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Microsoft Stops Selling Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 To Computer Makers (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report on VentureBeat: Out with the old, and in with the new. Microsoft yesterday stopped providing Windows 7 Professional and Windows 8.1 licenses to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), including its PC partners and systems builders. This means that, as of today, the only way you can buy a computer running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 is if you can still find one in stock. Two years ago, Microsoft stopped selling Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 7 Home Premium, and Windows 7 Ultimate licenses to OEMs. Now Windows 7 Professional and Windows 8.1 are also out of the picture, leaving Windows 10 as the only remaining option, assuming you want a PC with a Microsoft operating system. This is Microsoft's way of slowly phasing out old operating systems.
This is Microsoft's way of slowly phasing out old^H^H^H operating systems.
You can have any color car... as long as it's BLACK :)
They may be going through a rough patch (no pun intended) but bringing the codebase down to one main consumer OS makes sense.
If that sounds like the death of 400 vulcans, you are wrong! It's the sound of one nerdly type stuck in the 'naughties.
Conform or be cast out!
More like the market stopped buying it... at least to the point where it isn't worth supporting it. Let's be honest M$ isn't known for saying no to good money.
I think they're going to get tremendous pushback from customers, and they'll continue selling Windows 7 for a while longer, still. I can't imagine a lot of businesses using Windows 10. That interface is pretty silly.
I don't respond to AC's.
enterprise versions / downgrade rights are still out there right?
Windows 10 or SystemD, or a $2000 macbook pro with crippled ports. These are your choices in 2016.
Most enterprise versions are installed using the KMS process which doesn't deal in individual licenses. Microsoft wouldn't be able to determine which of these activations are for new installs or for reactivating a machine that had to be reimaged for some reason.
It depends on your agreement with Microsoft. A large company I worked for had "n-1" version regression rights in their EA. So if they are buying systems stickered with Windows 8, they can legally install Windows 7 on it.
As with all things Microsoft, it's a matter of how much you pay them.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
An admirable goal, but it does not take into account all those computers shipped with Windows 9. They will still have to support those, smart guy.
Unless the customers actively hate it.
In the data by netmarketshare.com, the market share for Windows 10 on the desktop has not increased since August. That is untypical, usually a new Microsoft OS would rise in percentage until a successor is released.
At the same time, the market share for Windows 8.1 is pretty stable since June. Similar for Windows 7, it seems people REALLY dislike the idea of switching to Win10.
Now the question is, where will those people go when Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 go out of support? ;-)
My guess is that many of them will keep their systems despite no more security updates, which may have interesting results at some point
C - the footgun of programming languages
A company I work for has been using Linux in the server environment for, well, before I worked here (+15 years?)... It's always been a shouting match game in conversations about switching desktops from one to the other. We've held on to Windows for compatibility and, more importantly here, familiarity reasons. None of the company employees (sans IT) know what a Linux distro OS looks like, let alone how to use it. I was actually shocked when we had a short meeting about this today - we're forced to in the next two years "upgrade" to Windows 10, or start the process of documenting usage procedures, converting in-house software to Linux-compatible (no WINE), making procedures of all employees' unique or shared daily work make sense in an environment they are not familiar with, accounting for third-party software that is Windows-only, and ironing out the bugs of printing (we have some pretty custom stuff, albeit simple). The meeting lasted less than half an hour and the decision was made to migrate. The third party software and unique printing, uh, debacles will be worked out by virtualizing the Windows OS completely, using snapshots at different points during the day and having the central FS shares be the same as they were. Company policy is to NOT use Windows for any purpose involving Internet activity; the software we use that is Windows-only is internal to us; only uses the 'net to upgrade between versions. We already had LibreOffice in place and people are familiar with it and using it every day. There will be a dedicated, non-internet gateway machine in each department for things that involve HAVING to use MS Office for some reason. Sharing sales presentations will be a snap - from a virtualized instance of Windows 7 until it's necessary for "on-board" or other reasons to use Windows 10 (showing another company that we use the same, etc etc etc). I can't believe the meeting was as short as it was. We've been preparing but just NOT doing it. That has been irritating me for a while now. Better to slowly transition than quickly. But wait, it will be a slow transition because we have a couple of years left! I don't "do that" when it comes to bashing MS just to do it, but this gives me a chance to NOT bash, but thank them in an offhanded way for nicely making the decision for us. You want to force us to be in your control without options, well, now you lose control. Before it was tolerated.
I'll run right out and buy a new Yosemite Macbook then... Oh they only offer the current OS and not the last 2 previous ones as well?
Next you will pay (rent) the privilege to have all the things they took away from you back in windows 10... piece by piece like some kind of sick in game purchase system.
My work laptop still runs XP. People said the world would end when support stopped. Yet the Thinkpad lives on
I know that no longer selling to OEMs is not the same thing as EOL, but I still feel like Windows 8.1 is "too new" to already having it phased out. I'm not saying that 8.1 was great or anything, but it at least had the potential to be a longer lasting offering of OEMs. Sure, MS is trying to push everyone to Win10, but as a user of Win10 since it was in beta, I think that it still feels just as beta as it was when I first used it. For that reason, when I build a desktop for someone or install a newer version of Windows for people that still have a computer running Vista (for whatever reason, but it happens), I default to installing Windows 8.1.
Thanks for the cheese, I'm outta here. Ain't gonna touch Windows 10 spyware version.
"Microsoft stops selling Windows" would have been fine with me.
enterprise versions / downgrade rights are still out there right?
The Enterprise version is not (legally) available to consumers and requires the purchase of a certain number of licenses
In 2025, they'll be dropping their stick, Android, xPhone etc into an intelligent 5K HDTV cradle as the huge "desktop" and telling their grandkids about the evils of the Soviet Union and Microsoft...
Remember, choice is socialism!
We just put Windows 10 here at our business and the first thing I had to do was rip out half the operating system (thusly neutering it) and block them at the fire wall. All this in the name of simplicity and privacy. Microsoft. Stop your evil ways....
Rubbish. There is no concept of n-1 only in an enterprise agreement
Depending on your vendor's/manufacturer's willingness to play along, you can still buy machines with 10 preinstalled and downgrade to an older version for another year or so.
Enterprise agreements are a different world entirely.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
A couple of years ago, I bought Office 365 Home, since I needed to have it on >1 computer, and could not justify paying $200 times that number. So I rented the 5 license software, and put it on 3 of my computers, including 1 abroad. One great thing was that it also comes with 5 1TB OneDrive storage quotas, so I could use 3 different emails on each of them to provide 1TB backup for each.
That being said, I'd get off Windows the day it goes completely subscription based
Can anyone elaborate on this some more?
Each year we ship about a dozen PCs that control research instruments and W10 is not suitable for running them*. While we have started migrating to Linux we will need a stop-gap solution until the end of next year. W7 should fill that gap, but if our supplier suddenly cuts us off we'll be stuck.
Are there restrictions on the physical location of PCs running Enterprise Windows? Can I, for example, buy 10 Enterprise licenses and then install them on PCs and then ship those PCs to the far corners of the globe and expect them to continue to work and be legal? Since these will be running at customer sites no one wants to be paying an annual fee for these computers, and in some cases they can't. The instrument is a one off purchase price and all parts of it must continue to operate for 10-20 years without intervention. I don't buy the argument that paying again for the OS software should qualify as annual maintenance.
I'm also under the impression that most EAs contain a clause forbidding the customer from discussing/disclosing the purchase price? Can anyone comment to the cost of Enterprise? Are we talking USD$500 per seat? USD$1000?
*Quite simply (but among other things) the forced updates and forced restart are complete show stoppers. My understanding is these can be disabled in the Enterprise version.
Where do you want to go today?
Uh, to Linux . . .
Never thought I would get to the point of totally abandoning Windows. But after a series of issues and the constant nags of try Office, try Edge, give this a try. Reboot for install of updates, reboot because everything stopped responding. I mean its terrible what Windows 10 is anymore. What's more disturbing is you can't turn off some of the stuff that would make it more acceptable. Just wonder how many now expect a Windows 11 to come along? Because I can definitely say I think Microsoft needs to reevaluate Windows 10 as a final OS.
Well, if Microsoft wanted to boost computer sales, this is a fantastic way to do it. People are now going to be scrambling to grab computers that still have Windows 7 before they're all gone.
Look, Windows 7 is old. It has old technology from 7 years ago. There is no way anyone could want a computer with something so obsolete.
Sure, Linux and FreeBSD are over 20 years old and slowly increases in users every year. But their excuse is that their software is good, while Windows has a shelf life barely better than an egg salad sandwich.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
After the Apple MBP hardware debacle I'm seriously considering switching back to my Win7 license, but I'd just assumed all the power (16gb, GTX) laptops were Win10 by now. Any recommendations?
Sorry this is all a bridge too far. I neither seek nor have a place in any "future" that disrespects people to such an extent.
Tech industry used to be cool. It used to be companies cared at least somewhat about competing on merit providing useful new capabilities and better tools to get the job done. Now seems all anyone wants to do is fall over themselves to manipulate and stalk their customers with business models previously exclusive province of malware vendors.
Incremental improvements to W10 are NOT worth tolerating or wasting time bypassing intentional baked in evil nor am I willing to reward Microsoft by supporting what I believe to be unacceptable and unethical behavior.
Every intentional UX trick designed to covertly leak information, provide false assurances with clever language or cow people into submission reflects poorly not only on Microsoft but the industry as a whole.
It is NOT ok to profit from ignorance of YOUR customers anymore than you would deem it acceptable for a doctor or mechanic to profit from YOUR ignorance.
The cesspool of "me too" followers who use what everyone else is doing as cover for their increasingly valueless schemes does not speak to anything I would recognize as the "future" rather just another lame example of "market failure".
Perhaps your apology would be less phony if Microsoft hadn't spent so much effort last year writing brand new spyware for Win 7.
Why does no one complain when Apple does this?
You just don't like chaaaaaaaaaange!
It's not a screamer (it's just an 8-core AMD chip) but at least it's fully modern I/O wise (USB 3.1 and Type C) and I bought it a nice clean Windows 7 license. Just enough time to take up a hobby to replace new games. I can only play so many retrogames. Maybe I'll go outside
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
At the same time, the market share for Windows 8.1 is pretty stable since June.
Yes, it has stabilized to a point under those running Windows XP. There will always be a portion of the population no matter what version of an OS it is, just doesn't want to upgrade. New desktop OS's just don't matter to the vast majority of people that just use it to browse the web. The same thing was said of every version of Windows ever released, and Windows 10 is no different.
I work in a smaller shop. My main industry, healthcare, has expensive legacy hardware so we will need to deploy 7 for the foreseeable future in some cases . We have been told that if you have an OEM 10 license key purchased and stuck to the machine, you can install 7, use any previously activated 7 key, and it will activate. Key must match version of 7 you are installing and version of 10 you have purchased a license for, home, pro etc..
I would suggest looking at Windows Server 2012 R2.
And yet, touch is the most common way we interact with computers today. Wow.
True, in the case of devices devoted to a single task at once, if not a single task altogether. But what's "the most common way we interact with computers" that are capable of displaying more than one application at once, such as one in which to read and one in which to write?
Windows 10 other than Enterprise has no UI for disabling updates, nor for setting an Ethernet connection as "metered". When someone connects a desktop computer to a satellite modem, it's through an Ethernet cable. But it's still metered, on the order of $5 to $10 per gigabyte. Or when someone tethers a laptop computer to a smartphone through a USB cable, the phone appears to the computer as an Ethernet adapter. But it's still metered, with pricing at a similar order of magnitude.
Unlike service packs to Windows 10, service packs and update rollups to Windows XP and Windows 7 weren't multiple gigabytes.
I'm not worried. I don't need Microsoft anymore. I'm already free of their crutches (shackles).
I've became familiar with Linux since my current job began a few years ago. It's all we use and the learning curve has been fine. My coworkers are lifelong at-home Linux users who've taught me the deeper intricacies to it and I've found analogs for pretty much everything I need. BETTER versions in some cases (GIMP vs photoshop, Libre vs Office). They gave me a retired machine and taught me how to make a bootable Linux stick and install on a fresh drive. It's already set up and runs.
One of these days I'll move the guts (or get new ones) into an ATX max case I have, along with all my drives, including some new ones I have ready. Then I can reorganize all my files between them. Most of the drives are in pairs so I'll use them as live back-ups with everything on each drive copied to its twin. One drive in each pair will be accessible, via Samba share, to my Windows machines and I'll write a cron job on the Linux box to routinely copy new files from those drives over to their Linux-only siblings, along with a log of said files. Any files that have changed will be left on the Samba drives and listed in a separate log so I can investigate and confirm the move/copy/deletion or revert/erase the Samba files to avoid losing/catching anything caused by an infection on Windows. Or I could use subversion...
Windows won't know the twins exist and I'll configure the Linux box to ignore all outside connections and other types of connection attempts from the Windows machines. I won't even allow any tunneling from the Windows machines, just in case. The Linux box will be almost strictly a file server with only occasional direct usage for important OS/hardware upgrades, maintenance to the cron job or creating external backups. No browsing or installation of anything other than from trusted repositories, and especially no execution of any files on those drives, ever. The file integrity on the sibling drives should be fine forever. Over time I can replace the drive pairs with new sets that have larger capacity. Maybe even get extras for spares or periodic external backups to pack away.
I'll keep my Windows XP laptop and Windows 7 desktop around and in their current state forever (only an OS drive with no files on them) or until something better comes along that can flawlessly run all my Windows-only stuff (mainly games). If anything happens to them I'll just revert to an old, already verified XP/7 image so I don't have to rely on Microsoft's validation servers.
I doubt Microsoft will smarten up anytime soon, if ever, so they can eat my shit. I won't be their product.
Windows 10 Enterprise is only available via a yearly subscription and is targeted at large enterprises. Windows 10 Professional is full of ads and forces mandatory updates, making it a non-starter as a reliable workstation OS. Microsoft is going to lose a fucktonne of business from small to medium size organisations that demand reliability and predictability. Once those customers start protesting loudly vendors of engineering application suites will dump Windows for the same reasons game developers shunned the Wii U. At this point its a toss-up as to whether that lost business goes to Apple or Linux but Microsoft is going to lose it none the less.
Whether MS likes it or not Windows 7 is going to be around for a long time. Also Xp may be slowing fading but its still being used by a lot of people
Agreed, funny we don't see this whining when Apple updates it's OS across the board on all devices capable of handling it. This is how OS's will work from now on. You get the current stable release when you buy the device and it updates as time progresses until the hardware can no longer handle the new features/functions. At which point the hardware is going to be well past replacement anyway. Yes you can still keep using it, but at your own risk as support is limited at best.
An admirable goal, but it does not take into account all those computers shipped with Windows 9. They will still have to support those, smart guy.
There is no nine because seven ate it.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
I think for some they're going to be running Windows 10 in a VM, as a means of taking back a measure of control. From blocking to rollbacks, and everything in-between. Virtualization has come far were even games and graphics can be done in it. The only problem is most haven't heard of it.
People said the world would end when support stopped.
If you're seeking admiration for running XP I suspect you're in the wrong place.
Who thought it would stop working when support ended? Nobody with a functioning mind.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Windows 7 came out in 2009.
Find me a new computer running OS X Snow Leopard or Ubuntu 9.04 which also came out in that year.
Of course, this is Slashdot, so it's only wrong when evil Micro$oft does it.
We're going the other way - all the apps run off the citrix server farm so you local OS is irrelevant. Only Microsoft products run locally (office, outlook, IE)
Just bought my first laptop ever last week, a refurbished Dell Latitude E5430 for $185. This is the first legitimate copy of Windows I've had in decades.
Who thought it would stop working when support ended? Nobody with a functioning mind.
Microsoft fanbois and shills don't have functioning minds. That's why they use and promote Spyware 10.
2016 was the Year of Linux on My Desktop. At home, my main system is Korora 23 (I had problems the one time I tried whatever replaced fedup; haven't gotten around to trying again). I have my Windows desktop around because it still has some of my old games installed on it.
I switched to LibreOffice at the same time. I still use Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2013 at work, but only because I haven't gotten a new system. If I get a new one at all, I'll install Linux first and virtualize Windows. At present I am virtualizing Linux at work.
I work with Linux server all day, at home and work.
My point is that the previously steady increase of Windows 10 marketshare (which every previous MS operating system had as well) seems to have stopped in recent months. While its predecessors' marketshare appears stable. Something is not going as planned for Microsoft.
BTW, Windows XP is still declining, albeit slowly. Netmarketshare shows it slightly below 8.1 now.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Considering the mess caused by the Apple Macbook Pro release announcement, Microsoft realized that they didn't have to worry about most people jumping ship, even if they still wanted Win7.
I didn't have time to read every comment, so please excuse this post if it is a duplication. Microsoft has extended the Windows 7 downgrade program for OEM manufacturers through October 31, 2017. As a Lenovo partner I verified this with their system engineering team last week and I also saw a letter from Panasonic to its partners confirming the same information. Retail establishments will not have access to Windows 7 systems as a general rule. Only OEM partners that purchase downgraded systems directly from the OEM manufacturers or through channel distributors will have access to Windows 7 systems for an additional year.
You can still get windows 7 installs through manufacturers. They sell you an OEM license for windows 10 pro which includes downgrade rights and then slap a windows 7/8 image on the computer and ship it out.
You can go on the DELL website right now and find windows 7 business laptops. In fact, the default selection on the operating system IS windows 7. Example:
DELL 7470 - Operating system:
( ) Windows 10 Pro, 64-bit, English, French, Spanish [subtract $20.00]
(*) Windows 7 Professional English, French, Spanish 64bit (Includes Windows 10 Pro License) [Included in Price]
A right to long term public oversight over business arises under the 9th Amendment, as a corollary to the right to ethics in business, which naturally implies a right of access to the source code of older software packages produced by businesses. After all, little meaningful oversight over a software company can happen with access to the full (and not obfuscated) source code.
Since Microsoft is phasing out Windows 7, it follows that under the highest law in the land they must release the source code to allow public oversight to occur. Should this requirement come into conflict with lessor law - such as contract law or copyright law or trade secret laws - those lessor laws must yield to the authority of the Bill of Rights.
I think you are referring to a VLA. All I can say is if a customer has a Microsoft Win 10 Enterprise VLA, some computer manufacturers are still going to be able to sell them PCs with Windows 7 Pro pre-installed at the factory.
It depends on what Microsoft Tier level the PC manufacturer is. The customer also who is buying the PC also has to have a Microsoft Win 10 Enterprise VLA.