Microsoft Ends Mainstream Support For Windows 7

jones_supa writes The mainstream support of Microsoft Windows 7 [ended Monday]. The operating system leaving mainstream support means no more platform updates, no new features, and end of free support. Windows 7 will now enter extended support, which means that security updates will keep coming, and support will be offered for charge. The final end of support for Windows 7 will be reached January 14, 2020. Is anyone nostalgic for Windows 7?

Comments

Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[JourneymanMereel]

I'm not nostalgic for Windows 7.... I still run it! On all of our networked computers.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[kilfarsnar]

Same here. With Windows XP still hanging on and Windows 8 needlessly messing with the UI, I doubt we'll see Windows 7 going anywhere anytime soon.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[tom17]

Yeah this, lol. My employer just finished with the Win7 rollout last year!

And on my personal device, I have not had any desire to leave Win7 as of yet. I skipped over Vista so I will likely do the same with 8.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[JoeIsuzu83]

Same here. And what's with the random [use of] brackets? I have nostalgia for when people could communicate.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

A 5-year support cycle is far too short for an OS.
It should be at least 10 years, especially when the hardware can last 20.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

Brackets mean that something was replaced, usually in a quotation.

TFS is probably using that introductory sentence directly from a press release that says "mainstream support of Microsoft Windows 7 ends today". To turn that into an appropriate sentence outside of the context of the quotation and in the context of news-several-days-late on Slashdot, you have to replace "ends today" with "ended Monday". Brackets are appropriate for this purpose.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Penguinisto]

Pretty much - most corporations have just barely (as in 2-3 years ago at most) updated from XP to Windows 7.

Good luck with pushing 8 to the corporate world... it's about as adoptable as an angry badger with syphilis.

More and more, I'm finding myself working at places where I really don't have to use a Windows UI if I don't want to. Right now I'm typing this on my corporate-issued MacBook Pro, and only rarely do I bother logging onto a Windows server (vSphere client, and even then only out of habit since the web-client works pretty much as well).

Don't get me wrong - Microsoft will still be in the business world for a goodly long time - we still use Outlook/Exchange, Active Directory, and even Sharepoint (for HR/Corp crap - all the important stuff is on Confluence.) Thing is though, Microsoft's hold in business is beginning to show cracks, and I suspect in about 5 years, there will be a bit of a crisis in Redmond...

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Penguinisto]

Same here - I keep a Windows 7 VM (VirtualBox) on my MBP, but only because I have old CG tools that don't have an OSX or Linux version.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[93 Escort Wagon]

I'm not a huge fan of Windows; but, If I need it for something, Windows 7 is the version I install - in a virtual machine. It does seem pretty solid, and 8's UI gets in the way far too much (says this Mac user).

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[LWATCDR]

I think Microsoft needs to start the countdown after that version is no longer for sale.
Windows 8 is loved about as much as Windows Me and Windows Vista.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[RingDev]

I just sent out the warning shot to my management group. 5 years to get there. 2 years of bickering and foot dragging before we have to have a plan in action so we can get Windows 10 rolling out on hardware replacement.

-Rick

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[MowserX]

Last summer we started migrating from Windows 7 SP1 to Win 8.1 Enterprise + Classic Shell and have not looked back. Zero issues - I am honestly surprised but releived. We're talking hundreds of machines used by our faculty and staff, many of whom are resistant to change. We also made sure to replace hard drives with SSDs for machines which were 3-5 years old (@$80 for Crucial 128 GB SSD). Haters going to hate ...

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[prelelat]

If I were to roll out windows 8 people would freak out. Windows 10 seems like a much better leap as far as the UI is concerned. I can see us rolling that out a year after it's initial release and we have our policies setup and tested. That means probably 2 more years of Windows 7 on our upgrade cycle.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[macs4all]

More and more, I'm finding myself working at places where I really don't have to use a Windows UI if I don't want to. Right now I'm typing this on my corporate-issued MacBook Pro, and only rarely do I bother logging onto a Windows server (vSphere client, and even then only out of habit since the web-client works pretty much as well).

Just an aside: I'm no fan of MS, even though I have to work in a Windows environment; however, when dealing with MS Servers, I have found that the recent versions of the Microsoft RDC Client for OS X is actually even more capable, just as fast (or maybe even faster), and a WHOLE lot better-mannered than even the Windows native RDC Client.

If you run OS X, but need to "Remote-In" to Windows Servers/Workstations, check it out. It's free, and quite pleasant.

And now I have to go wash my hands for typing something complimentary about Windows...

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[afidel]

Windows 10 is where the enterprise is going. I literally just got out of a meeting where we were discussing our goals for the year and Office 2013 and probably Windows 10 (depending on launch date and apparent buginess) are on the list. As far as your MBP, that's fine for you if you work in IT, but if you think most businesses are going to give every worker drone an expensive Mac with about 5-10x the support cost (as in I have numbers that show our Mac users cost that much more depending on their level of competence/IT independance) you're delusional.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[MightyMartian]

Ah, but now you can run Windows Server headless from a CLI! It's the best new thing ever! Sure, a decade ago, anyone using *nix was mocked by Windows admins as being some sort of dinosaur, but now that Windows has a reasonably capable (if obnoxiously complex) shell, all of sudden, CLIs are the bestest ever!

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but you do work for Microsoft, so...

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[AqD]

Just an aside: I'm no fan of MS, even though I have to work in a Windows environment; however, when dealing with MS Servers, I have found that the recent versions of the Microsoft RDC Client for OS X is actually even more capable, just as fast (or maybe even faster), and a WHOLE lot better-mannered than even the Windows native RDC Client.

That's why they're doomed. They used to make attractive garbage, but now they're actually improving the quality of their products, probably because they don't know anything else to do.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[WarSpiteX]

Just get classic shell.

The only difference you'll notice is faster boot times and not being prompted three times if you want to launch a program.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Pax681]

Good luck with pushing 8 to the corporate world... it's about as adoptable as an angry badger with syphilis.

SIR I SALUTE you.. .. I am gonna use that in as many circumstances as possible!

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Penguinisto]

Just an aside: I'm no fan of MS, even though I have to work in a Windows environment; however, when dealing with MS Servers, I have found that the recent versions of the Microsoft RDC Client for OS X is actually even more capable, just as fast (or maybe even faster), and a WHOLE lot better-mannered than even the Windows native RDC Client.

I can agree to that (I use it)... works a whole hell of a lot easier and better than the native RDC client in Windows. I use it on Yosemite w/o problems.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[petermgreen]

MS has one of the better support lifecycle policies in the desktop OS market. Mainstream support lasts 5 years from release or 2 from the release of the successor whichever is longer. Then extended support lasts another 5 years or 2 from the release of the second successor, again whichever is longer.

The problems are that they sometimes turn out turds, often vendors of other software can sometimes be very slow on getting it to work properly with the new OS and often people are too cheap to upgrade their other software even when a compatible version is release. The overall impact of this is that people kept commisioning new windows XP machines right through the time when windows vista was the current version and into the time when windows 7 was the current version until they were pushed to windows 7 by a combination of security worries from the end of extended support and hardware vendors dropping driver support.

I would expect the same to happen with windows 7. Lots of people/companies will stick with windows 7 until windows 10 has been released and got through it's teething problems, then they will have an upgrade panic while windows 7 is in the last couple of years of extended support.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Bosconian]

Classic Shell is a brilliant piece of kit for certain, but I can't imagine any business or institution relying on it for all their forward-facing GUI. Typically problems like a broken GUI are something you require the vendor such as Microsoft to repair. So while I agree that Classic Shell deserves to be mentioned in response to most naysayers, it is not reasonable to expect a corporation or institution to install such a lovely and clever hack to tweak every Win 8 box, especially when it doesn't play with Group Policy and "support" is handled by one or two people - even though it is open source.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[unixisc]

It will be supported until 2020. It's certainly the first great Windows that was there, and saw our transition to 64-bit. If only the RISC workstations had lived long enough to have Windows 7 on them - now that's nostalgic

I do think the timing was a bit off. Microsoft should have waited until Windows 10 was released, and then announced an end to Windows 7. B'cos Windows 8 and 8.1 are, as you implied, a pain to use, as a result of needlessly messing w/ the UI. So had Windows 7 been ended after Windows 10 got introduced, corporations could have started a migration path to Windows 10.

Incidentally, any idea when Windows 10 is supposed to be released?

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[smileham]

That's where we're looking at Chromebooks for the "worker drones"

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[unixisc]

Windows 7 to Windows 10 is probably the most cost effective leap one can take. Or even XP to Windows 10.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[TemporalBeing]

Windows 10 is where the enterprise is going. I literally just got out of a meeting where we were discussing our goals for the year and Office 2013 and probably Windows 10 (depending on launch date and apparent buginess) are on the list. As far as your MBP, that's fine for you if you work in IT, but if you think most businesses are going to give every worker drone an expensive Mac with about 5-10x the support cost (as in I have numbers that show our Mac users cost that much more depending on their level of competence/IT independance) you're delusional.

Windows 10 won't hit the enterprise for 2-3 years after its release as enterprises are slow to adopt new operating systems until they can show the software they rely on works correctly on the new operating system (either through upgrades or migration to replacements) and is sufficiently secure in their environment. Testing often takes at least 1 year, followed by 6-12 months of planning before the early roll-outs begin.

So, no. You won't really see Windows 10 in the enterprise. Yes, you'll see some smaller outfits using it, but not the "big boys". Of course, the "big boys" will have their own Volume Licenses so they'll simply image over whatever comes on the computers they purchase to get the system they want.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[prelelat]

Exactly, I'm not going to say classic shell doesn't have it's place but it's not really feasible in a corp. environment. Also at this point you might as well wait to roll out windows 10.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[tnk1]

It is definitely much easier to use Windows in the business than Macs, from an IT perspective. There isn't even a comparison. The tools for managing Windows boxes are solid, and provides very simple integration and administration.

If you don't want amateur sysadmins in your Windows boxes, then you don't give them administrator access on their machines.

Windows is also considerably more stable than it used to be. There is no substantial difference in reliability between a Mac and a Win 7 box. Hell, I've been using the an install of Vista, of all things, on a box for at least five years without any difficulty.

As far as security goes, as far as I can tell, the only major difference is that with Windows, you have more malware that has been written for it, but in terms of real security, it is no worse, and it is actually considerably better than a Mac if you consider the fact that an IT department can enforce restrictions on installing software and ensuring patching much more easily with a Windows box.

I've supported both in IT before, and it isn't even close. Which is not to say Windows is perfect or even the best box for the job. There are many developers who love Macs for good reason.. That does not translate, however, into ease of management. For all that Apple is decent at maintaining upgrades on their consumer devices, their business support is crap and getting worse.

Macs are not business machines, they're consumer machines that have to be shoehorned in and managed like special snowflakes.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[tnk1]

Honestly, Windows 7 was more than good enough. Those using XP at this point are not doing anyone any favors. Win 7 was qualitatively better than XP in every respect and always has been.

However, if they're in that scenario now, it is probably worth considering the jump to 10, but they're going to have to bridge *a lot* of changes. For instance, if they are still on XP, they probably had to limit themselves to software that remains supported on XP. That means that upgrades to something modern will be just that much more disruptive.

I was 100% in favor of holding back from Vista upgrades, although by SP2 Vista was perfectly fine, but I think some people took their protest too far, Those people may find the 7 upgrade to be a better fit. Sometimes, not having new features added is a positive thing, not a negative one, in terms of stability.

I'm actually using Win 8 now on my main workstation. It's a little annoying, but mostly its okay. Just avoid the Metro apps. My biggest complaint is that my Outlook reminders aren't popping up over my other work, they're sitting and blinking in my launch bar, which I don't see. That might be Office 2013 though.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[JackieBrown]

Same here. First batch updates to 7 just happened this week

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Minwee]

Same here. And what's with the random [use of] brackets? I have nostalgia for when people could communicate.

It's not about being unable to communicate The use of square brackets is about ethics in journalism.

Or, more to the point, proper use of quotations as described by most style guides in the English speaking world.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[MMC Monster]

Hah!

My employer just started Windows 7 rollout a couple months ago, and the users are screaming.

As a user, I'm quite happy with a Citrix virtual Windows XP environment which gets cleared out every 12 hours or so. I'm in the health care industry, so we really shouldn't be keeping personal stuff on work computers anyway.

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

What version of Windows have you been running that requires a reimage every 9 months? I've been running the same installation of Windows 7 for almost 7 years. It's been through 3 major upgrades and it has worked flawlessly despite being dumped in a brand new computer each time. I think "win-rot" was an issue in some of the older Windows versions, but Windows 7 has always been a stable workhorse for me. Windows 7 is an excellent operating system, so please give credit to Microsoft where it's due instead of bringing up a problem that hasn't been an issue for years in an effort to MS-bash.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[cyberchondriac]

Yeah, but planned obsolescence. They can't keep steady cash flow if they don't convince you to constantly buy the "latest" and "greatest" and drop what you just bought from them 4 years ago; it's almost like they're in competition with themselves.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[unixisc]

I do hope that in 10, Microsoft brings back VirtualPC/XP-Mode, which was there in 7. Instead of HyperV. Let HyperV come w/ Windows Servers or Windows Pro, and let VirtualPC be what comes w/ the Home or Ultra Editions.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[meta-monkey]

I'm forced to use Win7 at work. They just upgraded us from XP 6 months ago.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[JeffOwl]

(consider that Winrot means an image dump every 9 months or so on average, while I've had a PowerMac that ran for 3 years on 10.3 then 4 more on 10.5, and no OS reinstalls.)

What in the world are your users doing? That's nuts. I've had a Win7 PC at work for two years on the original install. I know of only a couple of people, out of dozens, that have had to have the PC re-imaged. I've had a Win 7 PC at home for 4 years on the original install and am only now retiring it to a secondary role.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[g0bshiTe]

No clue, but I hear EoL support will end in 2030.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[g0bshiTe]

Marketing, on *nix and everything else it was CLI, now MS calls it Powershell and it's the shizz.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[unixisc]

Buying a Mac to run Windows on is the stupidest use of money. Yeah, they make great hardware, but if one is gonna buy that, one might as well run OS-X itself. If anything, people try to buy PCs and get Hackintosh on them - that makes a lot more sense than buying Macs to run Windows.

One can get just as good hardware from others, like Dell and HP, provided one is willing to pay the same sort of money for those

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[unixisc]

For ATMs - particularly ones w/ touch screens, Windows 8 would have been ideal. While Metro sucks for mainstream desktop applications, it's fine for precisely ATMs, where all you have is a handful of buttons.

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[MowserX]

Yeah, but you do work for Microsoft, so...

I work for a mid-sized Catholic university

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[jernejk]

Uhm my mac is model 2011, never reinstalled it, never cared much for cleaning it or whatever.
Still works pretty ok. I used to reinstall Windows alot. Not sure what it is that Windows is doing wrong, but something is fundamentally wrong with the way installs / updates are managed the system will get clogged no matter what.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Gavagai80]

If an ATM lets you interact with the desktop, that doesn't exactly sound secure.

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[GungaDan]

So this is what passes for self-flaggelation these days?

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[spire3661]

The OSX RDP is just ok. I think the native VNC implementation in OSX ScreenSharing is much better.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Your.Master]

Your statement is actually reinforcing his point.

You are *not* a business user. If you were, you:

a) would not have been able to get Windows into a state that requires a reinstall. For instance, you would not personally install or update anything.
b) ...also would not have been able to reinstall Windows in the first place.

Your experience with a personal computer is irrelevant. This isn't mean as an insult -- you're just discussing a completely different thing.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[spire3661]

Microsoft doesnt do Macs any favors either. There is plenty of blame to go around as to why the network operating system (NOS) as implemented by windows doesnt integrate Macs well. Saying 'macs arent business machines' is like the carpenter blaming his tools. . Macs are easy to integrate, if you keep realistic expectations of how far integration will go.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[hairyfeet]

I don't have a single customer running anything else. Lets face it Windows 7 is a great OS! Its rock solid, has excellent device support,unlike XP has sane memory management, also unlike XP was built with 64 bit support as a requirement, its easy to customize should you require it, its just a really good OS. Honestly the only tweaking I do to Windows 7 OOTB is turn off a little of the Aero excess or if its for me personally install the Vista Black theme (what can I say? I like the black taskbar of Vista, only thing I liked about that POS) but other than that there really isn't anything that needs tweaking.

And as far as mainstream? WHO CARES, all mainstream ending means is there will be no more NEW FEATURES....well can anybody here name any "new features" that were released while Win 7 was under mainstream...hmmm? Can you name any "new features" released for Vista under mainstream? Honestly I have sat here thinking and the only new features i can think of released by MSFT under mainstream for their OSes is Dreamscene for Vista (which was only released because Balmer promised "extras" for those that bought Vista Ultimate like it was a fucking video game with DLC and when the lawyers started smelling class action blood in the water they shat out Dreamscene to cover their asses) and setting the firewall to "on" along with a few basic firewall rules in XP SP3....that's it, that's the only "new features" I can think of. Personally I prefer it that way, as having the OS constantly get stuck with a bunch of alpha level code because "hey its new and new is better than old" like a certain OS constantly gets hammered with turns stability into shit and I'll take stable over bleeding edge any day of the week!

I'm running Win 10 Beta on a netbook at the shop and its damned nice, I'm sure if they stay the course it'll be a worthy successor to Win 7. Its faster and uses less memory on the same hardware while retaining the familiar Win 7 desktop, its a nice OS. But until Win 10 is RTM the majority of my systems will be sticking with Win 7 (and even after release I'll probably keep Win 7 on the C2Q in the corner just for Windows DVD Maker) because Windows 7 is just a damned good OS.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[spire3661]

Windows 8 has a full embedded lockdown mode built right in.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Coren22]

Why would you SSH when remote powershell commands work?

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[roc97007]

> More and more, I'm finding myself working at places where I really don't have to use a Windows UI if I don't want to.

I've seen this more and more often too, not only at my company, but also vendors more often being equipped with a macbook rather than a Windows laptop. (I've yet to see any vendor come in with a Surface.)

At a conference I attended less than a year ago, every room was equipped with an AirPort and most presenters were using Macbooks.

It seems that the more Microsoft tries to force the issue, the more people they drive away. I dunno, maybe we're talking economies of scale here, and the number of people forced to upgrade their Windows boxes still outnumber the people chucking it all for Apple, Android or (less likely) Mint. But I suspect that forcing people to give up an OS they like for an OS they don't like is not a sustainable business model.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[unixisc]

Hairy, will Windows 10 bring back VirtualPC/XP mode? It would be nice for VirtualPC to include at least the most popular past versions, such as XP, 7, maybe even go as far back as 3.1. That way, there will be no reason (other than money) for people not to upgrade.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[unixisc]

ATM - you mean what? ATM machines, or Asynchronous Transfer Mode? I was talking about the former. How you can punch buttons similar to the ones Metro has for things like deposits, withdrawals and so on.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[FithisUX]

The problem with Macs is that they no longer distribute the Darwin unixoid for PCs. Otherwise, Windows would have lost much much more, even in the corporate. It is a shame Open/Pure Darwin did not have help from Apple.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[OutOnARock]

He's right

I have more problems with OSX wireless connectivity then I do with RDC on OSX.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Penguinisto]

"Troll"

Damn - did a lot of MCSE's get bored and mod points today? Can't even respectfully disagree?

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[tibit]

I'd perhaps add that OS X didn't have any revolutionary changes in its UI, like we got with Windows 8. The dock is still here, 10 major OS X releases after the first one. The stoplights in the title bar are still there, too. Things have changed around multi-screen, virtual desktop and full screen modes, certainly, and we've got Spotlight halfway along the way (10.4). I've been using OS X as my main desktop since 10.5, and it seemed to be mostly painless experience, with very little re-learning needed to go between versions.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[tibit]

For whatever reason, VirtualPC/XP was always sluggish compared to VMware with an XP VM on the same machine, with same host OS and otherwise identical settings. And this wasn't on underpowered hardware either.

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[kenh]

Good luck with pushing [Windows] 8 to the corporate world... it's about as adoptable as an angry badger with syphilis.

Why would a corporate customer choose to install Windows 8 when Windows 10 is just around the corner? MS will still be pumping out FREE security updates for Windows 7 for 4-5 more years, certainly long enough to wait for Windows 10 SP 1...

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[david_thornley]

Windows 7 was not better than XP in every respect. Example: the file explorer in XP worked well with TortoiseSVN, allowing me to (for example) sort files by SVN status. That capability was gone with Vista and stayed gone in 7.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[roc97007]

I believe part of Apple's success in GUI design is the realization that KVM is a different paradigm from Touch, and the GUI on primarily-KVM platforms needs to follow different rules as GUI on primarily-touch platforms. You can do interesting things (multitouch) with the touchpad on a KVM machine, but the GUI still needs to do basic things a certain way.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[old_kennyp]

I concur.
What a brilliant metaphor

Thank you :-)

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[old_kennyp]

As a consultant for many small businesses, every Win 2012 server, or Win 8 machine i have come across has classic shell installed.
They are managed by both Technical and novice users.
That is the telling bit for me.

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does entering a server address and clicking okay become easier? That's alI do with my windows to windows rdc

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[ciscoguy01]

Good luck with pushing [Windows] 8 to the corporate world... it's about as adoptable as an angry badger with syphilis.

Why would a corporate customer choose to install Windows 8 when Windows 10 is just around the corner? MS will still be pumping out FREE security updates for Windows 7 for 4-5 more years, certainly long enough to wait for Windows 10 SP 1...

Probably because Windows 10 will be designed for a touch interface, which as far as I can tell will never be adopted by most corporate customers.
Can you see a secretary typing a business letter or report on a touchscreen? Talk about low employee productivity! Gad.
Not that Microsoft will not try to get it adopted, but mostly by taking away Windows 7, and before that Windows XP, at which a secretary could sit, and begin productivity immediately.

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[edis]

Name it "Random connection", change IP to suit you each time, you'd want to use Random Connection.
OS/X RDC rocks, except that it dies occasionally with new LibreOffice window, etc. Minor debugging remaining.

Still, this is written by Mac minded folks, working for MS. Good job.

Generally, MS will have things to be busy with in the coming future, there is not a lot choice still in software for corporate needs,
and business software market is not that vivid at all with all these buoyant buyouts.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Darinbob]

Yup, I agree, but Microsoft says no.

Just got my mother upgraded from XP to Win7 just this summer. Now no more mainstream support on Win7 either... I did suggest getting Windows 8.1 though, which while it's new and thus potentially confusing, at least will have longer support and next time a new PC is required it won't require yet another relearning. You can configure Windows 8 to be very similar to 7. And it was a lot cheaper to get a computer with win8 than win7. However the local part time computer support person strongly advised to only go with Win7, which meant I had to follow along.

There will be some security updates, and that's good. But no bug fixes for annoyances that aren't security related.

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Darinbob]

Microsoft seems like they've learned their mistake, the Windows 8 VP is fired. They are no longer going to treat the desktop as just a compatibility feature for luddites.

They are adding back a real start menu again, albeit one that will let you get to metro apps as well, but configurable. Ie, Windows 10 on a PC will feel like a PC operating system again. There will be Metro stuff but not forced on you. If a user does have a Metro app they like to use then that app can show up on the desktop as just another window, it won't have to be a full screen thing wasting real estate. Touch screens are absolutely optional. Sounds a lot like they're taking direction from Stardock.

They're also adding multiple virtual desktops, finally. Something we've had with many other GUIs for ages. A way to pop up all apps in a smaller view, something somewhat Mac OS like in a way. Improved command window, finally playing catchup to others. Seems MS is trying to follow the leaders.

From what I can gather reading from people who've seen the previews, anyone who knows Windows 7 will be able to migrate to Windows 10 easily.

Of course it won't all be roses. There's dumb stuff too. But it wont be the touch-screen only interface some like to claim.

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Darinbob]

I never put on Classic Shell. My preference was to get Stardock or one of the other $5 start menu/gui fixers. I just never liked the look and feel of classic shell.

However over time I grew to just be content without the start menu. Ok, I'm cheap, I'll admit it. But I pinned a few extra things to the task bar, added a few more desktop icons, and that works fine. Control panel was always convenient to access once you figured out what the trick was. 8.1 made several things easier. The things I miss are just looking through all the stuff I have installed as a hierarchical list and an easier way to shutdown or restart.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Darinbob]

I've never seen any prompts to launch a program wthout classic shell. What feature is this, other than UAC for something I downloaded?

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Darinbob]

That sounds like a plugin though, I doubt Microsoft added SVN support to their explorer on their own.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Darinbob]

Plus people who often wait 3 years or so after release to upgrade.

I would like it if a product that is still currently on sale by mass market vendors not be declared obsolete. You could still get brand new PCs with Windows 7 on it in 2014 even though Windows 8.1 was out. You can't say that Windows 7 is an old operating system when it's still being sold new.

It's dumb to figure the age of a product based on the first ship date, otherwise Mac OS Yosemite would be considered positively ancient since it's a derivative of an early 1970's OS.

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[macs4all]

Odd, I can cut and paste to and from windows with rdesktop and remmina on Linux. Apple is really falling behind.

So, how is Apple responsible for the failings of a third-party developer (in this case, MS)?

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[macs4all]

Quite pleasant? You can't cut and paste from windows to your Mac. Nor can you open up a simple connection to a random server. You have to actually create a new connection, then open it up. Then delete the connection because why would I want random servers cluttering it.

I will have to re-check; but I thought I did copy/paste from my MBP.

And the RDC Client on my work Windows 7 laptop has that EXACT "Clutter" of "Recent Connections" in the place where you enter "Random Connections"; so I'm not exactly sure what you are whining about...

But I was actually focusing my comments on the performance and the way they smoothly integrated the OS X Menu Bar and Dock from your local machine into the app's Full Screen mode. The Windows RDC Client is MUCH clumsier at handling those same local/remote "context-switching" concepts.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[sconeu]

Win 7 was qualitatively better than XP in every respect and always has been.

Couple of exceptions:

1. Tweaking network adapter settings. XP: right click on icon in tray. Win7: dig about four levels deep into Network Settings.

2. Full Screen Console Mode. Not possible with WDDM.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[thegarbz]

What is it that you are doing to your poor windows installs? I've run the same install of Windows 7 since I last upgraded the HDD over 5 years ago. It has even lived through multiple hardware upgrades including a motherboard / CPU upgrade which I thought would force the issue but after making sure all the same things were ticked in the BIOS as the previous setup it also kept humming along.

I don't think I've reinstalled Windows as a preventative maintenance mechanism since post Windows XP

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[hairyfeet]

I haven't seen any indications of an XP Mode but honestly you really don't need it! Don't ask me how but they have gotten the compatibility mode shims down to a fricking science as I've ran old games that even XP really didn't like (Diablo II LOD, Codename Tenka, No One Lives Forever I) and as long as I stripped out the old 16 bit DRM? Ran like a charm. Hell my 2011 netbook has every.single.driver. on the system, INCLUDING the critical APU drivers, running under compatibility mode and guess what? I even have full codec acceleration! Its fricking AMAZING! That said if you really really REALLY need an old version? Avoid VPC, it sucks. There are several tutorials on how to download the Windows XP Mode VPC container from MSFT and remove it from the VPC container, you can then run it in VMWare which frankly runs rings around VPC.

Look you seem like a decent guy so you didn't get this from me, okay unixisc? If you want to run old versions of Windows going back to Windows 2000? Hit the P2P and look for "eXPerience tiny (insert windows version)", he has 2K, 2K3 (complete with XP skin), Vista, and Windows 7. Each one uses an insanely small amount of memory, 2K uses like 43Mb, XP 65Mb, 2K3 87Mb, Windows 7 like 128Mb, and Vista 384Mb (hey he's a hacker Jim, not a miracle worker LOL) and the things are practically made for VMs, they are just perfect for the task. You probably never heard of them, one of my gamer customers turned me on to them as they were originally cooked up to let gamers run their games with as little overhead as possible. The upside is that same property makes them kick ass for VMs! I have run both a WinXP VM and a Win 7 VM AT THE SAME TIME on a lowly C2D Conroe at 1.8Ghz and it ran smooth as butter! Oh and if the thought of a pirated version of Windows bothers you? You can add your own legal key easy peasy, which will make it just a custom stripped Windows VM.

So there ya have it, an easy to use VM friendly version of Windows that will work just fine on Windows 10, enjoy!

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Billly Gates]

Windows 8 has HyperV. It is the new VM they want to include.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[FlyHelicopters]

Don't get me wrong - Microsoft will still be in the business world for a goodly long time - we still use Outlook/Exchange, Active Directory, and even Sharepoint (for HR/Corp crap - all the important stuff is on Confluence.) Thing is though, Microsoft's hold in business is beginning to show cracks, and I suspect in about 5 years, there will be a bit of a crisis in Redmond...

Naa, I see Windows 10 as fixing a lot of that, the desktop and start menu are back, MS sales reps can go to their corporate clients and say:

"We listened, you've got it back, sorry about that, all fixed for you"

And I suspect that will be good enough for most companies...

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[crypticedge]

We're running 10 tech preview exclusively in our office. It's had a few bugs, but they haven't been blocking. The most frustrating one I've seen is the numlock bug (numlock off in bios was actually on in windows and vice versa) This is a huge issue if you have an always on numlock keyboard like my logitech 5500.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[xclr8r]

2021 Will finally be the year for Linux!

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Penguinisto]

I've been running the same installation of Windows 7 for almost 7 years.

Windows 7 came out to the public in October of 2009 - just 5 years and 3 months ago.

Unless you're running a hacked MSDN beta copy or you work for Microsoft, your statement cannot possibly be true.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[ultranova]

worker drone

"Worker drone" is a bit vague. What are these drones doing, exactly speaking? Do they require unfiltered Internet access? If not, XP is still fine, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Everyone always talks about "enterprise" like it implied high reliability requirements. But in my experience, "enterprise" means things get duct taped back together when they break. And why not? For most companies, IT is like lighting: it exists to help actual business, and it's no big deal if a few fixtures go dark every now and then.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[ebvwfbw]

Dunno, they moved us over to this office 365 stuff with sharepoint. What crap. Outlook? The 1990s called and they want their e-mail system back. It's like hotmail. Hard to find stuff too. Sharepoint is pain as well. Can't find a thing now, the google search could find anything. Even if it's out there you may still not have access. They also move stuff so you can't even book mark it (and again find it via search because it won't find it).

Thing is, they JUST put me on 7 a few months ago from XP. I don't even have it all set up yet. Win8 is as you said, a non starter.

Maybe we can get them to all use Linux.

Re: Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[spire3661]

OK this is interesting, i didnt know OSX also had an App store version of RDP. I have been using the one built into OSX as a 'standard' application. Downloading the App store version now. Thanks!

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[cwsumner]

I think Microsoft needs to start the countdown after that version is no longer for sale.
Windows 8 is loved about as much as Windows Me and Windows Vista.

Remember this is Microsoft. Judging from past actions, if they thought they could get away with it, they would download a "kill" patch to all old versions the same day that they released the new version.
What they might get away with, is making all users pay a monthly fee to run windows. They have lost emails that discussed it...

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[david_thornley]

No. The Vista/Windows 7 File Explorer didn't accept some plugins that the XP one did, creating a loss of functionality.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[afidel]

Have you tried delivering the same level of automation to your Mac users that most corporate Windows users get?

Honestly, no, because it's ~2% of our user base so you would never get an ROI on the tools or the time to learn them. Now for an F-25 2% of the userbase might be enough justify a team to purchase and learn Mac specific tools, but for those of us in the SME space there's no way it works out. Now, the MDM angle is interesting, I'll have to look into what support Maas360 offers for Mac, but it doesn't change things like no GPO equivalent to manage settings and the fact that Apple does things like ban older versions of JRE from running (we have a handful of systems that require ridiculously old version of the JRE, under Windows I can just whitelist them for those sites)

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Reziac]

Bah, pikers. I have WinXP installs with over 10 years of heavy use, with zero reinstalls -- and no issues. What on earth are some of these people doing??!

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[toddestan]

I doubt it. The virtual XP installation in XP mode doesn't get any more updates just like its cousins running on bare metal. XP mode was really supposed to be just a temporary stop-gap, and while I'm certain a lot of places that decided to use it are not ready to ditch it yet, I don't think Microsoft is going to accommodate them.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[toddestan]

3. The easy to hit shutdown button in the start menu that will shut the computer down with NO CONFIRMATION if you manage to accidentally push it.
4. The removal of the go up a directory button in Windows Explorer.
5. The idiotic full screen dialog that comes up when a program is preventing WIndows 7 from shutting down that prevents you from dealing with the issue, instead forcing you to cancel the shutdown to get back to your desktop where you can save your document or whatever so you can try again.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[toddestan]

Actually, Microsoft does have a 10-year support cycle. Windows 7 will still receive updates until 2020. What just ended was mainstream support, which means that Windows 7 will not get any new features or enhancements, just security updates and bug fixes from here on out. Also, don't expect future versions of Microsoft products to support 7 either, this includes things like DirectX and IE which will probably make IE11 the next IE8 though Microsoft will continue to patch the last versions that run on Windows 7 until at least 2020.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[toddestan]

Actually, in many ways Server 2008 is closer related to Vista than it is to Windows 7. The more you know...

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Pretty much - most corporations have just barely (as in 2-3 years ago at most) updated from XP to Windows 7.

Our company just completed Windows 7 rollout 2-3 weeks ago. All managed workstations had to be migrated by the end of 2014.

There's still special purpose PC's floating around with XP, but by and large the company is considered migrated... If you looked at everything, we still have special purpose DOS PC's around. . .

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[ihtoit]

you're not pushing it that hard, then. I have to reimage every six months or it gets too sluggish. A lot of what I do requires low latency, and a platform fighting a fragmented hard drive (not just files, but the page file as well - people forget about that, but when that gets fragmented - which it absolutely will even if all you're doing is editing photos) doesn't do me any favours.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[Kasar]

Mac administration is different, since the network administration you refer to isn't there, but they have their upsides.
Nothing beats target booting and other simple functions like just copying a system drive from one machine to another without needing other software. In a lab, one machine down can be reimaged with just a firewire cable connected to a working Mac.

I found it pretty easy to maintain several hundred, though they were still the minority of the workstations and I didn't like them so much as to buy one myself.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[kelemvor4]

Pretty much - most corporations have just barely (as in 2-3 years ago at most) updated from XP to Windows 7.

Good luck with pushing 8 to the corporate world... it's about as adoptable as an angry badger with syphilis.

More and more, I'm finding myself working at places where I really don't have to use a Windows UI if I don't want to. Right now I'm typing this on my corporate-issued MacBook Pro, and only rarely do I bother logging onto a Windows server (vSphere client, and even then only out of habit since the web-client works pretty much as well).

Don't get me wrong - Microsoft will still be in the business world for a goodly long time - we still use Outlook/Exchange, Active Directory, and even Sharepoint (for HR/Corp crap - all the important stuff is on Confluence.) Thing is though, Microsoft's hold in business is beginning to show cracks, and I suspect in about 5 years, there will be a bit of a crisis in Redmond...

Don't be so melodramatic. I think you don't understand large corporations. I work for a fortune 20 company and at the office Win8 has been the standard for well over a year. It requires freeware start menu programs for sure but otherwise it's no less usable than 7 or xp. Of course, "mainstream support" is probably also irrelevant for any corporation since they will have their own support contracts with vendors such as Microsoft. I'm sure lots of small businesses are an exception to this. For them, the win95 (or whatever os it came with) pc that is still running may be just fine.

Re:Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[PixetaledPikachu]

With no native ssh server.

In Windows, instead of connecting to a server with SSH, you connect to a service with PowerShell.

Very nostalgic

[Anonymous Coward]

I plan to switch to it real soon now.

But

[rossdee]

Some people are even now upgrading to Win 7

I wouldn't touch 8.x with a 3 metre resident of Warsaw

Re:But

[ZosX]

This. I have no desire to stop running win7 anytime soon unless win 10 is magically awesome which I sincerely doubt it will be given the win8 debacle.

Re:But

[jijitus]

I just upgraded my VM's from Windows XP to Windows 7 five months ago! Sadly I require them to run specific business software

Re:But

[smchris]

Exactly. 8 is a horror -- and I _like_ Gnome 3!

I leave 7 dual boots on our off-lease laptops but maybe after 2020 I'll feel good about just deleting them.

Re:But

[rossdee]

As in all the recent ones suck...

Re:But

[NotDrWho]

I resisted 8.1 for a long time because of all the bashing. But I recently rebuilt my system, needed to resintall, and decided to go with 8.1. And it's actually pretty good. It boots fast and has an even smaller footprint than 7. Install was smooth (the only issue was outputting sound over HDMI, which was fixed with my first update). I've not had any crashes or problems so far and I've been using it for several months now. The only problem I have with it interface-wise is with the layout of the start menu, but that took me all of a few minutes to fix.

As usual, don't believe all the anti-Microsoft hype. Some people will bash anything MS does, for any reason (especially on slashdot). If Bill Gates cured cancer tomorrow and gave the cure away for free, posters would be on here in droves complaining that he didn't do it fast enough.

Re:But

[Megol]

Install the 8.1 update and select startup to desktop
Install classic start menu
Disable the idiotic touchpad gestures MS "designed" for Win 8
Optionally install something like ModernMix to be able to run metro apps windowed (I have it installed but never use it)

Voila: A usable Windows installation where one doesn't need to use anything metro/"modern" if one doesn't want to. Somewhat like Windows 7 on steroids.

Re:But

[ganjadude]

ive been working with the 10 tech preview. it fixes all the issues with 8 IMO. Im liking it, but YMMV

Re:But

[dablow]

Windows 8.1 is ok.....

It's just the UI and stupid metro (modern wtv) stupid start menu crap that annoys me.

Also it seems to be a little shizo...some settings are in classic menus...some in modern....

But in terms of stability, performance, it's actually as good as windows 7.

Re:But

[Russ1642]

99% of the people bashing the windows 8 interface haven't used it for more than an hour. They go crazy when anything changes. I try not to do that because it reminds me of how old people react to everything, and I never want to get that way.

Re:But

[Balthisar]

I'm a Mac user primarily, and a Windows 7 user at work (rollout was completed late last year). Even I don't hate Windows 8.1 (Windows 8.0 did suck, though). It boots to my desktop, I set up my preferences, and I'm mostly all set.

My only gripes are minor: Hiding the Startup Items folder is bad. Not being able to manage files in a folder for a Start Menu is bad. I still can't find crap I've deleted from the Start Screen if it's not a real application (like, say, the Microsoft Store).

Although I don't plan to give up my Macs as primary workhorses (and HTPCs) any time soon, I'm a bit frustrated at all of the B*S* networking issues with Yosemite. Still not enough to make me switch, though.

Re:But

[Penguinisto]

Serious question - does it also fix that bullshit Metro/Modern/Whatever UI?

Re:But

[ganjadude]

yes it does. "metro" is dead in 10, metro apps are now in the start menu (think windows 7 menu) you have the standard XP classic startmenu, and attached to that similar to 7 your metro tiles live.

Metro apps open on the desktop and are resizable unlike in 8/ 8,1 where you have to be in metro like it were an app itself. To top it off, it is fast, much faster than 7 or 8 (SSD 8 gig of ram phenom 2 setup)

Re:But

[LWATCDR]

Yes.
You only get the tiled interface on Tablets and maybe touch devices....
In other words the way it really should have worked from the start.

Re:But

[LWATCDR]

"99% of the people bashing the windows 8 interface haven't used it for more than an hour."
As someone that has used and liked AmigaOS, MacOS, OS/X, LinuxKDE, LinuxGnome, Windows, Windows95, 98, 2000, XP, and 7.... If I use a UI for an hour and still hate it I am done.
Windows 8 UI works well on tablets, it is okay on touch devices, it is useless on a traditional desktop or laptop.
The core OS is actually really good but the UI is bad for the majority of users. It gives little to no added value for the pain provided.

Re:But

[e70838]

Incredible, I have found another one who likes gnome 3. I have left windows to only use ubuntu since many years, but when they changed the desktop I tried mint. I do not like it very much. Then my wife got a laptop with win8. It was terrible. She asked for unix like the main house computer. I installed ubuntu configured with a cynamon desktop.
2 years ago, I bought a computer for my (very old) father. I installed it with ubuntu gnome. I reinstalled my main computer a month ago (mint was outdated and advised a full reinstall). I chose again ubuntu gnome.
I am very happy with gnome 3.

Re:But

[bobbied]

99% of the people bashing the windows 8 interface haven't used it for more than an hour. They go crazy when anything changes. I try not to do that because it reminds me of how old people react to everything, and I never want to get that way.

Well, I guess I'm a 1%er here. I started using Win 8 when it first arrived and although it is not my primary OS, I do have to manage a number of systems that run it. Personally, I still HATE, HATE, HATE that metro user interface and the fact that it's not just an option, you have to run it. Win 8 is a certified pain in the .... to manage too. I'm happy to hear Win 10 is doing away with this Metro mistake....

Re:But

[ilsaloving]

They got the shizzle but forgot the nizzle.

Re:But

[Jason Levine]

I had to get Windows 8 with my new laptop. (There was no "Windows 7" option and I wasn't ready to make the Linux switch.) The first thing I did was to install Classic Start Menu on it to do away with the Metro User Interface. Now I have my laptop looking as similar as possible to Windows 7. There's no reason why this couldn't have been a built-in option except for the fact that someone at Microsoft thought "we need to have one UI across phones, tablets, desktops, and laptops!" There is NO reason to unify the UI like this. What works in a phone/tablet will be horrible on a desktop/laptop and vice versa. (Don't even get me started on Windows Server 2012 using a modified Metro look.)

Re:But

[Paco103]

Install classic shell. I actually like Windows 8 except for the UI. Classic Shell (and Aero 8 if you want the eye candy effects), solves that problem entirely.

Re:But

[JudgeFurious]

I haven't actually met 99% of the people who bash the Windows 8.x interface so I'm not able to say how long they have or haven't used it. I know that I use it every day and while I still find it to be a minor annoyance I can safely say that it isn't unusable or the giant tragedy it's made out to be. It's not good and I should never have had to go through the trouble of getting used to it. It seems the work of persons trying to do the opposite of what would have made sense and so it suffered the appropriate fate. Microsoft went and attempted to improve upon something that no one wanted fixed. But it's not as bad as the worst of the critics make it out to be.

Re:But

[afidel]

Actually, it's going to be a bit cooler than that, if you have a touch device then metro apps will by default work like they do in 8, if not they'll be windowed, and if you have a convertible like the Surface Pro line then it will change behavior depending on the current configuration (again, by default, MS has heard the masses and will allow you to tweak the behavior).

Re:But

[Archangel Michael]

Once I understood that "Metro" was "Start Menu on Steroids" Win 8.1 Update became much more usable. Now, and start typing "word" and it launches WORD etc. makes it very usable. I almost never see "Metro" because I actually took the time (five minutes) to set it up.

Re:But

[macs4all]

Install the 8.1 update and select startup to desktop Install classic start menu Disable the idiotic touchpad gestures MS "designed" for Win 8 Optionally install something like ModernMix to be able to run metro apps windowed (I have it installed but never use it)

Voila: A usable Windows installation where one doesn't need to use anything metro/"modern" if one doesn't want to. Somewhat like Windows 7 on steroids.

Do they have that ability on the Server side (i.e. Server 2012) as well? I HATE the constant pawing around in the Start Screen clusterfuck. With Win 8/Server 2012 I always feel like I'm trapped in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.

Re:But

[CaseCrash]

The Windows 8 start menu screen is still available if you want it. It's a check box under properties so you can have it either way.

Re:But

[Anonymous Coward]

The UI is crazy.
Try to turn it off using the mouse (not sleep, really turn off).

DOS - press the power button, no mouse required
Win95/98/Me/2000/XP - start/shutdown on the bottom left
WinVista/7 - orb / shutdown on the bottom left
Win8 - hover on the top right, wait for something to show up, click beside the power icon, choose shutdown

It remained the same for nearly twenty years.
Why fix what isn't broken?

This would be like moving the file menu to the bottom of a window.
The masses would revolt.

Just look what happened when Visual Studio went to ALL CAPS MENUS
Get some popcorn for the comments.

Re:But

[Tempest_2084]

I upgraded my wife's laptop to Win 7 from Vista just last year (it took forever to convince her that 7 was basically Vista SP3) and she's been happy ever since. I can't see her wanting to upgrade again anytime soon to 8 or 10.

Re:But

[jeffmflanagan]

>99% of the people bashing the windows 8 interface haven't used it for more than an hour. They go crazy when anything changes

That's complete bullshit, and you know it. The terrible changes in Win 8 were done to try to drive traffic to an app store, and to run on tablets. They actually harm the user-experience on the desktop. This is not people freaking out over change, this is people rejecting a broken UI.

I have to assume that there's something seriously wrong with you, causing you to call people crazy for rejecting an inferior OS. Is the rest of your worldview this screwy?

Re:But

[zamboni1138]

Or just install Windows 10 Tech Preview.

Re:But

[StormReaver]

If Bill Gates cured cancer tomorrow and gave the cure away for free, posters would be on here in droves complaining that he didn't do it fast enough.

If Bill Gates cured cancer and gave the cure away for free:

1) The first cure would be free.

2) The cure would be designed to reactivate the cancer, this time being more virulent than the original, but this time it would be immune to the free cure.

3) The second cure would require activation and frequent repurchases, or the cure would be rendered inert (killing you). You would be required to repurchase the cure for the rest of your life.

4) You would be required to purchase cures for diseases you don't have, but taxing your indocrine system to the point that random body parts start failing.

5) Bill Gates would issue patches for the flawed cure, but the patches would inexplicable cause new diseases for which you would be required to purchase 3rd party medicines. These medicines would themselves drain 60% of your body's useable energy, and unpredictable times, while unsuccessfully attempting to address the fundamental design flaws of the cure.

6) Bill Gates would promise that the next version of the cure will solve your problems, but that it is not covered by any licensing agreement you may currently have. The promise is false, but you don't seem to remember any of the other false promises he made, so you purchase the next version of the cure. This somehow makes things worse, but Bill Gates blames you for using 3rd party medicines.

I could go on, but I have work to do.

Re:But

[sjaskow]

For the people not getting it, a " 3 metre resident of Warsaw" is an ~10 foot Pole. :)

Re:But

[Barlo_Mung_42]

Want to see what's running at startup?
Right click the taskbar and open Task Manager. Click the Startup tab.

Boom. You can see and manager everything that runs at startup (either from the folder or via registry entry).

Re:But

[LWATCDR]

But by default it is off and they added back a start like button.

Re:But

[DarkOx]

The funny part is the role reversal. To make efficient use of the Win 8.x start menu, you either need a touch device or you have to use the keyboard short cuts. Otherwise you are picking up the mouse, locating the startmenu, putting the mouse down to start typing a search string, then picking the mouse back up to click the result.

I use it on my VM, its actually a blazing fast way to find stuff if you go all keyboard, but get the mouse involved and its tedious. I don't have so many desktop applications that anyhting is more than a few clicks away in my organized XFCE doc though on Linux or the old start menu wasn't pretty efficient with the mouse.

Thing is keyboard shortcuts really are probably better and the search function saves the steps of actually defining all those shortcuts.

It makes me laugh though because if I suggested on any Linux UI that a former Windows user learn the keys, I was an apologist for an apparent UI failure. Now all the Windows folks are running around insisting the UI is just fine because its fast with the keyboard!

Re:But

[LWATCDR]

Really? Well if you like it then fine but since the start screen is limited to just "metro" apps it is mostly useless to me.
As far as the rest. Frankly I move between IOS, Android, Windows, Linux, and OS/X every day. I use all of them and have no real problem moving from one to the other.
Windows 8 is a case of too much pain for the gain. If you really have to try insulting people just because they do not agree with you that is your issue. As I said the 8 interface is fine for tablets but not so much for a traditional desktop or laptop.

Re:But

[0123456]

It boots fast and has an even smaller footprint than 7.

I turn on my Windows 7 PC, and by the time I've put down my coffee, sat down, and turned on the monitor, it's already at the logon screen. And, with 32GB of RAM, I don't much care about the footprint.

Meanwhile, most people can't even start Notepad the first time they're forced to use Window 8.

Re:But

[LWATCDR]

I think Windows 8 is a strange Microsoft logic thing.
Windows Mobile failed in large part because the UI was a desktop UI on a phone or tablet.
Windows 8's UI is pretty much a phone/tablet UI forced on to a desktop...
I used WP8 for about 6 months and it is actually a nice mobile OS except for the lack of apps. It just is not a good UI for a laptop/desktop.

Re:But

[Chris Mattern]

For rizzle.

Re:But

[Chris Mattern]

Or I could just install Windows 7 and not have to worry about all this fiddly shit necessary to make the OS usable.

Re:But

[Just Some Guy]

We bought a laptop for my then-12-year-old son so he could play Minecraft without using ours. It shipped with Windows 8 and he is young and unexperienced enough to not have any prior opinions. And above all else, it was his beloved Christmas laptop, not some random beige box that an employer shoved onto his desk. In other words, this was the best possible scenario for someone to like Windows 8.

Two years later, he despises the desktop with a passion. Sure, his programs run well once he launches them, but everything else is a hassle. It looks weird. Nothing works like the lab computers at school. His friends don't have anything like it. It's obnoxious for the sake of being obnoxious, and I've heard plenty of complaints about Windows itself since we got it. They're good natured and he isn't ungrateful: when I asked him if he liked his laptop, he told me he loves it and it runs great, "but is the next Windows going to be less stupid?"

If you make a UI change and Retirement Joe in the office pool doesn't like it, well, that's probably just Joe being crotchety and close-minded. But what's it say when a malleable early teen who didn't have preconceived notions also thinks it's illogical and weird? I think it says you've done something very, very wrong.

Re:But

[UnderCoverPenguin]

I've grown to like the Start Screen and now prefer it to the craped and often poorly organized Start Menu.

I find it it easier to keep the Start Menu (and it's equivalent in LXDE/FluxBox/other in Linux) organised than anything like the Start Screen. Also easier to find less used programs. (I keep my most used programs in the "start menu" with less used programs in the cascades.)

Re:But

[__aaclcg7560]

Especially in salt water.

Re:But

[borgasm]

Your "3 metre resident of Warsaw" made my day. Thank you for bringing joy to my otherwise dull life.

Re:But

[gnupun]

Why fix what isn't broken?

Simple, they want one codebase and UI for windows desktop and windows phone/tablet. So you got tablet UI on your desktop/laptop, which is horrible.

Re:But

[Rinikusu]

Yep. Get rid of metro and 100% of my issues go away. When I press the start key, I don't want you to flip into a touch screen mode on my non-touch screen laptop and make me forget what the fuck I wanted to do.

Re:But

[Rinikusu]

Yeah, I don't get this. I use Win8.1 mostly full-time at home (when I'm not on my chromebook or my work laptop) and while I've learned to tolerate win 8.1's bullshit, I still find myself looking at buying a Win 7 Pro license on occasion.

Re:But

[Pentium100]

Nice, so, the only thing left now is to get rid of the "flat" UI design.

Re:But

[unixisc]

yes it does. "metro" is dead in 10, metro apps are now in the start menu (think windows 7 menu) you have the standard XP classic startmenu, and attached to that similar to 7 your metro tiles live.

Metro apps open on the desktop and are resizable unlike in 8/ 8,1 where you have to be in metro like it were an app itself. To top it off, it is fast, much faster than 7 or 8 (SSD 8 gig of ram phenom 2 setup)

Metro is not exactly 'dead' in Windows 10. What happens is that Windows 10 can give you the Windows 7 look while in laptop mode, and the metro interface while in tablet mode. In other words, when you attach the keyboard to the tablet, it reads it as a laptop and then gives you the start menu and all that (although the start menu is still accompanied by the icons when the pull-down is selected). When the keyboard is detached, it's just like the current Windows 8.1.

I just hope the final version allows us to choose which interfaces we want regardless of platform, and give us 4 choices (7-laptops/8-tablets/8-laptops/7-tablets).

Re:But

[operagost]

All I can figure is that the greybeard who designed the wonderful Windows 1.0 UI has blackmail on Satya Nadella.

Re:But

[unixisc]

Like the others above, I did have 8.1 for a week, and tried it. And hated it, just like everyone else. Typing was a pain - get to the right, and the charms bar pops up - even after you've installed Classic Shell. In the start screen, you have to pan south to see ALL the applications, and a few of Microsoft's selected ones that I never used on laptops - weather, TV, sports - were there: front ends to Bing's channels.

The other thing - this sort of an interface might have made sense had Microsoft introduced the UNIXy concept of virtual desktops to Windows. That way, in one virtual desktop, you could run a few work apps, in another, you could run a game or 2, in a third, browse the internet while taking breaks... They didn't introduce that, so what was the point? And their hot corners was even more insane, and would drive me nuts.

One more thing - I have a Windows 8 phone, but I wasn't happy about them bringing that to the laptop. On the phone, it makes sense to set up a Hotmail/Outlook/Live profile, and use it to stage the phone. All the apps were brought to the laptop - why would I want the People (i.e. my phonebook) on my laptop? Windows 8 completely disrupts the experience you're used to w/ Windows 7. Which may be fine w/ some people, but most just want to take what they had, spend maybe an hour or 2 at the most making the new system look like the good ole one, and then picking up where they left off. No way one can do that w/ Windows 8.1.

The next laptop I get will be a Windows 10 laptop, not before. My current laptop, which I'm typing this on, came to me w/ Windows 8.1 installed (w/o any DVD) and I replaced it w/ PC-BSD after a couple of weeks. Barring a couple of issues, it runs great

Re:But

[peppepz]

Change, however it happens, should make things easier. It's not the case for Windows 8 (and 8.1). I'll tell a random example: a friend of mine had her Internet Explorer links retargeted by an adware to point to an ugly search engine instead of her default home page. Fixing the desktop links was easy: right click / Properties. Fixing the Modern ones? Either it's impossible, or finding how it's done was too hard for me, so in the end I resorted to searching for .lnk files in desktop mode and change them from there. Now that made me feel old...

Re:But

[just_a_monkey]

Why does the start screen need to show every single icon some crappy installer has put there, why not use the hierarchial system the start menu had?

The focus groups didn't understand it. You are not in the target demographic.

Re:But

[Taelron]

The Windows 10 Tech preview is a memory hog still

Windows 7 Enterprise - Running several applications, large mail box, VCenter Client connected to 5 large clusters, and various other large programs used up 3gb out of 8gb availble.

Windows 10 Tech preview - Fresh install, NOTHING else running on it - used 5gb out of 8gb of RAM. Those "Metro Apps" are still using up memory and updating useless tiles that just make things look pretty. It also constantly calls out over the network looking for other systems, even more so than previous versions of windows.

Re:But

[g0bshiTe]

5 choices, desktop

Re:But

[g0bshiTe]

The funny part is those keyboard shortcuts haven't changed since probably before XP!

Re:But

[g0bshiTe]

Start typing word in 7 and it actually comes up and can launch Word.

Re:But

[Howitzer86]

You'll get tired of the Start Screen. In the update, either 8.1, or 8.1 Update 1, the Start Screen no-longer adds newly installed programs to the screen by default. This is to avoid clutter, because people would install programs, and every executable that came with each program would end up on the start screen. I thought that was great, and initially I manually moved my most used programs onto the screen and made it all nice and neat and organized as though I cared. But what I ended up doing was searching for my programs by name. This habit came with me to work, where I use Windows 7 and it behaves in the same way (hit start button on the keyboard, and just start typing. I honestly didn't have this specific habit before Windows 8. I would search, but not always). Then, on my Windows 7 work computer, I noticed that the start menu was faster than my start screen. Sometimes it was much faster. So much so, that I began to view the Start Screen as slow. I installed a free start menu replacement app and have only needed the screen on rare occasions. Windows 8.1 lets you dock your Surface apps to the task bar like a regular application, and I put my most used surface apps there (Mail, Calendar, IHeartRadio).

I was somewhat of a shill for Microsoft when Windows 8 came out. I even have an early Windows Phone 8. People hated it, and I thought they were all wrong. Well, they were right about the Start Screen on desktops. It sucks. I only use it on my Surface Pro tablet, where it belongs. Windows 10 gives users a choice between using a start screen and a menu. The menu as seen in screenshots isn't that different from what we see in Windows 7. Another known feature will be Surface apps in windows. These are fine... but that could have just come to us in an update or something. The experiment is over. I paid to be a guinea pig, and I'll have to pay again to get the final product.

Re:But

[g0bshiTe]

Same here, my daughter got her first laptop a few years back, she's had desktops so she is no stranger to Windows, by far she hates 8 the most.

Re:But

[g0bshiTe]

Interesting, you could do that since every Windows ever, or Programs|StartUp or MSCONFIG.

Re:But

[unixisc]

Why would one need to upgrade VMs? I thought that the whole point of VMs was to run incompatible software in its native environment, w/o that native environment creating a security risk for the overall computing environment

Re:But

[unixisc]

I used laptops to mean laptops and desktops. In short, having the classic 7 interface on either desktops or tablets, or having the metro interface on desktops or tablets. That's 4 choices. Fifth choice is not having Windows 10 at all.

Re:But

[gweilo8888]

I used it for a year as a preinstall, and have since finally paid full retail to upgrade my machine to Windows 7 due to Win8's shocking user interface, and the fact that in my environment at least, it is noticeably less stable. Says it all, really.

Re:But

[unixisc]

I am left footed, You INSENSITIVE CLOD!!!!

Re:But

[armanox]

At which point you're still losing because the start menu did the same thing, without transistioning the entire screen in the process.

Re:But

[spire3661]

Perhaps they are test VMs and he wants to see how migration goes before deployment....There are LOTS of reasons to run VMs, not just limited to what you can imagine.

Re:But

[Man On Pink Corner]

It's a bit late to collect those Ballmer Bucks now.

Also, the Japanese embassy called and said it's OK to come out of your cave now. Or, failing that, at least quit sniping tourists on the beach. There's a reason they don't look like US soldiers anymore.

Re:But

[Coren22]

Here is a time saving hint. Hit the Windows key, and start typing the name of the app and hit enter. You now have the program you were looking for running on your screen.

Though I did find it broke a bit with Putty as the first search hit is Putty help, not the application.

Re:But

[Coren22]

You pick up your mouse? Do you have one of those 3d mice?

Re:But

[Coren22]

Funny, my 12 and 14 year old boys both have no trouble with their 8.1 laptop. I'll have to ask them for their thoughts on it, it hadn't occurred to me to ask as they don't seem to be having any problems.

They do however spend most of their time in the desktop portion, not Metro, so that could be the difference as I believe that wasn't even available on the original 8.0.

Re:But

[Coren22]

Are you saying you deleted something from the main Metro screen and it isn't in the submenu (down arrow lower left of main metro screen)?

You should be able to right click items and repin them to the Metro screen from the submenu. I also tend to search for items, then pin them from the search menu.

Re:But

[unixisc]

I know about the reasons to run VMs. What I was asking was why would anybody upgrade VMs, when one can easily whip up a new instance of a new VM? Like if one is running an XP VM for say a printer that only had XP drivers, why would that person migrate that to 7, except for something else that needed 7?

Re:But

[FithisUX]

It is not OK. The mighty JavaFX GUI builder 2.0 dies mysteriously on 8.1 while on 7 it works like a charm. Take in to consideration that 8.1 runs on 2014 hardware while 7 runs on a P4 631 socket 775. The UI is simply distracting.

Re:But

[steveg]

I'm sticking with the XP VMs for anything I personally have to use.

I have a Win 7 VM with Office 2010 on it (nothing else) and it ballooned up to over 30G of storage and slams into a resource wall if you only allocate 3G to it. My XP VM with Office 2007 took less than 7G and was happy with less than 2G RAM. We had to upgrade hard drives and RAM on the lab that uses that VM, just to manage the the Windows image that's used for that one class.

Re:But

[steelfood]

That's a lot of post-install work to go from zero to usable. Couldn't they have just bundled all that for us in one package and call it Windows 8.2?

Re:But

[david_thornley]

If they'd listened to the masses earlier, Windows 8 would have been a success. Something over 99% of the complaints I've seen about it have been the UI. Other than that, it was an improvement in many ways. If Windows 10 were nothing but Windows 8 that worked (to the user) just like Windows 7, it would be a success.

Re:But

[david_thornley]

My son has a Windows 8 laptop. Two of his comments: "Everything I really don't like looks deliberate." "The more I use Windows 8, the better Linux looks."

Re:But

[mjwx]

Windows 8.1 is ok.....

It's just the UI and stupid metro (modern wtv) stupid start menu crap that annoys me.

That's like saying Ebola is OK but it's the debilitating pain and high chance of death that annoys me.

Re:But

[Barlo_Mung_42]

Programs|Startups is only one place where startup things can hide. The changes made to Task Manager in Win8 will show all the startup items, including those in the registry.

Re:But

[mykro76]

My global F500 employer upgraded 100,000 employees to Win 7 last year. It took them 3 years to plan that rollout. They ain't doing it again anytime soon.

Re:But

[Darinbob]

I actually like the flat design, once I shrink down the abnormally large borders. I always felt Windows 7 had too much eye candy. However I am a strong advocate of options, and there should have been an option for display style (aero vs flat vs xp classic). This does cause problems with applications though as they just want one style to stick with.

I prefer the Mac OS look though, removing the borders altogether and keeping things simple, and only the slightest amount of eye candy on the title bar (still not quite flat on Mavericks, but fully flat in Yosemite).

Overall though, after a couple weeks on any new OS the look of the GUI usually fades into the background for me. Anything that doesn't needs to be toned down.

Re:But

[Darinbob]

8.1 has a start-like button that's just link to a menu. 10 is supposed to have a functional start button.

Re:But

[Darinbob]

The start window on 8 lets you reorganize the tiles as you like, add or delete, change their size, etc. If you like the tiles it's not bad, in fact on a Windows phone it's actually pretty nice.

There is also the "all apps" view that shows you a small tile for everything installed, essentially the old start menu but sorted oddly (top to bottom then left to right, scrollable horizontally), and unlike the old start menu none of the sub folders can be collapsed. This feels clumsy to me and it's not nearly as easy to scan through the list of items.

Re:But

[Darinbob]

I think what really happened, like most companies, they had to ship Windows 8 too soon. It had been talked about for so long that they couldn't hold off another 6 months to a year. Thus the splitting of some features between desktop versus metro.

This is really evident in the list of built in apps it shipped with, every single one of them felt unfinished or unpolished. Quite a lot of them honestly felt to me as if they had been written by summer interns. These went beyond the normal uselessness I see with phone apps. Even marketing interns as well, as the built in apps were all given very bland names; Reader, Mail, Sports.

Re:But

[Darinbob]

That's like saying Ebola is OK but it's the debilitating pain and high chance of death that annoys me.

What which does not kill you makes you as weak as a kitten.

Re:But

[Darinbob]

I have a coworker with a Windows phone, and he loves it, and he's certainly no fan of Microsoft. I can see why too, because the tile interface is pretty good on a phone. iOS is stuck with the uniformly sized icons which I never liked, and Android improves on that with gadgets but not enough of them which can be configured well. Whereas the live tiles just work well; if you like one of them you make it a bigger rectangle so that it's easier to see and make the less frequently used tiles smaller, etc.

I don't buy extra apps, only an occasional free one, and I do need a new phone, so... But I'm certain there's a lot of ugly stuff behind the scenes, even uglier than the Google and Apple stuff that's behind the scenes.

Re:But

[Darinbob]

But you rarely needed those shortcuts. The most commonly used applications were either on the desktop, were pinned, or had popped to the stop of the start menu. It was relatively rare to use the start menu to go searching for the infrequently used stuff. The snag though is that when you do need to go looking for that stuff the start menu made it easy, whereas typing the name to search for something wasn't going to work if you couldn't remember the name.

The point of a good UI is that it should be highly usable to both the novice and the power user. The power user will learn the shortcuts, the novice however won't know they exist. So the start menu may have been unnecessary to many power users but it was absolutely essential to the novices.

Re:But

[Sadsfae]

I don't have so many desktop applications that anyhting is more than a few clicks away in my organized XFCE doc though on Linux or the old start menu wasn't pretty efficient with the mouse.

Thing is keyboard shortcuts really are probably better and the search function saves the steps of actually defining all those shortcuts.

You can use the "type to run" dialog in XFCE to via Whiskermenu Plugin

You can also easily hotkey it to whatever you like

Re:But

[Darinbob]

Except that I like Windows 8 and 8.1 better than Windows 7 in many ways, if ignoring the metro stuff. It takes less memory and feels faster on the same machine. I like the task manager better. I like the flat UI look better than aero. The explorer window is half slightly better and half slightly worse. The backup of course is crap, but every windows release has screwed up by having yet another incompatible backup. I like having a thin task bar without the round Windows 7 logo popping up taller than the task bar.

Of course there are things screwed up too in other places. Like always they removed some customization features (can't change window border width without using registry for example). But overall I like it, and I'm not a microsoft fan by any means.

Re:But

[Goragoth]

I don't get it. I've been using Win8.1 for about 4 months now after my trusty old Vista box gave up the ghost and I haven't used a single metro app, and have only really seen the start screen when I accidentally hit the Windows key on my keyboard and to search for stuff maybe twice. I'm annoyed that they didn't include the option to switch back to the Aero glass window scheme but other than that it's fine. To me it operates the same as Windows always has. It is possible that I'm just weird though, since I never really used the Start Menu much either. All the applications I use are sorted into categories as a toolbar menu on the Taskbar (or pinned to the Taskbar for the most frequently used ones).

Re:But

[MachineShedFred]

Oh, so what everyone suggested they do with 8 during the preview / leaks.

Sounds like they're a couple years late to what was completely obvious.

Re:But

[creepynut]

Hey, so there are 3 of us now! I love GNOME 3. I left Linux for Mac at home, must have been Ubuntu 8.10 or 9.04 the last release I used. Skipped over all the drama & pain of GNOME 3 & Unity.

Almost 2 years ago I decided to switch my Work PC from Windows 7 to Linux, and did not care for what Ubuntu has become. Jumped onto my pre-Ubuntu distro, Fedora, and nearly instantly loved GNOME 3. Been very happy with it since using only a few extensions. It just stays out of my way until I open the activities menu.

Re:But

[SpineZ]

If you are in Metro, just start typing.

If you are in classic UI, hit the windows key and then start typing.

Searching for apps is actually faster now if you are already in the Metro interface and EXACTLY the same as Win7 if you are not. I know we like to bash on Windows 8 but at least bash with something useful.

Re:But

[graphius]

I love windows 8, it forced me to buy a macbook pro.

Re:But

[euroq]

Do you happen to know if said software will return table column divider lines to table widgets? One of my biggest problems with Windows 8 is that anywhere there is a table widget, I can't tell where the divider is between two different columns without moving the mouse around to find where the cursor changes, in order to change the column size.

Re:But

[Coren22]

If the problem that is being solved is "oooo shiny thing distracted me, what was I doing?", looking away from the shiny thing might help. My response was tailored to the nature of the problem which was more a problem with ADHD than a problem with the interface itself.

Re:But

[LWATCDR]

Actually I went back to android. I do like it better than WP8 for day to day use and I prefer widgets to Live Tiles. It is all about the apps. The Apps for WP are just not as feature rich for the most part as the ones for Android or IOS.
But that being said it is still a good OS.

Re:But

[Darinbob]

Yes, but I said in my comment that I just don't use a lot of apps. A browser, a mail reader, and a map maybe if I get lost.

Re:But

[toddestan]

In the Taskbar properties, I noticed that I can turn the start screen back on, and when I tried it (and had to log out and log back in) I had the Windows 8 start screen with it's full Metro glory in Windows 10. This is on a desktop PC, so I'm not sure what's available on a tablet, but you can certainly make your Windows 10 box act just like Windows 8 if you choose to.

Re:But

[toddestan]

A lot of them date back to Windows 3, possibly earlier. It was kind of amusing how some of that arcane knowledge came in handy again navigating around Windows 8, though to someone without 20 years of Windows experience I could see how it would simply be frustrating.

Re:But

[eionmac]

Major problem is that opening a program in Windows 10 (tech review in Virtual machine) the opening screen is a full screen logo with no inication of any other thing. This is bad. It removes any sense of control of a sub-process as it blocks the bottom bar!

Re:But

[afidel]

It's not in the current builds yet.

Re:But

[LWATCDR]

You could do all that with a feature phone a long time ago. My old feature phone from Sprint had all those functions.

Re:But

[ihtoit]

if he did cure cancer, I'm sure he would be prohibited by law from selling it to anyone - like in England, for instance, where he'd run afoul of the Cancer Act 1939.

Re:But

[iampiti]

Ain't it sad that to make Windows 8 usable you have to install a third-party program? Microsoft failed hard with Win8, and the worst is that they knew but they HAD to use it to get people used to Windows Phone and to use their services

Win7 is the new XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Some companies are still moving out of XP, and into Win7. Changing the entire digital infrastructure of a company is a costly affair (lots of non-productive hours by people, as well as purchasing new software, but lost time is far more important), and companies are not willing to do this quickly.

Microsoft will not be making themselves popular if they keep forcing enterprises to update their systems by dropping support and security updates (yes, 2020 sounds like it is far away, but it is only 5 years away, which is pretty soon in terms of investments).

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[davidwr]

I'm sure they are hoping this will push people into Microsoft-branded cloud services.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[jbolden]

Those companies need to understand that Windows updates are a regular part of infrastructure. They should be on a constant upgrade / update process like companies were in the 1990s and early 2000s. Microsoft made a terrible mistake in allowing enterprises to remain on XP so long and thus allowing this culture of not upgrading to take place.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[pla]

Microsoft made a terrible mistake in allowing enterprises to remain on XP so long and thus allowing this culture of not upgrading to take place.

"Allowing"? Good one!

If Microsoft had tried to force companies to migrate to Vista, we would have seen 2007 as finally the year of "Linux on the Desktop".

Software vendors need to get a grip on their role in the ecosystem. They serve us, not the other way around. When people still run XP (hell, people still run 95!), that should tell Microsoft everything it needs to know about the viability of continuing its current trend toward forcing rapid unwanted change on people.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[cyber-vandal]

No, they made a terrible mistake by making it difficult and expensive to migrate away from XP.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[jbolden]

If Microsoft had tried to force companies to migrate to Vista, we would have seen 2007 as finally the year of "Linux on the Desktop".

No we wouldn't. Vista had some problems like most early versions of Windows. Those were fixed rather quickly. The two big issue with Vista were

1) upgrades where older hardware didn't get newer drivers because the driver model changed.
2) bad performance on low end machines that get rectified once people had the proper graphics hardware for Aero.

Both of which were caused by Microsoft giving into OEMs and allowing cheap hardware. Same mistake as Windows 8 allowing machines without digitizers or capacitive / resistive touchscreens to run Windows 8.

Software vendors need to get a grip on their role in the ecosystem. They serve us, not the other way around.

They serve us in the aggregate not in the individual case.

When people still run XP (hell, people still run 95!), that should tell Microsoft everything it needs to know about the viability of continuing its current trend toward forcing rapid unwanted change on people.

What does that tell them? That they might lose the 1/3rd of customers who are the biggest cheapskates? Migrating away from Windows is hard and expensive. Microsoft has been applying very little pressure and they've been able to force a shift. They can apply far more.

Where do you think the cheapskates go? Linux changes much faster than Windows does. No one in today's world does better binary compatibility. Apple? Much higher prices and even faster forced migration.

Sorry I don't agree at all.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[jbolden]

How did Microsoft make it difficult or expensive? Seems to me they did about as good a job as we know how to do on making the migration low cost. The reason it got tricky is the culture of upgrading regularly was allowed to collapse and so companies had to start from scratch.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[Jason Levine]

There should be constant updates to Windows? This might work if you're a 5 person shop, but what if you're managing the IT resources of a 10,000 person company? Upgrading Windows means you need to make sure you're not breaking a business-critical application. If your Windows update will break this, you need to either 1) upgrade that application first, 2) migrate to a compatible application, or 3) somehow run this application in a VM. This might be a challenge if there is one application to consider, but when your organization gets large, there might be dozens of these applications to consider. Then there are employee training issues to consider. (Especially if you were moving to Windows 8's new UI.) The IT manager who just says "we're updating to the new version of Windows and too bad if it causes issues" will quickly find his users storming his office demanding answers as to why critical business systems don't work anymore. I suspect said IT manager would also quickly find himself searching for a new job.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[beanMosheen]

CFR 21 Part 11 would like to have a word with you. Upgrades are not trivial, or even possible, for some sectors

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[avgjoe62]

^^This^^

I am convinced that Exchange 2013 is nothing more than a marketing device trying to push users into Microsoft's Exchange online services.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[avgjoe62]

It's not the OS updates that are the issue. It's the entire ecosystem of OS, third party apps and in-house development that has to be updated. Some of our systems are running XP purely because a vendor went out of business and we have yet to find modern software that can run our automated machinery reliably. Replacing the machinery is an option too, but a damned expensive one.

It's not just updating the OS but all the things that sit on top of it that makes "a constant upgrade / update process" hard to stick to.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[pla]

Both of which were caused by Microsoft giving into OEMs and allowing cheap hardware. Same mistake as Windows 8 allowing machines without digitizers or capacitive / resistive touchscreens to run Windows 8.

So they keep making the same mistake, and you just give them a pass on that?


Linux changes much faster than Windows does.

You've conflated updates to individual packages with the one thing most users care about - The look and feel of it. If I wanted to, I could run a fully-patched Linux box with the look and feel of a circa-2000 KDE2-style desktop today, and I fully expect I could keep doing so for the next dozen years as well without much difficulty.


They serve us in the aggregate not in the individual case.

Win7 didn't overtake XP until October of 2012 (the same month Windows 8 came out). Win7 still, two years and two versions after Win8 came out, has 56% of the desktop market share (and that includes Apple and Linux) - And we have an FP telling us about mainstream support for 7 ending? I'd have to call a solid majority "us in the aggregate".


Sorry I don't agree at all.

Fair opinion, and you have every right t it. If I regularly had the majority of my customers still running something two versions old and actively protesting what I considered the latest and greatest, I'd take that as a hint to quit changing things. YMMV.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[jbolden]

I've run large company IT organizations. If you are managing hundreds of applications (at 10,000 it ain't gonna be dozens) and migrating every 2 years that means you need a large number of full time employees testing new images regularly and migrating applications because you are probably doing more than one application per workday every workday. That's what existed in the 1990s. Yes it is more expensive, yes customers won't be happy with this additional expense.

But if you think about it the expense is not too high. 10k employees at say $100k / per for fully loaded cost is $1b. $5m in additional support costs is 1/2% more and yet $500 per head per year far more than enough. The effect on the ecosystem of rapid migration is a huge positive and that's where Microsoft benefits. They create a vibrant ecosystem.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[jbolden]

What does the FDA have to do with this?

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[jbolden]

So they keep making the same mistake, and you just give them a pass on that?

I'm not giving them a pass. I'm pointing out that they repeated the same mistake with the same results.

If I regularly had the majority of my customers still running something two versions old and actively protesting what I considered the latest and greatest, I'd take that as a hint to quit changing things. YMMV.

Microsoft gets paid for change. They have to change. Otherwise they have to move to annual subscriptions.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[jbolden]

A 3rd party piece of equipment isn't really the same thing as desktop. That's sort of like a terminal. I've worked with Windows shops that use all sorts of wild applications for equipment specific terminals. I'd classify that as a different problem, a niche problem, that can be solved regardless of upgrade strategy.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[painandgreed]

I've run large company IT organizations. If you are managing hundreds of applications (at 10,000 it ain't gonna be dozens) and migrating every 2 years that means you need a large number of full time employees testing new images regularly and migrating applications because you are probably doing more than one application per workday every workday.

Ya, but if most places are like mine, the "good news" is that after one or two such migrations, everything will come to depend on one or two major road blocks and everything will be slowed to their upgrade schedule which will provide more than enough time for everything else and a fairly known roadmap for the future.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[unixisc]

How did Microsoft make it difficult or expensive? Seems to me they did about as good a job as we know how to do on making the migration low cost. The reason it got tricky is the culture of upgrading regularly was allowed to collapse and so companies had to start from scratch.

They didn't make it difficult or expensive, but since XP was a win32 system and Vista was a win64 system, it was a more disruptive transition under the hood than otherwise. This needn't have happened in case of 8.

Microsoft should have done the same thing as Apple, as in having separate OSs for touchscreens and traditional keyboard/mice driven inputs. Named differently too. Apple left OS-X alone, and introduced iOS for iPod Touches/iPads/iPhones. KDE too did the same thing - one interface for desktops, one for netbooks, one for tablets and one for phones.

Microsoft should have made Windows 8 just an under-the-hood change (kernel updates, microkernel like architecture, et al) but left the UI alone. On a parallel note, Microsoft could have released another OS, say named Metro, which would have been the Windows 8 interface. Those could have been 2 separate lines from Microsoft. The latter could have been ported to both x86 and ARM.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[unixisc]

Switching to Mac is doable, if expensive, but not necessarily. A company that wants to and has the volumes could negotiate w/ Apple on pricing, and get a lot of Macs, Macbooks and would be happy w/ what it gets. The standard Office apps are there, and so they would be fine. If apps become a problem, they could consider even getting iPads, which won't have that problem. The day Apple provides usable keyboards w/ iPads (similar to Surface Pro 3) or puts A8s in MacBooks, the only thing keeping them from conquering the market would be price.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[jbolden]

That's because Microsoft has permitted it to happen. If say there were a 2 year mandatory migration schedule would be working around or removing those roadblocks aggressively. In terms of the roadmap, Microsoft does a great job on the roadmap. The customers though because they wait make things unpredictable for IT.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[boristdog]

I work in a facotry and we still run Windows NT 4 on a couple hundred machines. Because the equipment interface for the tools these machines control requires it.
The tool manufacturer isn't going to invest money in upgrading 20 year old equipment, they want us to buy new tools.
As does every vendor we deal with in any kind of tool support role.

At $2M per replacement tool, even if we only need 1/4 as many new tools due to throughput inprovements on the new platform, we'd have to spend over $100M to acheive what we do now.

so I get to keep supporting NT4.

Don't ask about the win98 controlled tools. Or the half-dozen DOS tools that have to connect to the network. It's like I live in medievel times.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[painandgreed]

That's because Microsoft has permitted it to happen. If say there were a 2 year mandatory migration schedule would be working around or removing those roadblocks aggressively. In terms of the roadmap, Microsoft does a great job on the roadmap. The customers though because they wait make things unpredictable for IT.

Sorry. I just don't think you really have worked for large enterprise IT before. The roadmap for a vendor like GE to get customer feedback on Enterprise applications, make those changes, do internal testing, get the FDA to do their testing and certify it, deploy to a test site and work out bugs, then get other enterprises who don't want to be a test site to deploy let alone have the capital budget to do it, is often longer than two years. That's not even counting dependencies on other applications from other vendors whose implementation has to be staggered because it can be the same people doing both projects.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[BradMajors]

Windows 7 will not run on many old Windows XP machines.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[Yunzil]

They supported XP for 12 years. What exactly do you want from them?

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[armanox]

Where do you think the cheapskates go? Linux changes much faster than Windows does. No one in today's world does better binary compatibility. Apple? Much higher prices and even faster forced migration.

Sorry I don't agree at all.

Linux binary compatibility seems to work fine - if your programs are well written (and linked...). And Windows sucks just as much at compatibility (better hope your old program doesn't use any Win16 code on x64...). You want to see legacy code run? Try UNIX platforms - HP-UX on IA-64 will run the RISC binaries, I've installed stuff for Solaris 7 on Solaris 11. Or go with something that really hasn't changed, like VMS or IBM i (AS/400 for the older people).

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[jbolden]

Are you kidding me. Click on my link. Call up the CEO of GE capital Snehal Antani and ask if he knows me. Or do you not have has his number mr I work for GE.

Anyway if you want a 2 year cycle you don't start one cycle and end the other. You have constant cycles so if deployment takes 6 years on 2 year cycles one is starting, one is midway and one is ending everyday.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[jbolden]

Then replace them early. What's the additional cost of a machine over 5 years? $200-300 / year tops? That's nothing.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[jbolden]

I think Microsoft's goal with 8 was for it to be a transitional OS. Everything was moving to touch (or digitizer for desktop) And then they chickened out. Same as what happened with Vista where the original plan was to make Aero mandatory and just not run on many XP boxes. In other words Metro is the interface and traditional is just legacy. I definitely fault Microsoft for: not pushing faster and not making that message clear

As for ARM IMHO that's a very different issue. I agree that OS-X / iOS did it differently but Microsoft believed strongly in ubiquitous computing. Here is a video from 3 years ago regarding where they saw themselves headed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[SEE]

The Win16 thing is hilarious given that you can run Win16 under WINE on 64-bit Linux. The processors are perfectly compatible with 16-bit protected mode code in 64-bit mode, it's just Windows that isn't.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[steelfood]

You should tell that to Google, Firefox, Ubuntu, etc. Although, they don't make enterprise software, just consumer software used in enterprises.

But seriously. This rapid release BS is the worse software lifecycle scheme I've ever seen. Throwing away tried and true for new and shiny only works for kids. Microsoft is finding out the hard way why it doesn't work in the enterprise.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[david_thornley]

Vista had more problems than that. Copying files could be incredibly slow, for example, and when I was trying it out on a new high-end machine it would frequently hang for about a second.

Near the end of its lifetime, Vista was a decent OS, but that's because Microsoft looked at the user complaints and did something about them. Microsoft did not do that with Windows 8.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[armanox]

Also note, if you are running a 32 bit version of Windows Win16 is still there.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[jbolden]

Generally you want to wait a service pack or two for a less buggy experience. That's pretty normal. Certainly that was the case with XP and NT.

Re: Win7 is the new XP

[cyber-vandal]

The sheer amount of hardware and software that doesn't work with Windows 7 and therefore has to be replaced which isn't cheap for any reasonably sized organisation.

Re: Win7 is the new XP

[cyber-vandal]

You gonna pay?

Re: Win7 is the new XP

[jbolden]

Of course it is. Do the math on fully loaded costs of employees and what a complete hardware replacement adds to that. It is chickenfeed.

Re: Win7 is the new XP

[cyber-vandal]

That's replacing the PC. That's not replacing all the software and custom hardware, testing it, rolling it out, retraining, fixing unexpected issues and so on, and that's assuming that there is a Windows 7 version of everything.

Re: Win7 is the new XP

[jbolden]

OK so add that stuff in. Say 1 desktop support person per 500 employees dedicated to testing. Software that currently isn't paying 17% maintenance contract is on one. I'm still not seeing how you are at a big number relative to cost of employees.

Re:Win7 is the new XP

[iampiti]

Anyone catched the quote on the Windows keynote the other day? "We see Windows as a Service". Soon you won't be able to purchase a Windows license, you'll have a recurring subscription. And this way the problem of people not upgrading will be solved forever.

Where's the replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

The suitable replacement (supposedly) is Windows 10, which hasn't been released yet.

Re:Where's the replacement?

[rafjaimes]

You can try 10 Technical Preview. It is Windows 8.1 with Metro condensed to a start menu. It still has some full-screen hijacking apps and tons of bloat from Bing and the "App" Store. This might be ok for some people but it sounds like Microsoft is going down the wrong road for those of us that like a clean, controlled, and predictable system. Linux may be the answer for many if it has the right program support, but it's possible that 7 is the last sane OS from Microsoft.

Re:Where's the replacement?

[ganjadude]

the full screen apps are simply windows on the desktop now, resize and you are fine. its not like in 8 where desktop and metro are 2 different states

Re:Where's the replacement?

[jones_supa]

Actually more is coming. The Continuum feature will show all apps in windows, but can automatically switch to full screen tablet mode, for example when you undock your device. It kind of tries to give the best of both worlds. AFAIK this feature did not make it yet to the W10TP though.

Re:Where's the replacement?

[Kjella]

You can try 10 Technical Preview. It is Windows 8.1 with Metro condensed to a start menu. It still has some full-screen hijacking apps and tons of bloat from Bing and the "App" Store. This might be ok for some people but it sounds like Microsoft is going down the wrong road for those of us that like a clean, controlled, and predictable system. Linux may be the answer for many if it has the right program support, but it's possible that 7 is the last sane OS from Microsoft.

Windows 10 looks quite okay, I'll install Chrome (no IE), MPC-HC (no WMP), 7zip, Notepad++, XnView etc. instead of the bundled apps and be fine I think, unlike Win8 it looks like it can work mostly the same except with a tile menu as long as you stay away from the Metro apps. The important thing is that it runs all my existing Windows applications and I get security patches, I don't really care about Microsoft's agenda. I already abandoned jumped to Linux once over Vista but came back for 7, this time I'll just wait it out. I'm assuming that before EOL of Windows 7 they'll provide some kind of "traditional desktop" upgrade path for conservative businesses, particularly now that Nadella is CEO. I'm not in a hurry, Win7 works well and there's no pressing need to upgrade.

Re:Where's the replacement?

[tom229]

What immediately ticked me off with 10 tech preview was how they hide creating a normal account on the local SAM database. They are really trying to force Microsoft accounts and the cloud down everyone's throat. They need to f*ck off with that immediately if they want any attention from the enterprise.

Re:Where's the replacement?

[rafjaimes]

This too. It's ok for Google to require an account on Android, since Android is a free OS, that is one of the ways they make their money back. But we are PAYING for Windows. I don't want any tied in accounts, "App" stores, and cloud storage. Vanilla OS, please.

Re:Where's the replacement?

[rdnetto]

Win10 doesn't look too bad, but the damage has already been done. I jumped ship for Linux when Win8 was in RC, and now it's almost comical how many different tools you have to install that come out of the box on pretty much every Linux distro (text editor, 7zip, compiler, a browser other than IE, codecs, etc.).

Microsoft's problem is that even if Win10 is on par with Win7 in terms of usability, they've still lost customers and marred their image. The Metro apps in the start menu (literally the first thing seen in pretty much any screenshot of the OS) are an immediate reminder of Win8 and everything disliked about it. Win10 needs to be significantly better than Win7, otherwise they're not going to be able to recover.

Re:Where's the replacement?

[iampiti]

It enrages me to no end the current trend of using OSs to sell you services: Google did it with Android (understandable since they live off your data, but I'd pay money for an Android which wasn''t tied to Google's services), and now Microsoft is doing it with a desktop OS. The free upgrade during the first year to Win 10 further confirms this: They're desperate for you to move to their data-grabbing, service-selling new OS. I'd rather pay some money and get a clean OS like what Windows was until 7

The beast and the hero

[blueshift_1]

I feel like windows makes one-bad, one-good alternating OSs because they need to make the monster and then the savior. So like many others, I hope windows 10 does everyone a solid.

Re:The beast and the hero

[Shakrai]

They're kind of like Star Trek movies that way. ;)

Re:The beast and the hero

[Half-pint HAL]

The bad news is that they skipped 9, which was scheduled to be a good one....

Re:The beast and the hero

[halivar]

Since we all know II, IV, VI, and First Contact were awesome, you are clearly implying that ST:TMP is awful, and Insurrection is awesome. On these two counts you must be burned at the stake as a heretic.

Re:The beast and the hero

[ilsaloving]

Because despite what one would reasonably expect, most developers are actually shockingly incompetent.

Re:The beast and the hero

[mr_mischief]

It's not shocking, as it seems a good portion of every profession is incompetent.

Re:The beast and the hero

[Half-pint HAL]

Because despite what one would reasonably expect, most developers are actually shockingly incompetent.

Or rather hacking culture celebrates stupid kludges as creative solutions. Even back in the 1980s, programmers were using "undocumented opcodes" in processors to optimise their programs. These were basically accidental side-effects of design and manufacture that activated combinations of logic used for other opcodes, but as they weren't part of the spec, you couldn't guarantee they weren't going to work on the next version.

"Always still to the API" is boring, but the only way to get yourself some degree of future-proofing.

Re:The beast and the hero

[halivar]

Uh, 1. TMP was awful

NOOOOO! That is the one thing we must not heeeaaaaar!!!

Re:The beast and the hero

[Shakrai]

First Contact sucked. Hate to say it because I'm a TNG fan but it's the sad truth. It was 90% dumbed down action movie and 10% (the final scene with First Contact) Trek.

I was mostly going for the cheap laugh though. :) Everyone knows the theory of even numbered Trek releases...

Re:The beast and the hero

[Chris Mattern]

Well, now, going from 7 to 8 was the first time Windows has progressed in a steady numerical progression since it was a DOS overlay. From 3.11 we went to 95, 98, ME, XP, Vista, 7, and then, finally, 8. Skipping a number to go to 10 is just reverting to form and shouldn't break the good-bad-good chain.

Re:The beast and the hero

[ilsaloving]

I completely agree with what you say, and these kludges are indeed a problem, they at least had some level of logic to them. You could understand why they did it, even if you disagree that it was necessary to do so.

Add to that that sometimes you HAVE to bypass the API, because the API is either incomplete, or intentionally hamstrung to put competitors at a disadvantage (Microsoft being a perfect example). The hacking situation is not black and white.

But what I'm talking about is the kind of stuff you can find on The Daily WTF (http://thedailywtf.com/). These sorts of things are a depressingly common occurrence.

Re:The beast and the hero

[cyberchondriac]

At least he didn't say "massive".

Re:The beast and the hero

[lgw]

TMP? WTF is TMP? Ohhhhh, you meant "Star Trek the Tone Poem". The last 6 or so ST movies were crap. The director hired for Reboot-3 recently quit in disgust. Maybe when the last traces of JJ are gone we'll get another shot at someone who understands the franchise, but really best for it to sit for 5+ years and then be picked up by someone who gets it.

But not soon - there's barely any SF t all today anyway - the notion of mankind conquering the stars, solving ancient mysteries, and exploring new frontiers is a bit to macho for the modern book publishing culture (80% of novels are bought by women, so I can't even blame them for effeminizing genre fiction - that's the market).

No nostalgia for something you use every day.

[Kyokugenryu]

I'm an admin at a University and we STILL are finding XP machines out in the wild. I don't forsee us (or most businesses) moving up to 10 when it launches because everyone just moved to 7 after XP ended its extended life support. When 7 reaches the end of extended support, then we'll see if people flock to 11 or 12 or whatever's out by then.

Re:No nostalgia for something you use every day.

[Enry]

I had a university as a client last year and they had at least one Windows 3.1 system still in operation in a research capacity. XP is still all over the place.

Re:No nostalgia for something you use every day.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stick a fork in it, Win3.1 is dead - it should be upgraded to Win98 ASAP.
Requirements - 486/66 8MB ram (16MB recommended, some 386s have this much!), 500MB disk.

Re:No nostalgia for something you use every day.

[dablow]

I manage the IT infrastructure in a school (both grade and high school).

I still have Windows XP machines (I do want to get rid of them, however I work alone, trying to convince them to hire 1 more person). For the most part, everything still works ok......Apps still install on it, and to be honest teachers and students don't do anything special...Office, browser, flash = 99% of what they use them for. Obviously no more security updates can only be a bad thing, but there is only soo much I can get done in a day.

Most likely I will eventually get around to switching them to Windows 7...and like others have stated, will likely skip Windows 8 and 10....M$ needs to change their business model when it comes to OS....charging $150 per version and not to mention the immense headaches that comes with compatibility issues when upgrading turns a lot of people off....especially when you gain what exactly? I know there are a lot of changes under the hood to take advantage of bleeding edge tech, but honestly for the average person it's not an important selling point. Especially when machines do not change frequently in a work environment. So yeeahhh.....

Re:No nostalgia for something you use every day.

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly has kept you on Windows? A few years ago we asked the same question in terms of what applications students use. Ever since we've been running Ubuntu on our fleet of systems. Web is the big one and we were already pretty entrenched in Firefox/Chrome, so there's that. At the time we were already running OpenOffice (we've since adopted LibreOffice), so that was an easy transition as well. Overall it's curbed a monumental amount of cost, and quite honestly, the centralized management of the systems is really nice. It takes a while to get something like puppet running (there are a number of alternatives to puppet as well), but once done it's a sweet gig. Sadly I hardly even touch our Ubuntu machines any more unless they have a hardware failure. I work for a public school district in IT. We have about 5,000 systems. Just over 4,000 are Ubuntu based (which constitutes nearly 100% of all student machines).

Just some food for thought, and something I'd at least consider even if you're not confident in that route. Good to have options and backup plans on the table.

Re:No nostalgia for something you use every day.

[dablow]

It's an environment I inherited....Only been working here for about a year....

And the choice is not really mine. Teachers are students are familiar with Windows environment. I would have a revolution on my hands if I tried to switch them to *nix/Libreoffice. Also an unusually high % of the staff here is 55+...they can barely grasp how to use Windows and iPhone.....I can only imagine the horror in their face first time they have to log in Linux....

Also there is the Smartboard software which we have only runs on Windows.

Also schoolbook publishers give away free software to complement what is taught using their book, which of course also runs in Windows only.....

And then there is the school soft which would be the equivalent of an ERP system...which is Windows only. And I am limited in my selection (basically 3 vendors) because it has to be in FRENCH....

Blehhhh......

Re:No nostalgia for something you use every day.

[jones_supa]

In practice you needed a Pentium 2 with 64MB RAM to run Windows 98 properly.

This made me think how in the old days, software minimum requirements often described the bare minimum hardware with what the software kinda-sorta could start. :) These days we don't see that as much, but defining requirements is still tricky: for example you can't really meaningfully slap there "2GHz CPU or faster", because the work done per clock cycle has improved tremendously. Describing the GPU requirement is problematic too, because if you say "GTX460 or faster", some people can have hard time weighing how fast a GTX460 exactly was, and what was the performance of various chips that came after that.

Re:No nostalgia for something you use every day.

[Tempest_2084]

Hell my office still has some IBM XT boxes in the back for 'running simulations' (whatever that means). Those don't get used often but the OS/2 Warp boxes are in regular use for support issues.

Re:No nostalgia for something you use every day.

[painandgreed]

Stick a fork in it, Win3.1 is dead - it should be upgraded to Win98 ASAP. Requirements - 486/66 8MB ram (16MB recommended, some 386s have this much!), 500MB disk.

Except when it runs some specialized piece of equipment which still works and is needed and the drivers only exist for Win3.1, or the specialized card can't be moved to a newer machine, or everything still works with some special networking app built into the software. Finding people who can still work on Win98 or even finding hardware that will run it can be more difficult than letting sleeping dogs lay. I didn't have a Win3.1 machine at my work, but I was supporting Win95 on Novell networking because of one system that used three barcode scanners that fell into such criteria. they eventually upgraded the system a few years ago and we could get rid of those Win95 machines and the Novell networking servers.

Re:No nostalgia for something you use every day.

[unixisc]

Wouldn't the solution to that be getting a new PC w/ a current OS - saw one w/ Windows 10 once it's out, and running the Windows 3.1 under a VM, and within that, interfacing w/ whatever specialized equipment there is that requires Windows 3.1?

Re:No nostalgia for something you use every day.

[laurencetux]

and you will most likely run into problems where the program was "tuned" to the actual BARE METAL hardware. Ever heard of a program in those days doing bit banging on the serial port directly (in a nonstandard way) which requires a 16550 UART to be on the serial port?? (note not a 16450 and not a 16550a)

when you have a $20K dino that would be replaced with a $300M unit if it fails and monkeying around could force the issue (and cost you $20K an hour) you tend not to try "cute" stuff like that.

We knew we had to get off of it,

[pecosdave]

which is why we just finished out our Vista roll-out last week!

The new XP

[TFlan91]

... Win7 = WinXP in corporate world now

Re:The new XP

[dablow]

And why not?

Solid stable OS, nice GUI, runs on what is considered low end hardware specs by today's standards...

Feels familiar (unlike stupid metro/modern GUI). No compatibility issues....

I really really do not see a problem with it.

It will get security patches for the next 5 years

[wiredog]

Which is about 5 years longer than any version of Android older than 5.0 will get them.

It was the best Windows

[halivar]

IMHO, the best versions of Windows are (in order): 7, XP, and 95 OSR2. Note that each of these was a significant performance enhancement over both their respective predecessor and successor. Microsoft just can't let good enough be good enough; they always gotta screw up a winning formula. I do give them props for the longevity of XP; I coasted through Vista without ever touching it once.

Re:It was the best Windows

[Octorian]

Don't kid yourself. XP was just as bad as Vista at first, but everyone forgets that. It didn't become the "Windows to stand the ultimate test of time" until XP SP2.

Windows 2000 was also one of the best versions, IMHO. It just often gets left out, because it wasn't marketed to "the average home user." (But I wish it had been, instead of that trash called ME.)

Re:It was the best Windows

[jellomizer]

However going back Windows 95 is a different OS.
10, 8, 7, Vista, XP, 2000, Windows NT 4, Windows NT 3 Were all based off the same kernel.
MS DOS -> Windows ME were based on an other kernel.

Windows 2000 was a really *good OS for the day. However Microsoft Dumped ME on the desktop users at the same time. So only business/pro users used Windows 2000.

* By Good in terms of Windows OS, I had been using Linux sense early 1994. While I hadn't seen windows meet the Linux/Unix systems in terms of ability and features.

Re:It was the best Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 8 is fantastic, and the best Windows by far, if you install Classic Shell, tiny window borders, and maybe 7 Taskbar Tweaker. Without those things, it drops below XP in terms of usability.

Now, should I have to install third party things just to have a usable system? Probably not.

Re:It was the best Windows

[Mr Z]

I have better memories of Win98 SE than Win95 OSR2. USB was actually stable, at least on my machine.

With WinXP, it finally was reasonable at SP2. Prior to that... glitch-tastic!

I'm currently using Win7 SP1 on my work laptop, configured to use the classic interface. To me, it's like WinXP SP5 or something. ;-) For the most part, nice and stable. Although the WiFi network detection is still slow, unreliable and occasionally requires reboots to work.

Haven't touched Win 8.x and don't plan to any sooner than necessary. I hope to skip it entirely, as I did with WinME and Vista.

Re:It was the best Windows

[meustrus]

Average consumers probably weren't ready in 2000 for an NT-based operating system. Not without the compatibility stuff they introduced in XP. Backwards compatibility has been the only thing making Windows relevant for a very long time, but unfortunately maintaining it tends to keep them from actually making Windows work better.

Re:It was the best Windows

[jbolden]

I agree with you on Windows 2000. That was really the high point of Microsoft comparatively. XP mainly brought Windows 2000 features to a wider range of machines. And around the same time Apple overtook them with OSX 10.1-10.2 which was so clearly better.

I had very high hopes that they were going to force through hardware changes in Windows 8 but Microsoft seems to have repeated the same mistakes as with Vista allowing OEMs and customers not wanting to spend to force them into using an OS on inappropriate hardware and thus destroying its reputation.

Re:It was the best Windows

[cheesybagel]

2000 had a similar problem to Vista. They changed the driver model and *nothing* would work anymore. A lot of devices did not have working drivers for a long time and some older devices never new got drivers made. The software APIs were changed in ways that broke backwards compatibility so yes a lot of old apps would not run properly either. A lot of this was due to applications that wanted to write all over the filesystem and which were not designed for a multi-user OS.

I liked Windows 2000 for the stability because it was NT based. Plus unlike NT the user interface was no longer horrible and it had passable support for games. Windows XP added more backwards compatibility with old apps so it was a lot more acceptable as a working platform plus by then the driver situation had improved. Vista had similar issues in particular with NVIDIA graphics drivers.

Re:It was the best Windows

[dablow]

You are correct. I was running Windows 2000 at work and at home until XP SP2. Before that XP was trash, very unstable and (for the time) very taxing on hardware....

Same with Vista.....it sucked at first, hard (and also dishonest hardware vendors/M$ misleading people about hardware being able to run it did not help) but after a couple of service packs, it ran fine. Windows 7 was great from day 1.

Re:It was the best Windows

[jones_supa]

Yep, Windows 2000 was fantastic. Windows XP was actually just Windows 2000 with extra garbage added: instability, bloat, malware.

Re:It was the best Windows

[tlhIngan]

Same with Vista.....it sucked at first, hard (and also dishonest hardware vendors/M$ misleading people about hardware being able to run it did not help) but after a couple of service packs, it ran fine. Windows 7 was great from day 1.

Vista sucked because it broke a lot of programs, because those programs were coded with poor coding practices (most developers suck). Microsoft wanted to do a clean start and fix a lot of windows security issues (e.g., you have to elevate yourself to admin versus being admin). This resulted in a lot of programs assuming they could do something when they couldn't, leading to a big pile of confusion. (Just like it was possible to actually have a Windows system that was usable non-Admin, one could get Vista working well. It just took a LOT of work to get to that state).

A year later and everyone fixed their issues, making Vista much better. But since it was tainted, it was easier to repackage it as Windows 7 and leave the legacy of taint behind.

Re:It was the best Windows

[steelfood]

This wasn't as big of an issue back then because not upgrading and keeping a running NT4 or even 3.5 machine somewhere was still an acceptable alternative. Security wasn't an issue for these machines. Forget the Internet, you were lucky to have your machines hooked up to the LAN through ethernet and not token ring.

Then networking got really big halfway through 2K and by XP, security was the most important thing rather than stability. 2K probably had as many or more security holes than XP, but it hit that sweet spot of being stable when that was most important, light (XP was bloatware when it first came out--still is in many ways), and secure enough for the time.

Re:It was the best Windows

[theskipper]

Huh? The reason why Windows 8 flopped was not because Microsoft didn't force users to upgrade hardware. It's because the user interface in Windows 8 sucked.

Re:It was the best Windows

[jbolden]

The UI was pretty good on a mixed device like a Surface or a Yoga. Some problems but some real noticeable advantages. It sucked on a traditional laptop / desktop. Not forcing users to have the right hardware was why they didn't like the experience.

Re:It was the best Windows

[Cro Magnon]

Vista also hit the "sour spot" in RAM. If you didn't have 2G RAM, Vista was very slow. If you did have 2G or more, 32-bit Vista only saw the 2G, and was still slow.

Re:It was the best Windows

[toddestan]

Vista's main problem was its Superfetch algorithm was way too aggressive, to the point where all the disk grinding slowed the computer down rather than speed things up. I had Vista x64 on a 16GB machine, and it would sit there and grind for a good while after booting up until it had filled every byte of it with some prefetched data, and wouldn't even take a break if I was trying to use the machine for something (Windows 7 is much better in this regard). I also had Vista on another machine with 1.25GB, and in many ways it ran better because there wasn't much ram leftover for Superfetch to work with so once it booted itself up it was pretty much done and ready to go.

Re:It was the best Windows

[Cro Magnon]

2K probably had as many or more security holes than XP, but it hit that sweet spot of being stable when that was most important, light (XP was bloatware when it first came out--still is in many ways), and secure enough for the time.

Also, look at what people were used to. If they upgraded from Win 9X, they'd be happy to have an OS with uptime that's not measured in hours (or minutes in the case of Win95). NT4 was better than that, but I still had plenty of problems with it crashing. The problem with security is, you can't tell it's bad until you get pwned. Instability is as plain as the BlueScreen on your monitor, and prior to Win 2K, instability was Windows middle name.

Windows 7 was/is a capable OS

[Anonymous Coward]

While XP had some performance advantages, Windows 7 resolved the vast majority of the Vista era missteps. Its improved, robust disk imaging model made deployment across multiple hardware platforms much easier, and it finally got 32/64-bit adoption as close to right as the Windows platform is capable of. In many ways Windows 10 will hearken back to Windows 7 after the UI failures of Windows 8 (and its confusingly named multiple updates.)

Re:Windows 7 was/is a capable OS

[hey!]

Well, Windows 8 is a capable OS too. It's just got a somewhat awkward and unfamiliar graphical shell.

I don't even hate the Windows 8 shell; I pretty much take it for granted that modern desktop shells suck. That's because designers keep trying to get them to do more for users, when users don't really need *more*; they need the shell to do what they want, when they want it, and then stay the hell out of the way. On top of that there's the unfamiliarity. Windows has always UI problems with putting a cheery facade over a complex train wreck, but the fact that they keep changing the signposts.

I just roll with it. It's like learning to conjugate irregular verbs when you're mastering a language, only they keep changing them every few years. As an *OS*, apart from the somewhat confusing shell, I have no complaints about Windows 8, unlike Vista, whose aggressive "optimizations" broke a number of tools I use regularly. It's all increasingly peripheral, anyway, as more information is managed through the web. The desktop is no longer the focus of the user's experience, it's just a terminal.

Six years.

[Virtucon]

Well Six years is not a long time for an operating system to exist considering how long XP was officially supported. We've already seen Microsoft quickly drop support for Windows 8 in liu of Windows 8.1 and I guess it will be end of life when Windows 10 is released. I'm already getting e-mails about the "new windows" which means invariably, incompatibilities, lack of hardware support including the fact that my printer won't work until I've gone through some convoluted setup and bodging on my own. Of course they'll have another great new version of Visual Studio that I'll have to fork out $$$ for as well as upgrade my Office suite for shits and giggles as well. I've liked 8/8.1, not initially sure, but I don't spend time in the Metro world that much and it's faster than 7 in a lot of areas.

Windows 7, we hardly knew you but I'm sure you'll be around for a long time at least with Newegg deals pushing new licenses for it.

Re:Six years.

[Bengie]

Of course they'll have another great new version of Visual Studio that I'll have to fork out $$$

You don't have an MSDN sub? You may also want to look into a proper printer, like one with network and PS support. When I was student employee, we had laser printers that where nearly as old as me, and they worked just as well with the exact same drivers as the brand-new laser printers.

Re:Six years.

[turbidostato]

"Well Six years is not a long time for an operating system to exist"

Well, six years is not a long time... when uprading doesn't offer obvious advantages and it is a costly nightmare.

On the other hand, when upgrading is easy, for free and you see things being better time after time, upgrading every two years is not much of a concern and even something waited for.

Re:Six years.

[Virtucon]

I stopped paying for the MSDN sub that gave me Visual Studio, it's more expensive than just buying it. I'm also a bit perturbed at MS for getting rid of TechNet subscriptions which to me were more valuable. As for printers, yes the printer I have is only 4 years old and does quite nicely. Unfortunately the vendor decided not to provide Windows 8 support natively so I'm on the fringe in terms of making it work with Windows 8. For what I have, it'll be about $400-$500 to replace it when I go to Windows 10 but that's planned. My point was, that upgrading the operating system shouldn't necessitate upgrading everything around it. I shouldn't have to buy new subscriptions, licenses. There should be some backward compatibility that supports at least the prior release's eco-system.

Re:Six years.

[Virtucon]

See Ubuntu ;-)

Re:Six years.

[afidel]

Uh, Windows 10 uses the same driver model as Vista, 7, 8, and 8.1. It even comes in a 32bit version (8.1 was supposed to be the last 32bit Windows, but MS must really want Enterprises with broken legacy crap to move up) so as long as your printer has a Vista+ driver you should be fine.

Re:Six years.

[Virtucon]

YMMV

Re:First Post (I think)

[Half-pint HAL]

Your "first post" shipped late, much like many of the advertised features of Microsoft operating systems.

Shortest ever?

[gstoddart]

So while I'm still hearing people complaining about Windows 8, and how Windows 8.1 has barely added a start button, and at work we're preparing for the EOL of Windows 2003 ... is this the shortest MS has supported an OS yet?

It's, what, not even five years old?

When is Windows 10 due out now? Because I need to buy a new machine, and the OS better last as long as I expect the hardware to.

Re:Shortest ever?

[rafjaimes]

Win7 still has extended support until 2020. Mainstream support ended a while ago anyways, if you ask me (DirectX).

Re:Shortest ever?

[jader3rd]

is this the shortest MS has supported an OS yet?

No. XP was the one exception, due to the amount of time it took to launch Vista. So far Windows 7 is matching the published schedule that Microsoft has had with all of it's operating system releases.

Windows 7 like XP did - does what we need...

[jzarling]

Windows 7 like XP does what we need, with a familiar UI.

As an office we are going to skip 8/8.X - its not a bad OS, my parents adapted once I installed Start8 (yes I know there are free apps out there).

It ended a while ago

[rafjaimes]

Mainstream support ended a while ago, when they refused to update DirectX for it. Microsoft stops supporting their old OS as soon as the new is out, regardless of adoption rate.

It's time to look forward

[Anonymous Coward]

There's still an absurd amount of misplaced hate for Windows 8 right now and I think people need to focus on what's important about the OS: Windows 8 minus most the Windows 8 features is just an improved version of Windows 7. That's something we can all get behind.

Re:It's time to look forward

[laird]

Sure, if we could disable all of the crud they piled on top, the core of Windows 8 is relatively good, as it's efficient and stable. But the crud on top is really, really irritating, and bloated, which is why Windows 7 looks so good in comparison. My PC that ran find in Win7 became almost unusable with Win8. I'm hoping someone writes an un-installer that rips our the crud, like there was for Vista.

Re:It's time to look forward

[Ash-Fox]

Windows 8 minus most the Windows 8 features is just an improved version of Windows 7.

I have problems with Windows 8, like the importing of images and videos. On Windows 7, I was able to define specific paths, what those paths should contain, how filenames should be constructed etc. Windows 8 doesn't give me any of these options, it just dumps them into "My Pictures".

These aren't Windows 8 'features', they're just removed features. This isn't better for people like me that have to end up writing custom software to bring back functionality that used to be there.

Re:It's time to look forward

[MightyMartian]

One word: "Metro"

Re:It's time to look forward

[Cro Magnon]

IME, Win 8.1 isn't really that bad. The reason is, unlike 8.0, it boots to the desktop, and I seldom even see Metro.

But I thought...

[Wuahn]

I thought they fired Balmer. Why is Microsoft still doing stupid stuff?

We still run it too!

[King_TJ]

Our workplace made a decision a while back to stay on Windows 7 Professional as the "standard" for our Windows users. (We also support a number of Macs.)
In general, I think many corporate I.T. departments have a policy of upgrading every OTHER release of Windows. (For example, they stayed on XP and skipped Vista. Upgraded to 7 and will now wait for Windows 10.)

Even if you go back as far as Windows '98, it turned out to be wise to stay put on '98 (upgrading it to second edition where possible) and skipping Windows ME.

IMO, there's just no benefit to a Windows 8 migration. The arguments like "no new Direct X support for 7" is meaningless when the users just use 2D apps like MS Office and a bunch of web based apps. The new "tile" interface means more training is required, which is a real problem for us, with so many mobile workers scattered all over the country.

Meanwhile, Windows 10 is the one really bringing the "added value" we're after, with such things as an upgraded Windows "PowerShell" that will finally support software upgrades from packages (similar to Linux distros) from the command line.

7? Are you kidding?

[kheldan]

I'm still on XP, mainly because the box it's running on is almost 10 years old and running a single-core processor. I have other priorities for my money than building a new box just so I can run a newer OS. Not that I wouldn't like a faster, multi-core processor, mind you, but I just can't justify the expense when I have other things I'd rather spend the money on before that. Have to build it myself, too, no pre-built computers, and nothing non-upgradable like a NUC, either. I suppose Win 7 would run on this box OK, but I also don't want to have to go through all the hassle of upgrading and then having to re-install everything I've got installed right now. It works fine the way it is, it does everything I need it to do, and frankly I spend more time outside the house doing active things than I used to spend inside staring at a monitor and have benefitted thereby.

Re:7? Are you kidding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because computers (arguably one of the most important tools in modern society today) are sooooo expensive now...

I just bought a thinkpad with dual core processors from 3 years ago that runs windows 7 like a dream for $100. You can't spare a hundred bucks?

Re:7? Are you kidding?

[kheldan]

Why would I want something that I can't change any components of, and that if it breaks down I can't repair it? Desktop!

Re:7? Are you kidding?

[kheldan]

Some of you people seem to lack reading comprehension: I do not have money for that, and even if I did, there are other things that are (shocking!!!) more important than building a new computer that I really don't need right now because the existing one does everything I need it to do. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

Re:7? Are you kidding?

[FithisUX]

The only reason to buy a NUC is to have a reference platform for Hackintosh.

Re:7? Are you kidding?

[toddestan]

Or check some random dumpsters. Multi-core and 64 bit stuff is showing up now. The end of XP is kind of a boon, as a lot of the early Core 2 stuff only had an XP sticker on the case, and while they could be upgraded, a lot of places decided it wasn't worth it and out they went.

Wait!

[home-electro.com]

I was just considering upgrading my laptop to W7, and support already ended????

Re:Wait!

[unixisc]

Just hold on until 10 surfaces

Re:Wait!

[unixisc]

I meant wait until Windows 10 arrives. I guess using 'surface' as a verb made it a double entendre

Re:Sigh...

[meustrus]

Using Windows in health care was a really stupid idea in my opinion. Not your stupid idea, mind you. A stupid idea on the part of all the software developers who chose to target it. What you really need is a good and secure core OS with very few features, which you can upgrade forever without breaking compatibility. Then you need packages on top of that core to provide all the user-facing features like the desktop environment, which shouldn't ever need to be updated (since they should be relying on the core OS for security). All the healthcare-specific applications shouldn't ever need to be rebuilt or updated (except for security updates). None of this 10-year support window requiring a large expensive rollout of new software when it runs out. No need to waste developer time on updating existing applications for new APIs when you could be developing the next great thing instead. So why isn't the whole healthcare infrastructure built on Linux?

Support already ended for Windows 8.1?

[Dr J. keeps the nerd]

The day Windows 10 was announced in place of 8.2, meaningful support for 8.1 seemed to die.

complete BS

[slashmydots]

This is ridiculous. Win7 is all I sell on new PCs at my shop. Nobody wants 8.1. No business with a brain rolled it out. They damn well better extend support past 2020 as well because our business just got rid of XP needlessly on single purpose desktops.

Re:complete BS

[Ash-Fox]

They damn well better extend support past 2020

You can still get support past 2020 for exorbitant fees, no problem.

Nostalgic for Windows 7?

[tadas]

Is anyone nostalgic for Windows 7?

You mean the current version of Windows?

Re:Sigh...

[dablow]

Welcome to IT.

Leave you dignity and expertise at the door. Do everything as cheap as possible in the short term.

You are a cost to the company, with nothing of value to contribute to the core business, be glad we took pity on your and gave you a job.

Sounds familiar?

We've Enter "Stable Release" status

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally

Only Security patches from here on out.. not Mucky Muck.. "Feature Enhancements" or "Rubble" updates or "Video Card drivers"

Golden Edition

We should all be good for the next Thirteen years or so

Re:We've Enter "Stable Release" status

[Guybrush_T]

Mod parent up.

Finally a post which get the point right. The title is horribly misleading. Microsoft didn't end win7 support, only new features. That's about time.

Re:We've Enter "Stable Release" status

[TechCurmudgeon]

This is a good point for MS to issue SP2 or at least a "security-rollup", either of which with IE 11, so that new/re-installs of 7 do not require the hours of online updates that follow! I use Windows mostly for games now. I might be interested in W10, but I'm concerned that the key-logger in the preview will not be completely removed from the release version (and I don't trust MS). There will still be plenty of admins doing W7 installs for their companies/clients in the coming years and I don't see why MS wouldn't want to make supporting their product easier. (Oh, sorry, I forgot I was talking about MS.)

Who needs any Windows?

[whizbang77045]

I'm not nostalgic for any version of Windows. Each new release is packed with features I neither need nor want. If they had focused on updating one of the earlier versions, they might have something of value to me. The way it's going, I forsee a day when they no longer have a functionl version of any value to me, and I migrate everything to a different operating system. Glitzy and complex is not better.

Perhaps 2020

[opus_magnum]

will be the year of Linux desktop?

Upgrading?

[Cyfun]

You know your new OS is awful when people "upgrade" to the previous version.

Re:Upgrading?

[urbanriot]

I'm glad you were moderated 'insightful' rather than 'funny' because there's nothing funny about the truism of upgrading Windows 8.1 with Windows 7 SP1.

Re:Upgrading?

[Uberbah]

Just as going from Vista to XP was a performance and usability upgrade.

Windows 7 is my last windows

[OrangeTide]

I don't plan on upgrading Windows. There are games and applications for other operating systems now, Android, Linux, ChromeOS, etc. My main Window 7 box has a few more years of life in it yet, and by then I anticipate that I won't need to buy windows at all. Likely most of anything I want to run is going to run in wine on one of the many fine Linux distros, or be re-released for Android.

Re:Windows 7 is my last windows

[unixisc]

I have a PC-BSD box that does much of what I want. But some things don't work w/ things other than Windows. For instance, I have a label maker, which can be used to print labels if attached to a Windows PC. Similarly, there are documents that I can only edit under Microsoft Office (I have Calligra Suite, rather than Libre Office, which I use to read any MS Office documents). So I might sometime get a hybrid once Windows 10 is out, but only for those tasks that absolutely MUST have Windows. Otherwise, this PC-BSD laptop has been serving me well.

Re:Windows 7 is my last windows

[OrangeTide]

I've had similar experience in the past. (Linux, Solaris and NetBSD user for soon to be 20 years now). I keep the Windows box around for a few bits of software and games. I have a lot of games that run natively on Linux now, thanks to Humble Bundle and Steam.

The whole MS Office substitute has been a solved problem for 5-10 years for most people. Most of my engineering documentation work is done on a wiki these days anyways.

I feel that software has been moving slowly away from Windows of the last few years, and that by the time I will feel compelled to upgrade that there will be no need for Windows for me, or really for the vast majority of computer users. Windows will just be a choice that people make based on preference rather than technical reasons like hardware support or the available software.

Re:Windows 7 is my last windows

[Billly Gates]

Unpopular opinion here but the truth is most people not only do not want to leave but prefer Windows. It is familiar, stable, and works.

It is not Windows 98 dos based crud that crashes as programs do not have have a concept of modern memory management like they once did. It is VMS based NT. Windows 7 works no cell phone Gnome 3 interface. Updates do not break the gui unlike Linux which happens OFTEN. Office has a better gui and is 100% goateed not to misrender as garbage to someone else based on rendering bugs.

No one wants to run a million .php scripts or do engineering things with SPICE. Therefore Unix is a very tiny minority and always will be. It is like fighting for king of the mainframe title today as people moved on to phones. PCs are legacy workhorses which are boring and uncool.

Exactly!

[DarthVain]

We just started preliminary testing of 8.1, which I foresee having many problems. Rollout and compatibility aside (which will be huge issues no doubt), there is the fact that a great deal of "normal" users can barely function in a Windows 7 environment. Windows 8.1 will be like giving an iPhone to a caveman in many cases. Help desk is going to love that transition I am thinking...

Re:Exactly!

[Ed Avis]

I wonder whether installing Classic Shell would help users who are used to Windows XP and earlier versions.

Re:Exactly!

[unixisc]

It won't. I used it for some days, and would the charms bar would pop up when I was typing and the cursor got near the right of the screen.

Re:Exactly!

[DarthVain]

It might, but then again you are then trying to use it in an enterprise environment, deploying it on thousands of computers, etc... fraught with potential issues. I mean everyone is supposed to be using the same template images, yet even that gets screwed up all the time, then network deployment, with seems piecemeal half the time etc...

Re:Exactly!

[OldSport]

I despised Windows 8 until I installed Classic Shell and set the OS to boot straight to the desktop. Now it's fine.

Re:Exactly!

[spire3661]

Almost NO IT dept will roll out a 3rd party shim like that. WE have been saying this since day one regarding this issue. Corporate installs CANT USE classic shell, its off the table for almost everyone.

Re:Exactly!

[unixisc]

Pull your cursor to the right end of the screen, and you'll see it. I'd see it if I had a window and started typing, and the cursor got near the right end of the screen. Oh, and one more thing - a pop up box of communications options - WiFi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, blah blah blah. You are right - I hadn't figured out how to disable the charms bar before I replaced 8.1 w/ PC-BSD

Re:Exactly!

[MachineShedFred]

I use ClassicShell here at home. That being said,I sure wouldn't want to support 10,000+ installs of a hack like that. That's asking for a nightmare.

"And nothing of value was lost"

[davidwr]

Oh wait, that was the day Microsoft Vista's mainstream support ended. Never-mind, carry on.

But... If evil is the product, it's quite good!

[Futurepower(R)]

"Good luck with pushing 8 to the corporate world... it's about as adoptable as an angry badger with syphilis."

Don't you just hate it when people are excessively positive about Microsoft?

Re:But... If evil is the product, it's quite good!

[ciscoguy01]

Syphilis?
Do you have information that syphilis is transferable to animals? Are we blaming Microsoft for that now?
Hah.

Re:But... If evil is the product, it's quite good!

[Futurepower(R)]

Maybe it's the evil of the future.

Re:But... If evil is the product, it's quite good!

[Darinbob]

It explains why the badger is so angry.

Re:But... If evil is the product, it's quite good!

[ciscoguy01]

Good point.

Re:Sigh...

[Ash-Fox]

Linux is not exactly famous for backwards compatibility, stable APIs, and not breaking existing applications.

I can run applications made back in 1993 without a problem, no recompilation needed either. It's trivial to fakeroot your outdated environment and applications and run them. It's certainly not famous, but it is certainly reliable at running old applications without any issues. Kernel API is fully backwards compatible and ancient userland works fine on the latest version of Linux.

Wine, than native Linux binaries, especially if they were compiled for a different distribution.

Sounds like you just don't know what you're doing. If you're depending distribution specific libc, other dependencies, create a fakeroot/container of your 'working' environment and run it in that from whatever other distribution you're using.

Re:"No more platform updates, no new features"

[jones_supa]

A new version of DirectX would certainly have been classified as a platform update, so you are correct.

Customers ended mainstream support for Microsoft

[JoeyRox]

Windows 8 was an unmitigated disaster and drove many customers to competing platforms like tablets and OS X. Whoever at Microsoft that decided to force Metro down peoples' throats must be sitting in a straightjacket somewhere mumbling to his padded walls.

Last fully supported version of Windows

[cnaumann]

I have noticed a trend. There are several engineering software packages that I use that simply will not run under Windows 8. The vendors have basically said use Windows 7 (or even XP) or move to Linux. This obviously does not affect most users, but it is interesting.

I have used the UI for Windows 8 for a couple of years now. It works, but I do not like it. I think it is rather poorly designed.

So other than the fact that it will not run the programs I need and I do not like the UI, I guess it is a pretty good operating system.

Re:Last fully supported version of Windows

[toddestan]

I've noticed the same thing. Something doesn't work right in the Windows 10 technical preview, and I look into it a bit more and discover it didn't work in Windows 8 either. Part of the reason why the transition to Windows 7 was relatively smooth is because all the kinks were worked out with Vista. But while these firms went to the trouble of working on Vista support despite the slow uptake (perhaps they were interested in 64 bit?), they seem to be completely ignoring Windows 8.

Re:Last fully supported version of Windows

[Agripa]

I have noticed a trend. There are several engineering software packages that I use that simply will not run under Windows 8. The vendors have basically said use Windows 7 (or even XP) or move to Linux.

I am in the same boat. I have some applications which do not run on newer versions of Windows which could go on a legacy machine but I also have applications which are tied to the operating system through licensing and/or DRM and I cannot afford to buy them again and that rules out switching them to Linux.

Re:"No more platform updates, no new features"

[0123456]

Making DX12 Window 8-only would be pointless, as it would mean no game developer released DX12 games until 2020. It would be DX10/11 all over again, where most games remain DX9 (and 32-bit) for backward compatibility with XP.

Re:What? Did someone port systemd to Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

systemd stole everything from Windows NT 3.5 and Windows 95. When you use Windows you are using systemd's great grand-daddy.

Re:Sigh...

[0123456]

Linux is not exactly famous for backwards compatibility, stable APIs, and not breaking existing applications.

Backward compatiblity is retarded, and you can just compile the source on a new OS and fix the few things that broke.

Oh, you mean you bought some weird old closed source app that you're now reliant on? Well, you'll be glad to know that you can run an old version of Linux in a VM with no worries about licensing fees or 'activation' or any of that other crap that closed source operating systems lumber you with.

Re:It will get security patches for the next 5 yea

[Jaysyn]

He's referring to this bit of news:

http://arstechnica.com/securit...

Re:Release the copyright

[ledow]

Er... yes they can.

And if they do not want to make money is not the same as if they want to lose the money they have.

Releasing things anything near recent versions of Windows or Office will destroy all their future sales overnight.

Besides, they already offer the source, and developers will be around to make patches for it. Just not for free, not under open licences, and not from Microsoft. When you tell people that, they tend to think that a migration to a supported OS is probably better for them.

That said, 7 is supported for several years yet, just not mainstream support. XP has ONLY JUST just come out of extended support itself and that was long overdue. 7 will be in extended support for ages yet. And by then, Windows 8 will be old, Windows 10 will be available generally and Windows 11 will be on the horizon anyway.

Sorry, I'm not a proprietary software fan, but suggesting that MS just destroy their biggest revenue stream overnight so that you can get a security patch either while it's still being security-patched or MANY years after it was released, is just ridiculous.

Microsoft no longer care what version you use. All their big customers have annual renewals nowadays anyway. The consumer market is tiny and mostly get their Windows via their OEM anyway. Nobody "buys" a box at a store with Windows disks in it any more.

If they don't care what version you use, they have no need to keep dragging on old software past what they've already promised.

What Windows?

[Torp]

I run mostly OS X these days, and do work with native OS X apps or inside Linux VMs, but I have a Windows 7 installation for games. However, over the past few years an interesting thing has happened: I can't be bothered to reboot any more. If a game has a Mac version or runs in Wine, I'll play it. The rest of my Steam collection of 200+ titles is gathering virtual dust.
So not only I'm still on 7, but I don't use that at all any more.
What's that Windows 8 thing that everyone is talking about?

Related news

[theendlessnow]

Intuit drops schedules C, D and E from TurboTax Deluxe (also removes support for partnerships and K1 handling)... just about as good of news as Microsoft getting rid of Windows 7. I guess I'm a poor business manager..... I don't think I would have made those decisions.

Re:Customers ended mainstream support for Microsof

[Opportunist]

Should be, at the very least. But only because I'm against killing people.

Though this sure got me close to changing my mind.

Re:Nostalgia?

[Opportunist]

I knew one person who really, really, REALLY tried REALLY hard to like Win8. He liked the idea of tiles, he liked the idea of having one app running because he doesn't need more, he really wanted to be the cutting edge this time and be the early adopter of the new and improved Windows.

He now owns an Apple...

End of support == finished ?

[Chris Grundy]

Software that requires constant updates should not be considered a finished product.

The fact that a system receives constant updates is more a symptom that Q.A. needs to be improved and more work needs to be done before the release of commercial software.

Not needing constant updates should be considered a requirement. Not to be confused with needing updates and not receiving them.

Let's all stop using beta software and paying for it. Apparently windows 7 is now finished.

Re:Customers ended mainstream support for Microsof

[MightyMartian]

No, in fact, the guy that forced Metro on the Windows world owns the LA Clippers now.

Looks Like I Won't Be Using Windows

[Maltheus]

I just realized that my OEM license won't transfer to my new computer and I couldn't easily find a copy of Windows 7, so for the first time I just decided to go without. I have Windows 8 on a laptop and there's no way I'd ever buy a copy of that, if it didn't come preloaded. It's just awful.

This marks the end of the dual-boot era for me. It's Linux all the way now. Great job Microsoft!

Windows 8.1 is just ridiculous.

[ciscoguy01]

Windows 8.1 is just ridiculous. It hardly meets the needs of business at all, too many problems. That silly touch interface is just insane.
Microsoft is trying hard to jam Windows 8.1 and soon Windows 10 down our throats, but XP was clearly the most powerful OS that MS has made, and Windows 7 is a barely usable but certainly much less convenient OS than XP.
Which completely explains why there are so many computers in the world still running and being used productively with XP.
Hundreds of millions of them.

Re:Windows 8.1 is just ridiculous.

[Sir_Substance]

but XP was clearly the most powerful OS that MS has made, and Windows 7 is a barely usable but certainly much less convenient OS than XP.

It's very true. For years I thought that I liked windows 7 more than XP, but then about 3 years ago I had to use an XP machine at work, and I realised it was much better then 7. The only thing I missed from 7 was pinning windows to the start bar.

It turns out that what I really want from an operating system is to not notice it. Windows 7 is like windows XP, but flashier. Flashiness is not a desirable attribute in an OS. XP represented peak functionality over form for microsoft, and the balance has been going the other way since then.

I don't want your OS to respond to voice commands, I don't want it to automatically sync my files, I don't want push notification apps. If I wanted that I'd download a program to do it

I want a robust hardware abstraction so I can pretend thumb drives work the same as magnetic SATA drives, an understated and gentle file manager/desktop, and that's all.

I don't even want your browser. Bring back the thing which lets me choose a browser the first time I start the computer.

Re:Windows 8.1 is just ridiculous.

[Darinbob]

You can completely disable the Metro stuff. Generally you can never see it except occasionally when you click wrong when the mouse is positioned wrong, but you can pop back out of that fast. Something to learn of course but if you teach the users how to escape Metro easily then they're less likely to stick around and poke at it. As a corporation you can just refuse to allow them to add their own Microsoft ID so they can't download and install stupid Metro apps. Overall 8.1 I feel is not nearly as bad as everyone claimed, and I went into it expecting the worst. If you know Windows 7 then Windows 8 is the same thing 99% of the time. And windows 8 uses less RAM than 7 overall.

As for XP, it really was crap, especially early on. It was good enough of course, and a massive improvement of Windows 98, although a smaller improvement over 2000. Retrospective views tend to be full of too much nostalgia I think. Windows 7 was much more stable than XP though it had far too much eye candy for my tastes (Windows 8 removes a lot of that). Really Windows 7 is just XP with an aero style UI and better security features and the equivalent of a service pack update.

Re:Windows 8.1 is just ridiculous.

[AmiMoJo]

Windows XP is far less useful than Windows 7. Aside from the security improvements, which are so big you would be pretty much insane to use XP online these days, things like proper SSD support, much better search via the start menu and best of all it's far more modular. You can turn off those things you don't want more easily than in XP, and completely uninstall them.

By the way, try the N versions of Windows. No media stuff, works with the same key as the non-N version.

Re:Windows 8.1 is just ridiculous.

[Goragoth]

I suppose it really depends on personal preference and what you do with your PC, but personally I find XP terrible in comparison to Vista/7/8. I jumped to Vista almost as soon as it was released and used it for many years, and now I'm on 8.1. The biggest thing for me is the user-mode video drivers. The number of system lockups that I had on NT4/Win2k/XP due to video card issues are countless, and they were almost entirely eliminated after that change was made to the operating system. As someone who primarily does 3D graphics programming, this is a huge feature.

Re:Windows 8.1 is just ridiculous.

[Sir_Substance]

That's true, but that falls under "robust hardware abstractions".

Windows XP also had poor 64bit support and a very strange way of load balancing multiple cores.

Windows 7's technology with a windows XP skin would be fine. Windows 8/8.1 had fantastic technical improvements. It's really a shame they were wrapped in terrible UI and unwanted ~cloud features~.

Re:Windows 8.1 is just ridiculous.

[fxsoap]

Very interesting points you make. I never realized that myself but that is what I look for in an OS as well. It's amazing that people wouldn't be given the option to remove things like this:

I don't want your OS to respond to voice commands, I don't want it to automatically sync my files, I don't want push notification apps.

Or on install the option to choose power user with a huge array of things to customize/add/remove/etc.

Re:Windows 8.1 is just ridiculous.

[Blaskowicz]

How do you turn off the blue bar with "Organize..." in the Windows 7 file manager? It seems you can't.
Windows XP file manager was more modular and as for the rest of the OS you had msconfig, services.msc, tweakUI, control panel.

backwards compatability & development

[volvox_voxel]

I like the windows-7 interface, as well as the XP interface. My big problem however is backwards compatibility.I think we should be able to run programs from 50 years ago. I find it a real shame that it's often hard to get old programs/dev-tools/games/etc to work on a newer operating system. Sure, they have their reasons, but other operating systems have managed to handle this (especially ones that give you the source that you can recompile on a newer machine). Even when using "XP mode" I can run some old dev tools, but I can't run any 3D graphics because my nvidia graphics card only had drivers for windows-7 (on a 3 year old graphics card).

I'm friends with an FAE for a good embedded compiler company that was pretty frustrated trying to make their compiler work that was working fine under windows 7 work under windows 8. It took a long time for their developers to make the transition. I'm not sure what in the development process seems to be making development harder. I have developed for windows professionally, but not in some time. I'd love to hear from a developer perspective. I am currently working in the embedded linux/FPGA world.

Does the whole .NET framework lend itself to future compatibility as the code is compiled at run-time?

Nostalgic?

[roc97007]

(a) Our company just moved to Windows 7 from XP a few months ago.

(b) I'm still in the process of migrating friends and family off XP to windows 7. (One of them got ahead of me, installed Windows 8, hated it, had to backrev to 7.)

(c) Realistically, I know that there are some militant 8 affectionado out there, as there have been for every screwball release Microsoft has ever shat out, including ME and Vista, but again, realistically, Microsoft doesn't have a replacement for Windows 7 at this time. 10 might be viable, but it's not out yet. So it seems counterproductive to cut 7 loose now.

I predict Microsoft will retreat from this position.

Tablet Input Panel

[Zeorge]

A marvelous piece of software to use Windows 7 on tablets that was discarded in the tablet-oriented Win 8.x.

Re:Change is good

[unixisc]

Why would people still on XP go to 7, when its mainstream support has just ended? They should wait and go to 10, and be on that as long as 10 is supported.

64bit

[DarthVain]

Windows 7 works fine here. The transition was mostly painless. About the only thing that has caused some issues, is that they decided to go with 32bit as the standard, likely for compatibility reasons. However some power users fought and won to get the 64bit version because of a requirement for more then 4GB of RAM (hardly surprising). The 64bit does have a few compatibility issues, particularly with some of the IT remote applications (and some print drivers). Should have just went with 64bit to begin with, updated the few incompatible applications as required, then you're not supporting two different OS versions for years and years to come.

Re:64bit

[g0bshiTe]

I agree, but if you prefer XP over 7 you are insane. Limited memory support, well known exploits EOL, well known unknown exploits?

The only reason my shop still has so many XP boxes is cost, not features. If I had my way budget be damned every box in the company would be 7.

Re: 64bit

[BellyJelly]

Compatability problems with 64 bit windows 7? Thats what XP Mode is for.......

Re:64bit

[ciscoguy01]

I notice you're not still running Windows 98, so why is XP so long lasting?
I admit the problems it has with exploits, and the EOL issue what was caused entirely by Microsoft for business reasons.
XP will go down in history as the best OS made. Ever.
Non irritating, not many problems, easy to work with and use, within it's limitations.

Re:64bit

[Smauler]

XP will go down in history as the best OS made. Ever.

Win2k was better.

Re: 64bit

[unixisc]

One does have to go online, hunt for it and download it separately. It should really come as a part of the installation, maybe w/ an option of being included or not, but making inclusion of it as the default

Re:64bit

[mrbcs]

The best example I have of my frustrations with Windows 7: set up a static ip or check network settings.

Windows XP, right click on network icon-> properties.

Window 7, Right click network icon ->Open Network and Sharing Center -> Click change adapter Settings ->Right Click Local Area Connection-> Properties.

Why Microsoft Why? You have only made things more difficult? What were you thinking? Or smoking? There are more examples of this stupidity, but this one angers me the most.

Can anyone give me a valid reason why they added 3 more steps for no apparent reason?

Re:64bit

[ciscoguy01]

Hah. No kidding! I had a Win2k Server in a closet on a DSL line doing what I needed it for, mail, FTP, tiny bit of web hosting. For over 10 years!
When it finally failed I had to go deal with it, I had forgotten how it worked.
It was there so darned long, years after discontinuance of security patches for that OS.
It ran for so many years. I just can't complain about that. Not at all.

Re:64bit

[ColaMan]

I used to have a systray app for this, you could set it to flip your adaptor between DHCP and a bunch of other ip addresses of your choosing.

I say 'used to' because I ditched win7 and went with Linux Mint on my laptop and the default networkmanager tray app does this automatically.

Re: 64bit

[DarthVain]

That might work when the user has a specific application. In the two instances I saw, it was the fact that the print servers were not compatible (nothing user can do), so it was a matter of IT installing the 64 bit drivers. Ditto with the remote in software IT uses to network with users computers, which caused them some support headaches. However that works now also. Were they to go with 64bit initially, test it first, and address the issue then, none of it would have been an issue.

But someone somewhere made the decision that the entire org should stick with 32bit forever...

Re: 64bit

[DarthVain]

In a secure enterprise environment, users typically cannot download and install anything. It should have been addressed in testing, and deployed with proper patches, drivers, etc... However because it wasn't, and they didn't, it caused issues later (which have since been addressed, but made the transition unnecessarily fraught with issues).

Re:64bit

[ihtoit]

I'll second that, 2K was a lot better than xp. I still use it for my CCTV.

Re:64bit

[Smauler]

When upgrading from 2k, installing Vista, on a brand new computer, I had a load of problems with it. I needed newer versions of directx, being a gamer, which were not available with 2k. It'd BSOD at a certain point in the installation, without fail. I didn't have the internet by other means, so I thought.... why not just try to boot off of the old 2k hard drive? This was just a HD spat in a new system, no messing with it at all.

It booted in 640*480, and I was amazed. Standards FTW. I managed to connect to the internet (after a while), and then find my problem (which was not my problem).

It turns out it was the original Vista not working with nforce motherboards with more than 4gb RAM installed, at all...

The solution was to install Vista with 2gb, then add the other memory later after having applied a hotfix.

Since then Vista has been good to me, I've had good uptime (4 months+), and constant stability.... but I'll always remember 2k.

Kicked

[g0bshiTe]

Kicked in the balls yet again by MS, why is it when they release an OS I like they do this shit?

Changes for vendors sake

[WaffleMonster]

I sincerely hope in the year 2020 there is an operating system in existence I would happily want to upgrade to.

Commercial vendors are spending too much time "playing games" and not enough time providing actual value to end users.. I fear by 2020 things will only get worse yet it is also clear MS has belatedly learned some lessons.

The final end of support for Windows 15 will be January 19th 2038.

Re:Sigh...

[Voyager529]

Using Windows in health care was a really stupid idea in my opinion.

If Linux was in the state it's presently in, back when computers were making inroads in healthcare situations, you may be on to something. Linux in the 90's, however, didn't play too well with most things who's I/O didn't involve an ethernet port.

Not your stupid idea, mind you. A stupid idea on the part of all the software developers who chose to target it. What you really need is a good and secure core OS with very few features, which you can upgrade forever without breaking compatibility.

Which distro do you target in this respect? Red Hat, I guess (it's one of the handful still here today that were around in 1995, but at the time, there were plenty of other promising distros that didn't survive)...but if breaking compatibility weren't a problem, Red Hat wouldn't still be issuing minor updates for RHEL 4, because everyone could just jump to RHEL 7 without a problem.

Then you need packages on top of that core to provide all the user-facing features like the desktop environment, which shouldn't ever need to be updated (since they should be relying on the core OS for security).

As a trivial example, assume we ran with this logic of never updating the desktop environment. I've got no issue with GNOME 2; it's functional. Old computer didn't have wireless, new one does. Old GNOME won't have a UI for connecting to a wireless network. i'm sure it can be command line scripted, but that script starts getting longer as more and more edge cases for the desktop UI come to light.

All the healthcare-specific applications shouldn't ever need to be rebuilt or updated (except for security updates).

...unless the laws change and you need different information entered. Or, you switch upstream providers and you need to alter the output. Or, it was built in Java and the new iterations of Java outright block interfaces that don't have super duper blessed certificate chains. Or the facility offers a new service that they didn't used to. Or the vendor goes out of business and you have to migrate to someone new anyway. Or, MySQL/Postgres does things a bit differently and you need to match the new version....The list of why software needs to be updated is endless - name ONE piece of software that was "done" in its first iteration. *MAYBE* something like nano or another very simple program, but software gets updated, especially in the medical field.

None of this 10-year support window requiring a large expensive rollout of new software when it runs out.

Okay, fine. There is plenty of medical equipment that requires regular replacement for new technology, equipment, resolution, and procedures. Should a year-old MRI machine have Windows 2000 drivers? Conversely, what's the statute of limitations for old hardware to get support? Would you want an MRI on a 25-year-old scanner?

No need to waste developer time on updating existing applications for new APIs when you could be developing the next great thing instead. So why isn't the whole healthcare infrastructure built on Linux?

So, computers stop being computers, and instead just become part of the embedded hardware? That can make some sense - no one ever complained about their Nokia phones not getting software updates. Super standard languages for certain things are wonderful; it's why HP Laserjet 8000 series printers are still on the road. However, if we're not updating software, we wouldn't be able to update hardware, except in terms of what the existing software can do.

The correct approach is the correct approach. Pardon the tautology, but it's true - minimally changing UIs and APIs can be good. In other areas, allowing software to be more radically altered makes the hardware a better investment. Knowing which is which, is almost the definition of wisdom.

Windows Update

[phorm]

The changes to Control Panel and especially "Windows Update"
I truly miss the little tray icon and window indicating my status of updates. Now I have to slide out the side bar, go into an obscure submenu, and deal with a crappy full-screen interface to check on what should essentially be a background task.

Re:Sigh...

[meustrus]

So, computers stop being computers, and instead just become part of the embedded hardware?

That's the heart of my argument. If a tool works right when it's installed, it shouldn't need to be replaced unless you want it to work differently. Doctors shouldn't have to learn version +1 of the medical software just because the one they were using doesn't work on the new version of Windows that has to be installed because the old thing is full of security holes that will never be patched. But of course if you need different data protocol or different policies or new features...well, upgrade the software for those reasons. I'm not saying the software can't ever be updated; just that it shouldn't have to be updated on a schedule regardless of whether you need the new features. And a Wi-Fi interface is a terrible example, because if there wasn't any Wi-Fi when the thing was set up it's already going to be wired anyway.

Linux comes in versions only because that makes sense for deployment. Red Hat makes an implicit contract that if your stuff works in version 4, it won't break as long as you stay with version 4. But RHEL 4 has a lot of different packages that might not be exactly compatible with the RHEL 5 equivalents. As far as I know, though, if you strip away a lot of those things you end up with some long-lived stable tools and APIs that only improve in performance and security with updates. It doesn't need to be Linux either; it could easily be BSD. But ultimately all of this comes from my initial assumption that the medical computer is to be used only for the custom medical software which can be developed for any OS the developer chooses.

You're right about the real world, of course. The 90s were a different time and weren't often very user-friendly outside of Windows and Mac OS. Hardware drivers for all the necessary peripherals shouldn't have to change all the time but unfortunately they do. But I have a hard time believing that any software updates 5 years down the line won't require hardware updates. I may be idealistic, but I'm not that idealistic.

Re:I have a Different Problem

[unixisc]

I too hope that Microsoft brings back VirtualPC/XP-mode to Windows 10, and offers that as well as HyperV.

Re:Sigh...

[Miser]

I 100% agree with you.

Sounds like something text based should come to the rescue here.

OpenVMS? Some flavor of MVS, z/VM or similar? Linux?

Cheers,

Miser

Re:do you run Anything Else, other than Kernel?

[Ash-Fox]

what about "you need libc.blabla version 3.2.1 blablabla?"

Stick it in your fakeroot/container environment?

I was just going to switch TO Windows 7

[zwarte piet]

from xp. finally expecting some new stuff next week to replace my beige box.

The last decent Windows version was Windows 2000

[deltaromeo]

NT4 and Windows 2000 were fairly decent. Windows XP was just a new skin on top of Windows 2000. After that it all went downhill.

Change for change's sake is not good for users

[dtjohnson]

Microsoft is putting users on a continuous upgrade cycle. Windows XP to Windows 7 to Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 to Windows 10. Obviously, this is good for Microsoft because they will keep selling Windows licenses even if they do not have new users. But...is it good for users? Does Microsoft even care what the answer to that question is? A new version of Windows creates a lot of difficulty and expense for Windows users. A new windows often mandates new hardware, new software, and the need to learn a new user interface. These are costly and time-wasting. Of course the Windows user benefits from the new capabilities and features of the new Windows...or do they? Does Windows 8.1 really provide anything that Windows 7 did not? If not, users are not being treated well by Microsoft and perhaps should consider alternative ways of accessing computing services over the long run.

Mocking headline not fooling anyone

[gadlaw]

Lovely 'mocking' headline to this story. I still use Windows 7. I have a laptop with 8 on it and I hate it. Windows 8 is a horrific mess. My main computer still runs and will continue to run Windows 7. I will build a computer this year and put Windows 7 on it. Microsoft knows it's Windows 8 is a dud and is racing to bring out the next operating system and meanwhile they have trolls like the submitter planting snide comments like this one as if we'll all be magically changed from a reality based view of Windows 8 to the fantasy view as the computer heaven it's advertised as.

Re:I have a Different Problem

[Alien1024]

Not gonna happen. Planned obsolescence and all that. On a related note, I hear VMware Player Unity mode is pretty much the same thing as XP mode, only better - haven't tried it yet.

Re:badgers and windows

[ciscoguy01]

I don't understand the distinction. Practically speaking how would anyone know *why* a badger was angry?
Are we supposed to have a veterinary psychiatrist on staff to help get to the truth?
A soothsayer? An animal psychic?

MS Rapid Release Cycle

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

The problem with a ~3 year Windows release cycle is that a lot of commercial / FOSS programs can take 1-2 years to stabilize on the new platform (eg. properly supporting new video renderer, 3rd party backup/imaging programs, etc.)

Very Keen

[bitterblackale]

I eagerly await the re-release of Windows version n... Oh wait, I don't have to care because I use Linux for everything!

We've moved on...

[LinuxLuver]

Windows 8 was so annoying we moved on to Chromebooks. They actually do everything we need..... And being able to login 5 seconds after turning the device on is a constant pleasure. OK, the Chromebook can't access Windows file shares so we use ftp the cloud instead. The Chromebooks are half the price of a Windows laptop and generally perform so well users are struck by how fast they are compared to MS bloatware.

Nobody likes Win 8

[Stubbyfingers]

And last time, it was Vista. It appears Microsoft's fallback position when they screw up is to burn the bridge behind them and keep on screwing up?

Any wonder I like Linux for everything except the occasional PC game?

Running Windows 8.1 Pro --

[Lodragandraoidh]

I'm running Windows 8.1 Pro on the few gaming machines in my home - and happy as a clam. I have one Win7 machine left in the network that is getting ready to get the treatment (new video card, power supply, and Windows 8.1 Pro).