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Free (Gratis) Version of Windows Could Be a Reality Soon
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft is exploring whether to release a free version of Windows to increase the number of computers using the latest operating system. Currently the company seems to be testing a new version of the OS called 'Windows 8.1 with Bing', which will include Microsoft's key modern apps and services."
I remember when Bill Gates said that if software were being pirated, he would prefer that it was HIS software being pirated. He wanted to hook them now, so that he could charge them later.
I guess there aren't enough pirates being hooked, so now they have to give it away gratis.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
beer?
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
The first hit is free.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Usually there are a "FREE" version already (forget a moment the facts of licenses, is what says marketing) for development countries called Starter version. But nobody likes it since it only can open 2 apps at once.Very limited.
Oh well they can go the Android version and explode the use with ads all day, like happens in my Polaroid Android Tablet. I barely surf Internet with it since it hansg a lot downloading ads.
Given the history of MS trying to squeeze every last cent out of their captive audience, a free version of Win 8.1 (even one bundled with bing') sounds like desperation.
You couldn't pay me to use Windows 8 (unless it was a lot of money), so why the fuck do you think I would want it for free with crapware installed on it?
Yes, it was time to move from XP. I *could* have had Windows 8, but hell no.
So... I could have gotten Win8 for free already ... and I wouldn't have it!
Imagine if both Russia and China dedicated resources to ReactOS, then Microsoft could FOADIAF
Windows with Bing, super invasive, super troll advertising, super restrictions on what applications you can install and super restrictions on where you can source content. You just know M$ will go wildly over the top in that regard, so xbox in a computer with compulsory M$ bling 'er' bing. Except you have paid full price for the hardware and by taking free you are actually shifting ownership and control of that device from yourself to M$.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Keep charging for Windows, but remove the Product Activation and "Genuine Advantage" crap. Then let the pirates go wild. People will Pirate it thinking they are getting something for Nothing, and those that still pay for Windows, will be gravy for you.
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
So, Windows 8 isn't bad enough? Now they want to make it worse by turning it into an ad supported monstrosity?
I'd be impressed with the level of idiocy if it wasn't so pathetic.
Funny, but I never remember hearing about Microsoft having to give away Windows XP or Windows 7. (Sure, there was stuff like educational licenses, but those were for specific and clear marketing purposes.) If Microsoft has to literally give away Windows 8 to get people to use it, isn't that a blatant admission of failure? Why do they feel the need to keep digging themselves deeper into this hole?
Given Microsoft's name recognition among the masses this has the potential to wipe out Android and other free beer operating systems or at least seriously reduce their footprint. Are there any anti-trust implications here, given that Google is doing the same with Android? This would probably have little to zero impact on Apple or the users of "fringe" Linux distros (read: non-Ubuntu).
Man it's like a dream come true. Windows 8 interface AND Bing! Maybe they can bundle it onto free software downloads, like they do with the Conduit/Bingbar browser hijack. Then we won't even have to download it ourselves. Man that's top notch service!
If I had aero and the option to disable Metro or at least have it as a desktop where the desktop treats a metro app like any win32 app then ok.
I need Windows to run apps. Sorry slashdotters I really did try to live a linux only life. I need MS VS, MS expressions web, ventrillo, star wars the old republic, and yes sadly office as my resume won't be formatted correctly with any other package.
Windows 7 is old and aging and is not mobile friendly compared to Windows 8, iOS, and Android with its api's sucking battery life from apps utilizing win32. But I find hte disney colors of even the Windows 8 desktop madening!
I really did try Windows 8.1. I find it so damn ugly compared to Windows 7 where I have a sigh of relife. I thought I was old and afraid of change like those on neowin.net say we are.
I guess I can use it for occasional use like Windows Server 2012 where I setup it once and run just one app at a time and then go back to my desk and use MMC to do the real work.
But until I have my colors back and life (talking about Office 2013 too) it seems MS is extremist where they want all white, gray, and no color, and all minimalism = anti skuemorphism in that very strict interpretation.
http://saveie6.com/
I still have an installation of Windows 8.1 Preview. It was free. I just didn't bother to upgrade it to RTM. I still use it occasionally.
What if it's impossible to undo, and millions of non-technical people give 8.1 a try ("Gull darn it's free ain't it?") and then they all hate it, but there's no way to go back to what they had without wiping everything out ("All my games and pitchers is gone!") and then there's a flood of anti-Mirco$oft news articles and blog posts and facebook posts etc etc etc.?
Clearly a strategy to erode the Chrome book. With Google clamping down now within Chrome, it won't be too long before they have a hefty market share and lock in with their Chrome Web Store. Recent releases of chrome now deactivate extensions from third parties that don't come from their Web Store, so they're corralling ISVs into their BS Walled Garden strategy which is bad for Chrome but great for Google. I can see Microsoft wanting to play in that arena as well, Bing based browser with the Microsoft Store that still doesn't allow you delete your apps though.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Imagine if both Russia and China dedicated resources to nuclear weaponry, thenthe US could FOADIAF... literally. BOOM.
No but seriously given the current balance of power it's clear that the East are far less aggressive than the US ever was, and - for all their rhetoric - are more interested in production and trade.
Seriously overpriced.
But there is better stuff out there that is already free, and not just that but its also free from their marketing, free from their bloat, free from their viruses, free from their poor performance, and free from a direct line to the nsa.
Why would anyone bother?
"Can't even GIVE the shit away"
Javascript "Apps" are the reason I just had to replace my perfectly serviceable 10 year old Athlon XP machine before it physically broke down from exhaustion. Every machine I have had before I have had the pleasure of using until it caught fire from overuse. The smell of burning capacitors is still fresh in my nostrils after all these years. Fuck Apps. Fuck them in the anus with a cactus. And for that matter, fuck my spell checker for insisting that it should be written as "JavaScript".
I'm still waiting for the version where they fucking well pay me to use it. Do you have any idea what it is like to be rudely awakened from the earnestly and lovingly designed Acorn RISC OS?
If Microsoft does indeed go through with a truly "free" version of Windows, I anticipate that it won't be long until they panic and decide to kill it because "it's diluting their profits from Windows". That's what happened to the free (and admittedly quite limited) version of Office 2010 they put out. As restricted as Office Starter was compared to the retail version, it was still "good enough" for many people, myself included. This supposedly began eroding their profits for Office. By the time Office 2013 came around, they had decided that they didn't like the idea of having a free version of a flagship product eating into potential sales, so they axed it. I imagine a free version of Windows would meet the same short-lived fate. Yes, I agree with the general consensus that Windows 8.x is terrible compared to 7 or even Vista. BUT, just like with Office Starter, there will be many people for which a free version of Windows, restrictions and all, is "good enough" for them. This will eat into their sales of Windows even further (If that's even possible at this point considering the failure that is Windows 8), and they'll panic and decide to axe it to forcefully regain their flow of income.
With all that said, I will admit I'm curious to see how this plays out re: their method of releasing a free version of Windows. With Office Starter, it was (officially) only available pre-installed on new computers and (technically) could not be downloaded. If they release free Windows as a downloadable ISO, that might garner a little more adoption, but not much considering Win8's reputation. But, if they go the same route they took with Office Starter and make it only available on new computers, then really the only benefit would be a lower-priced PC, albeit with the added cost of having to deal with ads. Kinda like what Amazon has done with certain models of the Kindle.
I wouldn't put any microlost operating system on a computer that wants to take ownership of your hardware.
update on top of W8 that is..
Experience so far:
Acrobat reader crashes reliably
Essential VPN in VMware images no longer works.
Consequence:
Restore W 8 from backup
Cost? Lots of time lost on this BS!
Maybe they need to give it away for free so people are less upset if they get burnt - you get what you pay for and get sucked on with ads and/or giving up your privacy.
Ah - and this BING desktop or whatever it is was never installed.
I do in-house web sites for a living. We do NOT support Internet Explorer. Why not? Because we can't affort to install virtual computers running legal versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 6 (?), Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 9. We just tell our people to use Firefox; it's availlable for free for anything.
Giving away copies for compatability testing would be a great idea.
(Neither can we affort a back room full of old MAC's, but I can test Safari on Windows XP and haven't run in to any problem yet.)
He made it easy for all(DOOM), Trying to program whims is impossible.
Regards,
Linux
The real cost of a Microsoft OS is the hours you'll spend waiting for reboots due to "updates" and just trying to keep it running.
My time is worth more than that.
Burn it!
Mod it!
Free IT from Bill!
Yea baby! Bring on the 'Suits.' :-D
Maybe then at least dogs will play with it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Windows has multiple versions of their OS, from low-end, to 'pro', to 'ultimate'. Windows deliberately makes lesser versions inferior in the hope users will pay for a better version. It is a pity they do not bother to make and offer the best version. One of the many reasons proprietary OS' must be done away with.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
Jesus H. Fuck! Just when I thought Windows 8 was as low as they could go!
There's no way, no how, no possible scenario where I'd opt for something like this. Even if the only other choice was "no computer".
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Time to start making money on things other than Windows and Office.
If Microsoft wants me to ever run anything windows on any of my computers EVER again they will have to pay for the priviledge. I had no choice but to deal with their monopoly for twenty years when I was employed but, now that I'm retired, I don't have to put up with them anymore. I'll build my next computer from discrete transistors if I have to before I buy another machine pre-installed with windows and all the OEM bloatware that comes with them these days.
To bad it only works when your selling a drug people actually want. This one gives you a *reeeally* bad trip.
Is 10,000,000 times not, not, never ever Windows 8, in any guise, form or fashion.
Give me XP or 7 - but NO "key", no nonsense. It installs and shuts up. It can be put in a VM and never smell a network (and not commit suicide after 30 or 120 days).
Hello Bill? ..or Steve Chair-chuck Ballmer, ... or Natella new-guy? Hello, anybody home?
I will even give $100 for a DVD with such a version. I have $0 (zero) for a key-riddled version.
bing
is way overpriced.
So how much are they selling Win7 for these days?
Anyway, what would stop you from installing that 'free with Bing' win 8.1, then installing your own choice of browser (Firefox, SeaMonkey or Chromium) and using that, with the home page set to google.com
(And install another file manager instead of using windows explorer.
I'd like to see the pricing models MS uses for pricing Windows desktop, server, Office, SQL/Exchange, and server OS & apps CALs.
I wonder if MS builds in interdependencies for these pricing and what kind of assumptions they make on how the pricing for one product relates to expected sales of another -- ie, if the price of desktop "Pro" is raised past X, how many fewer copies do they expect to sell of the desktop OS and how many fewer copies of Office or fewer server licenses and CALs?
My guess is that they follow the option to maximize pricing, keeping X at some value that maximizes how much they can charge without too adversely affecting other sales.
It makes me wonder, though, if someone has ever said "Hey, what happens if we make the pro desktop free but raise the price of server, server apps, and CALs by some percentage to both make up for some of the lost revenue, does it increase the sales of these items?"
And with a free desktop OS, I'd wager people would be more likely to accept crap like Win 8 versus hanging onto XP forever.
who really *pays* for Windoze? MOST PEOPLE GOT WINDOWS 'FREE' WITH THEIR PC PURCHASE
virtually all Windows users got it *bundled* when they bought their Dell, HP, Toshiba, etc.
sure we've all seen the news stories of people on Windows X release day but professional PR people can make that kind of thing happen...no...
the only reason Windows is used so much is because Gates & M$ got *****government contracts***** to put an IBM running Windows on every Federal Government desk.
**that's** why so many people use Windows...it was ALREADY FREE
Windows is dead...M$ is dead...I know their stock price says otherwise, but thats a tremendously lagging indicator...if you judge a company by the products they make, M$ is a FAIL
Thank you Dave Raggett
.. to have a machine that goes Bing.
grand parent is right. Every now and then I have to explain to a family member why they have to pay $100 bucks to Microsoft for that nice computer that bought at the swap meet from the nice man...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
regular end users (e.g. like my kid) don't mind it at all. Especially once it started booting to a desktop. If the tech had been there to do cheap x86 tablet PCs that didn't get so hot you could fry an egg on them I think it woulda gone over just fine.
Microsoft is looking at google giving away Android/Chrome and wondering if they should do the same. The Office 360 revenue is way more than Windows revenue. The only question is if they give away Windows can they sell other services on top of it that bring in recurring revenue. Sure, they give up a $50 profit on Windows, but if that means $20/year in office fees for 5 years they come out ahead.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Sorry, but I had to set up a pc for my half blind dad that just uses the PC for audio books.
Windows 8 is waaaayyy overpriced at free. If they'd pay me 2 grand a month , maybe I would try to use it.
I'm hoping the steam/ubuntu gaming Port gains traction. If I could play all my games on Linux and just safely surf on Linux - I would have absolutely no need for microsoft.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
To extend an idea oft-expressed here on Slashdot, Microsoft, from its profit perspective, would be wise to give Windows away for free and then three years after a particular release, start charging for security updates.
and with another progressive step forward to paying ME to use their product, I'll be quite happy to load Windows 8 Dividend Version onto my old netbook.
Just reading this forum I am amazed by the twisted contorted logic people use to hate Microsoft but still like Google or Apple.
Well, slap Classic Shell on it. Pretty good for a free deal.
You are correct with the other points, but the feeling of "bloat and poor performance" has been mostly ironed out from Windows. It works smoothly even on low-performance Atom hardware.
I've always got it for free - with bonus crack programs playing awesome techno music ;-)
Solution: Linux Mint
(or Linux Mint Debian if you want a bit more work, but have rolling updates and a true debian system)
Use VMWare Player or VirtualBox to run any flavor of Windows, or multiple Windows-VMs if you wish.
Buy a stationary PC, they're cheap and extremely powerful today. You can easily get 32 GB RAM, SSD for OS (ext4 runs fine on SSD).
Make sure you buy a great graphics card. SteamOS is coming, and there are already some great games on Linux you can run through Steam (compatible with SteamOS games).
Stay ahead of the trend for once. It requires some courage, but staying on a sinking ship will be more and more troubling from now on.
Support no-spying, free and open software and hardware. Support the future YOU want. Yes, there might be some sacrifices, but you'll soon realize you don't really need them after all. You'll feel more free and focused, not just by not having to ignore popups and balloon annoyances, but by knowing what you want and where you're going while realizing how to get there.
Great!
I hope you enjoy the various glitches and bugs of your typical Linux distro, or the expensive and limiting walled garden of OS X.
Here's guessing that the EU competition commission won't like this much at all. So I guess this version won't be for the European market.
from just changing the search engine in firefox or chrome or whatever to google or duck duck go or whatever.
I remember him saying that it was the hardware that would be free...
Twinstiq, game news
What they needed to do was fix the problems with Windows 8 and lower the prices substantially to remain competitive.
Instead they release the useless Win 8.1 and an ad-ridden crippled "free" version of Win 8.1.
This is the signature of every truly fscked company out there. The steps needed are rather straightforward and obvious yet time and time again said companies find a way not to take them. For example it was obvious since the mid 80s that Detroit needed to produce better quality cars to avoid bankruptcy, yet a poisonous combination of management, company culture and unions prevented them from taking the obvious step.
Even today they are not yet fully committed to quality cars in the way Toyota or Honda are.
n/t
I want Microsoft dead. I want them to have a hilariously incompetent CEO, OS prices that rival an entire gaming console or low-end laptop, and copy protection that annoys paying users. A free version of Windows ould make Microsoft the most powerful corporation in computing again and pull the rug out from under home-use of Linux. This is seriously bad news.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
You'll probably have to accept that they will
- sell your private internet interests
- collect statistics and sell that data
- sell your private documents
- sell your bing search results
- sell your soul
and all this, without giving you anything back.
And, it'll cost you .. ) .. i probably forgot lots of more hidden costs and time wastes, but i stop thinking about beeing used by windows now ('beeing used' of course because windows can not be used for anything except spamming and giving a friendly home to trojans, viruses and data-capture-tools).
- lots of lost time updating stuff (as windows never had distribution-management)
- lots of money buying tools that you need just to really use windows (like antivirus, antispam, anticrash, antibluescreen, antiantiramblowout)
- lots of time to install all the standard basic tools if they exists at all (like pdf-readers, working browsers, shells, editors,
and they probably wouldn't pay the bill if you send them one for that work also its their fault.
- lots of time lost as each executable is using up your bandwith sending data to 10 random agencies making you wait longer to read 'how to fix this and that in windows' and '1 Million advices you have to obey to stop windows from crashing)
* by downloading this you accept that we'll use 90% of your bandwidth uploading private information to 10 random agencies 24/365.
One thing i actually liked about windows was that i am the customer and not the product.
If they can ship it with the same interface Windows XP classic Windows desktop interface I'll be more interested in it. If not, well too bad so sad.
IMHO, if you use the same IP address to access both your email and porn, it's in your best interest to use the search engine of a company that doesn't serve your email if you're ever looking up something porn-related -- even if you use private browsing on dedicated restricted-access user accounts for both activities.
Hint: The company's logs will still show that your IP address accessed email one minute and made a search for porn the next; it doesn't take much compute-power to connect your email address to the porn query.
Therefore, if you use $company for web-email, it's in your best interest not to use $company's search engine for porn. That is of course unless you don't mind receiving porn-related advertisements in your web-email client. ;)
p.s. You may also want to think about which companies might end up buying which other companies in the future. e.g. Don't search for porn on the engine of a company that's likely to get bought by your email provider, or vice versa.
</paranoia>
Perhaps MS shouldn't shit all over gamers by paying game companies to release their games for xbone only and not PC.
Stupid MS, crapping on your own customers.
That and the fact that games companies keep ruining great games with crap ports and then don't fix those problems even when they're told about them. Is it so hard to allow fully configurable keyboard mapping, including 2 actions to one key like what fucking happens when you use a controller, lazy fucking dipshits.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Hopefully this would knock a few bucks off new laptops that I'll end up installing Linux on anyhow.
I'm not even too concerned over a repeat of the 80s. Microsoft can no longer flood the lower-end market with their crappy but cheap OS to push out the newly emerging Unices. That's what Android\ChromeOS is for...
The best part is that the game companies are wisening-up as far as lock-in is concerned. They've seen iOS and how Windows 8.1 hurt their sales while seeing Microsoft making more and more money off the ancient XBOX 360 hardware. So now many of them are at-least taking cross-platfrom to SteamOS as a mid/long-term contingency plan.
I'm not sure we'll have a FOSS world any time soon. But at-least we might see some diversity and competition.
The fiasco of Metro UI is forcing Microsoft to take extreme measures. Windows 8 failed it's main goal to convert Microsoft near monopoly in PC market into mobile dominance.In the process it actually enraged the current customer base which caught Microsoft by surprise, but that is another story. They are trying to repeat the trick that killed Netscape. Free IE bundled with Windows made Netscape irrelevant. I don't believe this will work the same today.Times are different.
It's unbelievable how much time and effort went into the protection (from "unlicensed copies") of Windows 8.x -- the OA/SLIC 3.x method for large OEM customers causes an *individual key* for each unit to be generated, verified/registered with Microsoft, and inserted into the systems firmware.
And now they're just giving it away?
I still prefer and use Windows 7, and will continue to do so.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
A search engine company giving away an OS with close ties to it's own search engine and applications... UNHEARD OF! A game changer!
Ken
delicious, non-nutricious and I'm sure not good for me, but oh so yummyyyyyy
Now they give it away free. But to get enterprise adoption for the abortion that is Windows 8, they would need *pay businesses to use it*. Even that might not be enough.
Here is a screenshot of the new free version
Bah. Wake me up when Microsoft pays me to suffer through using Windows.
I would rather want pong, ping is not so fruitful application
They could not pay me to use it, much less give it away for free.
-- Fuck Beta
I won't use it even if they pay me to use it hahaha
Oh gawd no. This industry, having the reputation of being a good way to make a buck or two, already attracts idiots by the millions, and now we're going to have to suffer even more of the indignity of getting on the short bus with all the stoopid kretch who think riding a scooter in the circus makes them a race car driver. I need a new career.
The difference between Google, Apple, and Microsoft can be summarized this way:
I thought Windows 9 was going to be split into a consumer edition and enterprise edition. Metro was being crammed down people's throats so Windows 9 Consumer would be Metro-only, and require a Bing login. This would be preinstalled on PCs you'd get at Wal-Mart. MS would be monetizing its captive audience by moving traffic to Bing and other web services they control. Windows 9 Enterprise would cost more than a consumer could afford (but have discounts for businesses) and be the only version to run legacy Win32/Win64 non-metro apps. But the incredible rejection of Win8 foiled this plan, so they're changing it. First a free Win8 to get people used to Metro, then the Windows Consumer that only runs Metro?
Set the wayback machine to 2000. I was merrily running NT Server 3.51 and got a free trial copy of Win2K Server. Nowhere did they warn me that it would upgrade the hard drives from NTFS v1.2 to v3.0 making rollback impossible. If I had installed it on the production machine my options when the trial ran out were buy a licensed copy or repartition the hard drives and re-install everything from back-us. And we know EVERYBODY tests software on a staging machine and faithfully back up their data.
Just like Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8, there will be plenty of stipulations ranging for "Oh you ant more than 16GB of ram to be used in your computer, pay us more money" - to "Oh you don't want ads popping up while you use our free OS, pay us money", to "Oh, you want security patch support and other consistent upgrades, pay us more money" - to "your upgrade coupon expired 4 years ago so we won't honor it, pay us more money" to "You want to install on a second pc, pay us more money"...
Nothing is free. Why do we need 20 different releases of the same OS anyway? Basic, Home, premium, Pro, Ultimate, Starter, etc etc etc.
The "Enterprise" company I work for spends more money on the support end of things than the licensing. We pay once for the license and then as a budgetary lock in, we budget or yearly guarantees for the latest versions and Enterprise support. If Microsoft gave away the software, they would still make good money in the support arena. Red Hat and many other no cost software providers learned this long ago. No Enterprise will get software that does not come with support, no matter how talented their internal tech staff is (pats self on back).
I don't even think giving it away will give it market share.
They need a new version of Windows. One that doesn't try and provide solutions for problems that don't exist, like people wanting a device that is both a tablet and a laptop. If people want a tablet, they buy one, if they want a laptop, they buy a laptop, if they want a laptop and a tablet, they buy a laptop and a tablet.
If they're going to persist with this hybrid device strategy, at least they have to fix the implementation. Many advocates of Windows 8 always ask "But have you tried it on a touch screen device?". I answer, "yes it's better on a tablet, but that doesn't excuse it being shit on a desktop".
In this day and age if you're going to create an OS that works on a hybrid tablet/laptop device you need to make sure it's brilliant as both and that it transitions gracefully from one mode to the other.
Windows 8 doesn't achieve this.
The article doesn't say anything about Microsoft offering a "free as in gratis" version of Windows 8.1.
It talks about a free upgrade to Windows 8.1 from Windows 7.
Next time, read the fucking article, Timothy.
Some how the words FREE and Microsoft just sound crazy to me. when use in a sentence.
Then they laugh at you (Scroogled)
Then they fight you (free Windows)
Then you win.
I do enjoy the glitches and bugs of openSuSE 13.1.... what are they, again??
I've never bought an operating system and I've had computers with every version since windows 95, and I've never come across a pirated version which could not get updates. Worst thing is update KB971033 for windows 7 which will detect certain types of cracks, but it doesn't install automatically and all you have to do is hide it and you never have to worry again. I don't think that update even detects windows loader style cracks, only the ones which change windows files.
Why not just give away older versions of Windows I actually WANT to use, like Win 7, instead of pushing your fancy optimized-for-little-teen-girls touch screen bullshit. iPhone's exist for that purpose, ya know.
What would grandma need, statistically, that she couldn't get from Linux? You've got web browsing, auto updates (depending upon release), video/flash, music players, office... anything a general user would ever want, and it's hard to break.
.doc is a universally supported format. Docx means you're using ooxml IIRC, which is a proprietary format. Vent works fine on Linux, I've used it plenty. VS is a fair point, expression web is no longer supported by MS, SW:TOR has Gold/Silver rating under Wine. Not really seeing why you weren't able to use Linux except for VS. I use Windows and Linux both, so I get needing both, but don't knock Linux because it can't support a Microsoft product. It sounds like you didn't try terribly hard, which is fine, but don't spread FUD about Linux because your specific use case didn't work out.
As soon as Google gets some penalty from a government regarding their use of a dominant position as a search engine to mandate that the use of their services requires using their social network (Google+), then I'll entertain the idea that Microsoft could get penalized for this.
Until then, I'm pretty sure MS is safe from the governments.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
My Verizon contract renewed just as the Win 7 phones were launched. The droids I wanted weren't there (although I do recall the salesperson waving his hand). They told me I could return the phone within 30 days, no questions, I figured '30 days of windows phone' would make good blog material. /I liked the Windows 7 Phone experience/ of pure Win 7 Metro apps. But then, a quarter into my year contract, Ballmer(*). At the start of the second quarter, apps were still being made, but with dwindling energy into making them Metro, and by the third quarter the few apps that made it to the W7P were ports with little effort into making them metro-like (giving a rather poor experience) while extant apps were either withdrawn or started to deteriorate as developers cobbled changes in them with little regard for continuing the metro work they'd previously done.
The moment I was able, I rushed back to the mobile store and switched back to Android. But I do still miss my W7P.
Windows 8 UI is not Windows 7 Metro, it's not just a "slight variation", it specifically touches many of the core game-changing aspects of W7Metro to support desktop experience, and almost all of them are done in an utterly non-W7M way.
Still - the upshot is I find I'm more comfortable with Windows 8 than other Linux developers, and there are bits of Windows 8 that I'm ok with.
But I wouldn't pay for a Windows 8 license unless it was under $50; if it was under $50, chances are I'd be running it on my home pc.
(* I mean "Ballmer" in the compound verb-adjective-noun sense)