 8.1 for 4 more years. That leaves at least 5 years for microsoft to unscrew itself or equivalent software to finally release on linux. For the common man, phones and tablets are going to take over.

A good strategy, but I'd like to make a suggestion. Having gone through the Windows 7 -> Windows 8.1 process, and the Windows 7 -> Windows 10 process, I'd really suggest the latter. Windows 8.1 is pants, and the less you touch it, the more you'll be happy.

The reason we didn't go from 8.1 -> 10, is that we had so much trouble with 8.1 that we ended up doing recovery installs back to 7. A couple years later, when 10 became stable, we did some testing and realized that it was less of a risk to go d

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[Oligonicella]

Not sure why the USB driver comment. I have Win 7 and it handles USBs with no problem.

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[scdeimos]

USB 3 support?

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[Oligonicella]

Why will Win 7 be dead soon? If you don't do any updates to it, it will continue running as is. Now, some new software may not support it but all your current software will continue to do so.