Slashdot Mirror
OEM Windows 7 License Sales End This Friday
colinneagle writes This Friday is Halloween, but if you try to buy a PC with Windows 7 pre-loaded after that, you're going to get a rock instead of a treat. Microsoft will stop selling Windows 7 licenses to OEMs after this Friday and you will only be able to buy a machine with Windows 8.1. The good news is that business/enterprise customers will still be able to order PCs 'downgraded' to Windows 7 Professional. Microsoft has not set an end date for when it will cut off Windows 7 Professional to OEMs, but it will likely be a while. This all fits in with typical Microsoft timing. Microsoft usually pulls OEM supply of an OS a year after it removes it from retail. Microsoft cut off the retail supply of Windows 7 in October of last year, although some retailers still have some remaining stock left. If the analytics from Steam are any indicator, Windows 8 is slowly working its way into the American public, but mostly as a Windows XP replacement. Windows 7, both 32-bit and 64-bit, account for 59% of their user base. Windows 8 and 8.1 account for 28%, while XP has dwindled to 4%.
Windows 7 64 bit
I think Windows 7 is going to be the last Microsoft OS I'm going to buy. Linux is free. Hell, even OSX is free. Yet MS wants to keep gouging customers $100+. Uhm, no thanks.
Especially since you can use the Safe Boot > Repair Computer > and this batch file to have "unlimited" time to "register"
Microsoft doens't want Windows 7 to become the next Windows XP and denying them years of upgrade revenues.
Windows 8 is pretty much the same OS as 7 with a slightly worse UI.
I've been using Windows 8 with Start8 for well over a year now and I really don't have much to complain. I just simply disabled all the Metro-related hot corners with Start8, set the system to boot to desktop and changed the default apps from Metro-ones to the standard desktop-ones. Visually the only difference to Windows 7 is the lack of translucent window-borders -- something that I do not mind -- and it feels a tad faster in pretty much everything. I upgraded my boyfriend's PC and went and installed a similar Win8 - setup for him, too, and he hasn't been complaining about it, either, and he's just the kind of a person who tends to complain about even quite irrelevant things if they just happen to differ from what he's used to.
All this is to say: I feel Win8 is perfectly useable as long as you don't delve into Metro.
They must forfeit all privileges granted by copyright and patent law to allow others to pick up.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”