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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.
Because I will NEVER use your windows 8 junk on a desktop. I gave it a fair chance, 2 weeks of uses and it was 2 week of utter shit.
Kiss this guy!
I find it hard to believe that there's this big mass of home users out there who
1. Have a problem with pre-installed Windows 8.
and
2. Use only the pre-installed OS on the PCs they buy.
If 1, then why 2? If 2, then why 1?
There is no earthly benefit to running Windows as 64bit and no one can articulate what that benefit is. Oftentimes it makes things worse as one is required to run parallel versions of things and not even Java is a one-size-fits-all across the board. The vaunted promise that 'things will run better and faster' is complete nonsense and hardware vendors as it is find it difficult or impossible to create useful distinctions in drivers or even sort out which version is a maintenance fix for what. So they killed off XP? Fine. Killing off Win7? Fine. Killed off Win8 with no clear path forward whereas 8.1 isn't an upgrade it's a replacement? Fine. And now Win9 is Win10 and once again Redmond will give us 36 dozen different sub-versions? Wonderful. But let's at least disabuse ourselves that 64bit is meaningful.
Man, I'm sad to see this go. Even the Extended Support will end in January 2020 which comes sooner than we know. Yes, Windows 10 is bringing the classic desktop back, but it seems that it is becoming a unelegant mishmash of Modern UI widgets and classic Windows widgets. I guess it's back to Linux-land, the place where I camped during the whole Windows XP era.
That's a pretty low UID for such a stupid post. When did you buy it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
So the shareholders can stop complaining.
Gotta love capitalism.
Has no one here ever heard of Classic Shell? That should the absolute first software you put on a fresh Windows 8 install.... www.classicshell.net
My Windows XP 64-bit SP1 (AKA server 2003 without the server tools) still works perfectly fine. While I don't have dx11, I'm not going to drop $100 on the rest of the horseshit that is Windows.
For all those who herp-a-derp about viruses and whatever. Only a fool would use a windows machine on the internet.
goodbye sweet prince.
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!”
Quick!! Let's buy some extra licenses now before it's too late!
:-/
Oh wait...
Never mind, we switched to Linux a long time ago already
I am not really here right now.
Chapter 11, that is, for Microsoft.
To OEMs
But won't the OEMs stock up on Win7 (especially if they sell to the business market.)
I can tolerate the Windows 8 UI on the desktop. It's the huge push towards cloud services for everything that I really dislike. I can see it now. Bundle and save! Get Windows, Office365, OneDrive, Skype, and XBox Music for the low monthly price of $XX. It's like triple play services for your computer and you'll get to pick from 3 competitors; Apple, Google, Microsoft. Of course all the pricing will be eerily similar even though they're "competing".
I buy a downloadable copy online for $75 that comes with a license key that registers as genuine.
I hope it's still available after October since I still have a few XP boxes to upgrade.
www.digisoftstore.com/Windows-7-Professional-SP1-64-Bit--Download-_p_265.html
Microsoft charges for upgrades which Apple does not. Over long run, this adds up to the cost of machine for customers. For MS, this is costly too as it has to maintain multiple versions of Windows. I think, microsoft should have option of unlimited upgrade either as a single charge or a reasonable subscription service. That will keep most customers (at least premium customers) up to date all the time.
Windows 7 will be a around for a very long time.. but I suspect it will be the last OS they have a monopoly on.
Anyone remember the background on boot for Windows 95, and all the controversy over "hidden shapes"?
Oh, the irony it was the cloud that killed Windows by rendering, largely, OS agnostic computing.
..don't panic
MS clearly wants to force Windows 8 onto its users, even if it means pissing them off, we knew that from day one. This is clearly their last ditched method of getting it done.
Cant get someone to buy your "upgraded" product? Force them.
The sheer backlog of OEM keys will remain in circulation for at least 2-6months afterwards.
If you cant get a 7 Key after that, might as well buy a tablet. Then you can read on wikipedia about what computers were like before the "Useless Big Empty Square Monster" took over your PC.
My employer is only starting to move from XP (spend the last 3 days sorting the mess out with IT help desk). They won't be moving again or the next 10 years. The equipment with XP embedded is staying on XP.
Dealing with win 7 after running unstable branch of debian for 8 years.
MS is still a running joke watching the hard drive light chugging away. Then there is windows 8 which is a slap in the face. Beautiful and slow on a modern computer BEFORE any software is running!
An OS is not an 'experience' its a f**king Operating system to 'run' software. MS has long since forgotten this.
One should be legally able to downgrade any version of the software he/she legally acquired. Without support obligations, of course. This will make the software market crippled by overly broad copyright laws much healthier.
the next good version of Windows coming out?
I hear they're skippimg Win 9 and going straight to Win 10 which will presumably suck, so when is eleven coming out?
Linux is free. Hell, even OSX is free. Yet MS wants to keep gouging customers $100
We have been down this road countless times before.
In the general consumer market what people buy is the OEM Windows system install. Which tends to be a one time purchase for the life of their PC - with maybe one $15 to $20 upgrade to the next-generation OS.
When shopping for a new or refurbished PC or laptop, hardware with more or less the same specs will sell for more or less the same price, no matter what mass market OS comes installed.
I finally got a new Nvidia card this generation after debugging attempts to use /PAE with an older PCIe AMD card and discovering that the onboard Nvidia shared graphics worked. Turns out ATI/AMD never fixed their drivers to support PAE (they go 2d unaccelerated with PAE enabled), whereas Nvidia has support for their entire product line dating back to the 'legacy' driver packages.
Really cast AMD in another light for me regarding the driver support angle. And the Gen 2 GT6x0 cards are both cooler and more efficient than similiar 'budget level' AMD cards nowadays. If Nvidia just started throwing serious support behind OpenCL instead of Cuda/PhysX, I'd probably migrate to them full-time.
Further to that point. Putting aside business/enterprise/corporate customers who are basically buying to maintain compatibility and training, they may be in a a rude awakening soon from their consumer base.
I have Windows 7, and for many, one of the big reasons you run a windows product is for computer games.
With things like Steam moving more and more compatibility to Linux and more and more titles becoming available it is becoming a legitimate option. Hell I could move right now really, because of all the games I have, I pretty much spend 100% of my time playing DOTA 2, which is available for Linux.