Windows 7 and 8.1 Are Gaining More New Users Than Windows 10 (digitaltrends.com)

New submitter TroII writes: After Microsoft ended its year-long "free" Windows 10 offer, new installations have slowed predictably. But in an unexpected turn, October saw more new installs of both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 than of Windows 10. Compared to September's numbers, market share increased only 0.06% for Windows 10, while new installations of Windows 7 and 8.1 were an order of magnitude higher at 0.68%. According to tracking firm NetMarketShare, Windows 7 is still by far the most popular version of the OS, installed on more than twice as many computers as Microsoft's latest offering.

Comments

surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

So few people use features specific to 7,8,10. To general user its arbitrary.

Re:surprised

[EnsilZah]

I'm quite fond of the feature where the OS doesn't decide to reboot at arbitrary times without asking permission after installing an update I didn't approve.

Re:surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

The most important "feature" is the UI. And the UI of Windows 8 and 10 is a horrendous clusterfuck of bad design. There are a couple of third party programs that fix some of the problems, but why bother? Why not just use the version that is good right out the box and isn't constantly trying to fuck you.

Re:surprised

[butzwonker]

Well, I strongly prefer an UI like in Windows 7 and want to be in full control of updates. The last point is the most important, because various Windows 7 updates in the past would have destroyed my installation if I hadn't checked before (not) installing them. I'm especially worried about "accidental" problems with dual boot systems, which happened two times in the past.

Apart from that, yes, of course, an OS is good if you don't need to know or care what it is actually doing. It should mainly provide a link to the library programmer and the application programmer, not to the end user. If Windows 10 didn't force updates and had the ordinary look and feel you'd expect from a desktop OS, or allow me to configure it in that way, then I'd be happy using it. A good OS should give you the same desktop experience all the time, with only minimal changes where they make sense, not force you to learn new ways of performing the same tasks every 3-4 years.

Re:surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an excellent 3rd party program called "Classic Shell" that replaces the Start Menu.
I like it better than anything from Microsoft.
What other programs have you found useful additions to 7 and 8.1?

Re:surprised

[fbobraga]

I think it's related to corporate users: corporations avoiding win10 is quite common, where security is a high concern...

Re:surprised

[unixisc]

Reason is that you will get the nag button on your status bar urging you to upgrade (if you have updates enabled), or you would be malware prone (if you have updates disabled). I'm fine w/ 10 - installed Classic Shell, as AC above suggested, and it makes it look even better than 7. Only thing - by the time Microsoft introduces a subscription only OS, I hope to have migrated completely to either TrueOS or SteamOS, or gotten everything I need on my tablets. I'll run Windows 10 as long as it is supported, but the moment Microsoft tries to 'upgrade' me to a Windows 365 type OS, it will be Sayonara to Windows for me

Re:surprised

[johanw]

However, windows 10 is still ugly and unclear (which window has foxus? I can't see it quickly on that excuse for a GUI) and windows 8.x also looks not nearly as nice as the classic view on windows 7. MS did it right with windows 95, then improved on that in 98 and 2000. After that, it became childish (XP default look), ugly (win10) or schizophrenic (mixing a phone GUI in 8 and 10).

Re:surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

I have 7 and do not have any nags and I update. Even if I did not update, that's not an automatic security threat. I do not run anti-virus because it's not needed if you don't download random shit or open suspicious attachments. Periodically someone will foolishly enter a bet with me that I'm unknowingly infected with malware or some rootkit, so we make a live DVD and scan the machine without a hit. Every. Damn. Time.

Re:surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

If Windows 10 didn't force updates and had the ordinary look and feel you'd expect from a desktop OS, or allow me to configure it in that way, then I'd be happy using it.

Essentially you want Windows 7 with longer support, but can Microsoft honestly charge hundreds of dollars for that? They need to change things to justify incrementing the version number, even if they already were at a local optimum.

Re:surprised

[bondsbw]

I'm half with you. I like where they are going with Windows 10's UI (I don't care that it still feels half baked) but want to have the final say on things like updates.

I don't even care if disabling updates takes a bit of hackery... regedit, powershell, cmd.exe, etc. Preventing botnets by raising the bar is a good thing. But if I take deliberate steps to switch it from its default state of being a home PC OS to a professional configuration that I fully control, I shouldn't have my efforts reverted by the OS.

Re:surprised

[unixisc]

In Windows 8, Microsoft changed the kernel - moved to a more micro-kernel like platform. Couldn't they have changed just the start button from a Windows Flag to their Windows, but left the pull-up menu unchanged? The Metro interface was something for a new platform that did not as yet exist, and it never made sense making the same OS for a phone. If they wanted to make the Windows 8 kernel the same basis for Windows Phone, they could have done that w/o touching the desktop OS.

In short, can't a company change the version number for just overhauling the underlying kernel, even if the UI remains the same? It's already the case in Linux and BSD - I can go from PC-BSD 10.2 to 10.3 w/o changing the look of Lumina

Re:surprised

[TheRaven64]

In short, can't a company change the version number for just overhauling the underlying kernel, even if the UI remains the same? It's already the case in Linux and BSD - I can go from PC-BSD 10.2 to 10.3 w/o changing the look of Lumina

You're someone who runs PC-BSD and has unix in their username, so you're probably someone who knows (or, at the very least, has some self identity associated with pretending to know) about operating systems. If someone advertises a new OS based on kernel features, you'll probably look at it and say 'those are good and useful features that are worth an update'. You are not even slightly representative of the general public. If the UI doesn't change, they won't believe that there are significant new features.

Re:surprised

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Essentially you want Windows 7 with longer support, but can Microsoft honestly charge hundreds of dollars for that?

Actually, I wish they had done something very much like that. They would have a commercially viable way to continue support for a good product indefinitely, and the rest of us wouldn't have to put up with either fighting them to keep our systems working the way we want or switching to an alternative that for some reason we consider worse than what we had before.

For critical software like an OS, I think it's reasonable to expect a certain amount of support (say, bug fixes plus security updates for the realistic working lifetime of the hardware it runs on) to be included with the purchase. However, offering some sort of optional and reasonably priced subscription to fund those updates beyond that pre-determined cut-off point and to maintain compatibility with newer equipment and standards that are released after the original OS seems like a win-win deal for everyone.

Re:surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

only xp

Re:surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, you forgot Windows ME and Vista! *ducks*

Re:surprised

[thegarbz]

Windows 10 had that too. It asks you when to reboot, and warns you an auto reboot is accredited when your computer is set to. Arbitrary in this context is translation for "I don't know what I'm doing"

Re:surprised

[thegarbz]

The coloured ones, the only one with a different colour compared to the others. It's amazing that everyone in the world can figure this out quite easily except for you.

Re:surprised

[nmb3000]

Well, I strongly prefer an UI like in Windows 7 and want to be in full control of updates.

I completely agree with you, but full control over updates is no longer a selling point of Windows 7. Microsoft has moved to a single monthly rollup package for Windows 7 which always includes all previous updates and is only all-or-nothing. So, for example, the November 2016 update that comes out next week will include all updates from the August 2016, September 2016, and October 2016 update packages.

It's a step backwards in every possible way and exists solely to make it easy for Microsoft to shove whatever updates they want down their users' throats. The Windows 10 GWX fiasco has taught them a valuable lesson about the dangers of consumer choice and giving users control over their computers.

Re:surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing like waking up in the morning to find all your apps gone because the thing rebooted in the middle of the night. Although logging in and watching the anti-malware service peg the disk at 100% is also fun! Made me realize my computer belongs to Microsoft and they'll do with it whatever they please.

Re: surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

they didn't charge for Win10

Re:surprised

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Nope. Windows 7 - I believe 8.1 as well - allows you to not install updates.
In fact that is the only way it works for me now, their brand new unified update for October was automatically backed out by my system so I can no longer apply their updates. That is withdrawal of support by the back door.

Re:surprised

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Microsoft considers my Windows machines to be vehicles for their updates, they think I only purchased the PCs for that purpose. The Windows 10 machine breaking the dual-boot Linux installation should be actionable - it is probably time to restart the monopoly anti-trust proceedings.

Re:surprised

[EnsilZah]

How about when it informs me that it scheduled an update in an hour and I'm not at the computer, so I don't get to see the popup and I lose my open documents?

How about when I want to reboot because my Wacom driver has stopped working and I don't have 40 minutes to sit through an update install I wasn't aware of because I'm in the middle of actually trying to do some work?

How about when I've delayed the update install a couple of times and now Windows decided I don't get a choice when to reboot and just shuts off?

So now I have the update service disabled and I'm not getting any updates installed instead of installing them at a convenient time like I do on 7.

Re:surprised

[Qzukk]

My 7-to-10 upgrade did not have the "show color on title bar" option enabled at the very bottom of the colors tab at the bottom of the theme control panel turned on by default, so every single window was the same color, focused or not.

Thankfully someone here took pity on me a while back and told me what I was missing when I complained about it, instead of insulting me.

Re: surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the past tense? Because it was free for a limited time? Cute factoid, but irrelevant for those who are making the upgrade decision today.

Re:surprised

[Motherfucking Shit]

I said "Satyanara" to Windows 10 after it rendered one of my computers useless, it went into infinite rebooting loops after an update. I dug up an old DVD of Windows 7 and did a fresh pave and reinstall on all my machines. I haven't looked back since. That was much earlier in the year, so I guess I'm not counted in the article's October installs. I have to figure a lot of people must be doing the same thing I did. Getting fed up with 10 and going back to the much better 7 experience.

Re:surprised

[iampiti]

Don't worry. It will stop being schizophrenic: They've said they will progressively steer the UI towards a phone one on Windows. *shudders*
Why don't they allow the user to choose between a desktop UI (Win 7's for example) and a completely touch oriented one?

Re:surprised

[Darinbob]

According to Microsoft, you job is not to use your computer for work, instead your job is to look at the advertisements so that Microsoft makes more money.

Re:surprised

[Darinbob]

For forgot that the marketing department was in charge of Windows development. That means logic is not in the equation. They wanted to sell more phones, so the goal is to make a desktop that makes the users think "WTF, this looks just like a phone, so I should go use a phone instead!"

Re:surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey MS shilling moron, I recognize your name from a previous thread about MS... what a surprise!

Now, like last time, perhaps you will look like less of a fucking moron if you would address the points the guy made in his reply.

Sadly, both you and I know that you can't and won't :)

Re: surprised

[unixisc]

People who are upgrading today, and paying for the upgrade, should not be subjected to spying. In the case where Windows 10 was free, one could say that the customer data was the product. But when the customer is paying for it, like they now are, they should not be the product

Re:surprised

[thegarbz]

You left a computer for over an hour with open and unsaved documents, in not normally a victim blamer but you have it coming. Also windows updates don't magically apply when software user's standard wake timers like the ones that prevent screensavers while watching a video or prevent sleep while encoding or compiling.

Again learn how your computer works.

Re:surprised

[thegarbz]

So your complaining about your configuration even though you fixed the problem and even though millions of computers including every out of the box install? With that train of thought i pity you too.

Re:surprised

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

FYI, they are also releasing a security-only patch each month, but it's not being advertised or distributed via the usual Windows Update mechanism now. (This is probably a blessing anyway, given how hopelessly slow and unreliable Windows Update has been in recent months.)

Instead, you have to go to the Microsoft Update Catalog and look it up manually. Search for something like "October 2016" and look for the monthly update or rollup for your version of the OS under the "Security Updates" classification. Download the relevant update, and then install it using WUSA.

There's a stunning irony that it doesn't currently seem to be possible to verify the integrity of that download against any published checksums or the like, while the Update Catalog itself isn't served over HTTPS, so it's basically impossible to obtain the security-only updates securely. However, if you're willing to trust the path between your systems and Microsoft's server, this does at least get you the security patches without anything else you might not want on your systems running pre-10 Windows versions.

Re:surprised

[Pentium100]

What's the problem with that? My Windows 7 PC is stable, last time it went for almost 2 years uptime before crashing. When I mainly used Windows XP, it was less stable, crashing maybe two-three times a year (max uptime I got was something around 400 days).

So, when I leave my PC, I expect to see it not-rebooted when I come back (if only to keep the various programs open and various Firefox tabs open with sites that would auto-logout me if I closed the tabs).

So, the setting of "reboot your PC at random" vs "reboot your PC at random but with 1 hour warning" is completely unacceptable to me.

Re:surprised

[david_thornley]

I'm especially touched by the realization on the part of Microsoft and many application vendors that what I really want to do when I turn my machine on is watch things update. Lesser mortals might have thought I intended to actually use the thing.

Re:surprised

[david_thornley]

I didn't use Me. I liked Vista a lot better than I like 10.

Re:surprised

[david_thornley]

Seriously, how many users upgrade the OS on their device? I'd think that most of MS sales are with new computers. If 8 and 10 had been usable as better 7s, they'd have been very successful.

Re:surprised

[Pentium100]

Can I set it to "when the power goes out long enough for both UPSs to discharge or when I decide to change some hardware"?

Re:surprised

[thegarbz]

Sure you can. After all you are using an enterprise or server edition for your mission critical OS. Those options are available.

Re:surprised

[thegarbz]

What's the problem with that?

Absolutely nothing providing you don't complain about dataloss. Better idea, why not store your entire system in non-volatile memory since you have such amazing uptime. You're spoilt for reliability and that makes you utterly reckless with your data. Yeah it suck if you lose some work but with that approach expect to be mocked rather than finding sympathisers.

So, the setting of "reboot your PC at random" vs "reboot your PC at random but with 1 hour warning" is completely unacceptable to me.

Again it's only random to someone who has no idea what they are doing. The reboots are only at a preset time and only if a computer is identified in an idle state, something various OSes have spent a good 20 years providing APIs to allow programmers to identify opportune times to perform maintenance.

The up-time numbers you're quoting also tells something else about your approach to security and updates. No doubt you'll be the first to complain when your computer crashes due to a fixed issue by some update you blocked.

Re:surprised

[dwywit]

Has anyone tried a Scheduled task running "shutdown -a" (abort a scheduled shutdown) every 30 seconds?

Re:surprised

[Pentium100]

To me, a reboot is just as inconvenient if it is due to a crash or an update. I usually save my data (after all, even once every two years crash is still a crash), but I cannot save the running programs, open files and window positions (yes, I would very much like to back up and be able to restore RAM contents of my PC). Some websites auto-logout me if I do not keep a tab open (sometimes with autorefresh set).

This only applies to my main PC (and one virtual machine on a server). I can reboot other servers because they come up fast and I usually do not need to do anything other than check that the various services (apache etc) have started. I can also reboot my laptop, because I use it rarely enough that I usually do not keep open programs etc on it.

No doubt you'll be the first to complain when your computer crashes due to a fixed issue by some update you blocked.

Not really. When my PC crashes, I check to see if there is an update that solves that particular problem. If there is, I install it, if there isn't, well, whatever.

Windows 7 is much more stable than XP in this regard. It was difficult to keep XP running even a year, maybe the lack of memory (4GB) contributed to this. Windows 7 runs great. In case you are wondering, both XP and 7 computers use ECC RAM (as do my servers). The only computers with non-ECC RAM are my laptop, UMPC and a PC connected to the TV (that even got updated every time I shut it down, until Microsoft decided to add telemetry and GWX updates).

Re:surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

After all you are using an enterprise or server edition for your mission critical OS. Those options are available.

Where can I buy 1 copy of Windows 10 Enterprise?

Go ahead, I'll wait here.

Re:surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Win10 running inside Parallels for OS X in "Coherence" mode makes it a lot easier to deal with. Plus the fact that with OS X, I can have multiple active desktops just like in Linux. I only fire up the Win10 VM when I have to use a Microsoft tool like SQL Server or Visual Studio.

Re: surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Be smart and save your docs before walking away from your pc. You would lose them anyway in a power outage.

Re: surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.softwaremedia.com/licensing

Re: surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

i love win 10 multi desktop. the only time i use linux is for dumb appliances like qualys. it cant really do much past that.
and dont even get me started on how worthless macintosh os is. when im forced to use it, its to delete the vm.

Re: surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed windows 10 is really annoying with the updates. I switched back to windows 7 not just for that reason but I was also experiencing hard locks. I believe these are due to beta Intel MEI drivers but not sure. It's a shame too because I have a legit copy of Windows 10 through my institution.

Re:surprised

[hucker75]

I've never understood why the default isn't to save anything that's open.

Re:surprised

[Ol Olsoc]

Windows 10 had that too. It asks you when to reboot, and warns you an auto reboot is accredited when your computer is set to. Arbitrary in this context is translation for "I don't know what I'm doing"

Everything Microsoft puts out is flawless, and every problem is the fault of the user. And it only gets better and better.

If you have a problem, you are stupid.

That's why I went back to W7. I'm not so damn stupid with that OS. Problem solved.

Re:surprised

[Ol Olsoc]

How about when it informs me that it scheduled an update in an hour and I'm not at the computer, so I don't get to see the popup and I lose my open documents?

Your fault. What kind of idiot leaves their computer alone for a second?

How about when I want to reboot because my Wacom driver has stopped working and I don't have 40 minutes to sit through an update install I wasn't aware of because I'm in the middle of actually trying to do some work?

Your fault. The upkeep of the computer is more important than your work. If you have work to do when Microsoft needs to do an update, you should have woke up earlier and not inconvenienced them. Then you'd have your work finished.

How about when I've delayed the update install a couple of times and now Windows decided I don't get a choice when to reboot and just shuts off?

Your fault. Delaying updates is a security risk, and if you had the nerve to delay them, you are just asking for problems, so if you lose work or the thing goes dead in the middle of a big meeting, maybe you will think twice.

So now I have the update service disabled and I'm not getting any updates installed instead of installing them at a convenient time like I do on 7.

Redmond is working on making that a crime.

Hopefully you didn't take my response seriously.

Re:surprised

[Ol Olsoc]

You left a computer for over an hour with open and unsaved documents, in not normally a victim blamer but you have it coming.

And you know everything about the guy. It isn't that it is a good practice, but I would sometimes get called away form my desk, for a minute, and not get back for hours. Then again, I didn't use an OS that acted like it knew better than me.

Also windows updates don't magically apply when software user's standard wake timers like the ones that prevent screensavers while watching a video or prevent sleep while encoding or compiling.

Again learn how your computer works.

I did. That's why I don't use Windows 10. The more you know about it, the less it is appealing. I do realize that every problem I have with W10 is my stupidity. So I moved back to W7, where I miraculously got a whole lot smarter immediately. Weird how that worked.

Re:surprised

[Ol Olsoc]

What's the problem with that?

Absolutely nothing providing you don't complain about dataloss. Better idea, why not store your entire system in non-volatile memory since you have such amazing uptime. You're spoilt for reliability and that makes you utterly reckless with your data. Yeah it suck if you lose some work but with that approach expect to be mocked rather than finding sympathisers.

Spoiled for reliability?!?!?!? We have reached the ultimate shill post. When you complain that reliability is a bad thing, you reached the pinnacle of fanboi'ism. Even a paid shill wouldn't declare that reliability is a bad thing.

You are Godammnedright I am spoiled for reliability. And your idea that we should be willing to settle for any less is just about the most ridiculous whining I have ever read. My job is to get things done with my computer, not struggle to make it work.

I fear you have a terminal case of Stockholm Syndrome.

So, the setting of "reboot your PC at random" vs "reboot your PC at random but with 1 hour warning" is completely unacceptable to me.

Again it's only random to someone who has no idea what they are doing. The reboots are only at a preset time and only if a computer is identified in an idle state, something various OSes have spent a good 20 years providing APIs to allow programmers to identify opportune times to perform maintenance.

I want my computer to reboot only when I tell it to reboot, not when the Operating system decides is a good time. I want a popup box that I can say reboot after the update, or reboot whenever. I know exactly what I am doing, and any reboot of the computer needs performed specifically at my direction. Not your's, not Microsoft's not Apple's, not Linus Torvald's. Mine. Me, the boss of my computer.

The up-time numbers you're quoting also tells something else about your approach to security and updates. No doubt you'll be the first to complain when your computer crashes due to a fixed issue by some update you blocked.

But the new issues caused by the update process are simply wonderful? Windows 10 causes more issues than it fixes, which is why I abandoned it except in the one network I do that doens'n have internet access, and therefore works.

Tell me - when a Win10 update comes in and knocks your computer out, let's say something simple, like the typical endless reboot "feature" - explain how this is the users fault. I'm interested, because I suspect you will have an interesting story about how it isn't Microsoft's fault.

Re:surprised

[Man On Pink Corner]

You left a computer for over an hour with open and unsaved documents

With a test running on $90,000 worth of equipment that has to be set up with $100/hour engineering time.

Again learn how your computer works.

Maybe you should learn how a phase noise analyzer works.

Re:surprised

[Man On Pink Corner]

Essentially you want Windows 7 with longer support, but can Microsoft honestly charge hundreds of dollars for that?

(Shrug) I'd pay it. I don't expect something for nothing.

But they never asked.

Re:surprised

[thegarbz]

With a test running on $90,000 worth of equipment that has to be set up with $100/hour engineering time.

So what you're saying is you're running critically important software that should be left unattended but you or your software vendor were too silly to use the APIs that have existed in Windows since the screensaver first was invented to indicate to the computer that it is actually working?

I mean Windows doesn't randomly shutdown while you're using it.

I know how a phase noise analyser works well enough that you should disconnect it from the internet and not let it run windows update in the first place. Every time I see someone talking about critical equipment on the topic of Windows 10 reboots I just shake my head and wonder if they got their systemadmin degree in a cereal box.

Re:surprised

[MooseMiester]

I agree with you about 8, it's horrible beyond belief. 10 has grown on me, and I actually like it.

The Windows 10 start/search/taskbar is the best yet. The Windows management features are pretty good too. Yes, the "let's find another way to display the same old shit" gets old....

Not Surprising

[LeftCoastThinker]

It is not a big shock after the tactics that MS has used. They have burned a lot of bridges with win 10 and those of us stuck in the Windows ecosystem are snatching up the best, most stable version, Windows 7. Be prepared for lawsuits though, as it looks like MS is going to try and shove the crappiest parts of Windows 10 on us through bundled updates...

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Could Windows 7/8 be converted to Windows 10 by stealth?

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Who would have thought that Nadella would end up being even more despised than both Gates and Ballmer? I mean, they only shat all over their competitors, but Nadella is making a point to shit over the customers, too.

Re:Not Surprising

[Opportunist]

You know what's funny? That there will almost certainly be someone who is willing and able to develop a tool to get rid of it. Maybe for a price, but people are willing and able to pay that price for their privacy.

MS could have had that money. And far more easily than whoever will develop that anti-spy tool.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey MS: Suprise. People don't want a Spyware OS. If you want to subsidize your OS with tracking, fine -- but at least let people have an option to get out of your data collection scheme. You do this for enterprise customers, so there's no reason you can't do it for non-enterprise customers. Asshats.

Not to defend the intrusive data collection but I'm not sure it's the issue stopping Win 10 adoption. In my experience very few people buying new personal PCs are 'downgrading' back from Win 10 to Win 7. On the other hand the business I am responsible for IT in, and a couple of others I know well, still deploy Win 7; in none of those cases is it data security that has stopped the adoption of Win 10.

Re:Not Surprising

[allcoolnameswheretak]

I think I'm one of the very few people who likes Windows 10. Yes, the telemetry features are not a great move, but just disable all of that crap and you're all set.
Windows 10 uses less resources and starts up faster than my previous Windows 7. But the real improvements where on my girl's older laptop, where the update from 7 to 10 worked wonders by greatly improving startup times and no longer locking up randomly when starting or using a browser. HD video on Netflix or Amazon Prime is greatly improved. She was very sceptical about the update because she preferred the "nicer" look of 7 compared to 10's spartan look and feel, but has had zero regrets after the update.

I have also had no incompatibility problems with applications and everything worked just as before, after updating. I was actually very surprised about how smooth the update was. I also like how 10 will explicitly ask me before performing updates and not simply decide to shut down and restart whenever it sees fit, like all previous versions of Windows seemed to do.

I don't use Cortana and whatever other privacy invading crap there might be, and as standard Windows installation for gaming and media, I think Windows 10 is better than 7.

Re:Not Surprising

[phayes]

Haven't tried them but:
https://www.oo-software.com/en...

In addition, some domains that can be blackholed on a router/firewall:
https://www.dslreports.com/for...
https://forums.untangle.com/we...

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Disable that crap? In Windows 10 Home (that about 80% to 90% of people have) I would love to see how you do that, and auto-update of course, because that "resets"anything to "Microsoft Standard".

Disabling really all crap is only possible in the "enterprise" edition, that is not available for the normal user. Even Windows 10 Pro does not give you the same amount of control you had in Windows 7 or even Windows 8.1. So - no downgrade to Windows 10 for me!

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the telemetry features are not a great move, but just disable all of that crap and you're all set. ... I don't use Cortana and whatever other privacy invading crap there might be, and as standard Windows installation for gaming and media, I think Windows 10 is better than 7.

How cute, someone who thinks it's actually possible to disable Cortana and all of the telemetry in Windows 10...

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Well too bad it all comes in one file now

You did read this article yesterday, right?

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

How cute, a couple ACs who have no idea what the fuck they're talking about.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 uses less resources and starts up faster than my previous Windows 7

I've heard the same claim about every Windows version since Windows 95. Every version is faster than the previous version. Let me just dig out a 386 machine, and you can prove how lightning fast Windows 10 is...

Meanwhile, the company I work at is buying everyone new PCs, because the old ones have become too slow since upgrading to Windows 10. Except mine, my PC is still running Windows 7, and is plenty fast for a Windows PC.

Re: Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

The only sensible comment I've found yet. You are correct, the only people deploying anything other than 10 are corporate IT who already have standard PC images. And at theiniscule percentages in this article, it could be swung by a couple of large customers hiring a few thousand people.

This is not what the /. Cheerleaders want it to be.

Re:Not Surprising

[allcoolnameswheretak]

I've heard the same claim about every Windows version since Windows 95

Considering that Windows 10 was designed as a "one size fits all" solution that is intended to run on machine with limited power, it's not surprising that in this case the performance is an improvement. Also they did away with the flashy Windows 7 UI and replaced it with rectangles - another performance improvement that I don't mind. I like minimal, simple things.

Re: Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

In the end it will. A mandatory security update will install, you will have to leave your computer on for the night and in the morning...

Re:Not Surprising

[RabidReindeer]

A differential patch means that the offending code is only downloaded if you don't have a current copy of it.

It does nothing to keep the offending code off the system - in fact, it's more likely to re-install it if it was removed.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

"just disable all of that crap" wow thanks for a good laugh.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

I like [...] simple things

We can tell

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

He probably thinks that by not using Cortana it isn't running or leaking data...

Re:Not Surprising

[TheRaven64]

The weird thing is that Microsoft seems to have adopted suicide as a business model. Their main competitor is Android creeping up with the 'it's all free, in exchange for all of your personal data' business model. They had a perfect opportunity for differentiating all of their products: you pay for them, but Microsoft protects your privacy and if you don't want to use their cloud offerings then they'll happily sell you the software to run the server parts for your organisation. They even ran some adverts about Hotmail not scanning your mail for targeted ads. Instead, they decided to compete directly with Google in a field in which Google is far more experienced.

Re:Not Surprising

[butzwonker]

The problem is that once a sufficiently large number of people use such a tool, Microsoft will circumvent it, and they have the leverage. They'll just encrypt information vital to the working of the OS (e.g. updates, activation data) together with telemetry.

As much as I hate to say it, this is an issue that requires a juridical, not a technical solution.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the telemetry features are not a great move, but just disable all of that crap and you're all set.

If you've used the tools provided by Microsoft, you've NOT disabled the spyware.
Plus, there's no telling what MS will throw into the next update.

Re:Not Surprising

[mlw4428]

Lawsuits? It's not your OS. You pay for a license to use it. As it stands, MS is stopping security updates soon enough - it'll be come a venerable wasteland of malware and spyware. Even worse is that, because you refuse to move to new OS or upgrade, your infected machine will begin to serve malware or act as a botnet node. How great. Upgrade or change OSes - your personal preference of privacy is irrelevant when (at the end of the day) you make it easy for malware authors to push their junk to the rest of us.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't actually disable the telemetry. Oh there are settings you can change that say it's disabled but the OS is still spying on you and sending that data to MS regardless of what your settings are.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

If you take it from MS point of view, the telemetry is trying to find out what people are STILL DOING ON win 7. If everybody on win 7 is using the same programs, and they find they dont' work on 10, they can fix that. I don't necessarily think this is the reason, but it is certainly a compelling option for them.

Re:Not Surprising

[fbobraga]

But the real improvements where on my girl's older laptop, where the update from 7 to 10 worked wonders by greatly improving startup times and no longer locking up randomly

Seems a badly fucked-up W7 install to me: Have tried linux on this laptop? (Linux Mint is your friend! [to avoid installing software: only installing google-chrome solved every issue on my sister's laptop...)

Re:Not Surprising

[StormReaver]

Yes, the telemetry features are not a great move, but just disable all of that crap and you're all set.

Just because you think you've disabled it does not mean you've actually disabled it. Microsoft has the sole discretion to completely ignore you, sneak its spyware in through other vectors, or automatically re-enable its spyware at any time it damn well pleases.

Re:Not Surprising

[fbobraga]

Except mine, my PC is still running Windows 7, and is plenty fast for a Windows PC.

Try any Linux-distro LiveCD on this machine (I strongly sugests linuxmint.com, for already having all the common software on the LiveCD) and fell what is real computer speed nowadays and sow it to management...

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll jump on board as one who likes Windows 10. I skipped 8 completely and went right to 10, as did most of the other Windows users in my office. Fast-forward a few months and our company was acquired and now we're all on Windows 8.1 Not a single person prefers it to 10. Boo.

Re:Not Surprising

[fbobraga]

s/sow/show/

Re:Not Surprising

[unixisc]

The weird thing is that Microsoft seems to have adopted suicide as a business model. Their main competitor is Android creeping up with the 'it's all free, in exchange for all of your personal data' business model. They had a perfect opportunity for differentiating all of their products: you pay for them, but Microsoft protects your privacy and if you don't want to use their cloud offerings then they'll happily sell you the software to run the server parts for your organisation. They even ran some adverts about Hotmail not scanning your mail for targeted ads. Instead, they decided to compete directly with Google in a field in which Google is far more experienced.

The niche that you are talking about seems to have been partly taken by Apple. Only that their laptops are costlier. But Apple does protect your privacy, and it does provide quality software. Only thing - they don't seem to be interested in the Business sector, given the high maintenance that it is, so that is probably where Microsoft could have done what you suggest. Wonder how Satya managed to sell Bill that bill of goods about making things free and selling the data. In fact, Windows 10 is no longer free, so honestly, Microsoft has no valid reason to keep collecting our data, assuming it ever had one

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

"...fine, but at least let people have an option to get out of your data collection scheme"

I think it's a lot worse than that. When I bought the "Professional" version of Windows 7 for installation on my machine a few years ago, it came without the telemetry/tracking stuff. It's a product I paid money for with (and without) certain features. If I'd wanted Windows 8 or 10 I would have bought those. Now they want to monetize my bought-and-paid-for installation after the fact by forcing me to choose between security updates and joining the tracking club? Despite whatever crap was in the EULA, that wasn't the original deal.

"I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further". That might okay for the Empire, but it's not okay for a company with paying customers. It's a bait and switch scam.

Re:Not Surprising

[Ol Olsoc]

Just because you think you've disabled it does not mean you've actually disabled it. Microsoft has the sole discretion to completely ignore you, sneak its spyware in through other vectors, or automatically re-enable its spyware at any time it damn well pleases.

I had several delayed updates on Windows 10 that re-enabled auto updates and re-enabled every one of their spyware settings. And broken things like webcams, audio devices, and ethernet devices. Computer works one day, then the next its pooched. I even got an infinite reboot feature one time.

And a day with Wireshark will show us that W10 appears to ignore the telemetry settings.

I have this weird requirement for my computers. Whatever else they do, they are required to work reliably. Windows 10 fails miserably in that regard. Windows 8 is administrative whack-a-mole. Windows 7? It works.

I have one Windows 10 setup that works. It is a network that isn't connected to the internet - airgapped by maybe 5 miles. No updates.

Re:Not Surprising

[Ol Olsoc]

but Microsoft protects your privacy

And the coffee meets the keyboard, dammit. If you are going for comedy you should let us know.

Re:Not Surprising

[fbobraga]

How cute, someone who thinks it's actually possible to disable Cortana and all of the telemetry in Windows 10...

+1 informative

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 uses less resources and starts up faster than my previous Windows 7.

Well, of course it does - the GUI is incomplete.
And you wouldn't really expect compatibility issues much anymore - most software has at least advanced to the point where it supports Vista.
BTW, on my windows 10 work box - an HP - the display driver crashes several times a day.

Re:Not Surprising

[operagost]

I installed Windows 10 on a Compaq laptop from 2006 that was running XP (and "designed for Vista"). By technical standards, this is an unwise move. But this is a platform that Microsoft claims will run as well on Windows 10, if not better.

It has 2 GB RAM and passed the assessment. With Windows 10, every time I boot it grinds the hard disk for 15 minutes straight, updating Defender and basically using all the RAM on the system for its own purposes. It would also force updates and REBOOT WHILE I WAS USING IT until I used domain policy to disable that. It's only by having it linked to a domain that this PC is usable. I do still have to disable, then enable the driver for the sound card on every boot, because even though it passed the assessment the sound card does not work until I do this.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

No need to. Just last week I thought my IDE crashed, because it just disappeared when I hit the close button. A few seconds later: "Oh yeah, I'm using Geany on Linux, not Visual Studio on Windows, and I already hit save all."

Re: Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

What is most used evolves, you know...

Re: Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Geany is only a text editor (a very good one, comparable with Notepad++ on Windows), not an IDE, you know...

Re:Not Surprising

[Joce640k]

Also they did away with the flashy Windows 7 UI and replaced it with rectangles - another performance improvement that I don't mind. I like minimal, simple things.

You really think that drawing rectangles is the reason it's faster?

Do you even have any idea what a graphics card is?

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe if you're a fool. I've yet to stumble into this malware that everyone seems to warn about. Then again I run firewalls, use a secure browser and don't run shady stuff.

Re:Not Surprising

[pr0fessor]

easy... unplug and turn the PC off then toss it in the trash or disable the network adapters or install it in a vm with no network adapters on {insert favorite linux or bsd flavor}

Re:Not Surprising

[Rick Schumann]

They have burned a lot of bridges with win 10

Speaking as someone who at one time had an MCSE, that's an understatement. I'd rather wrestle with any version of Linux now than put up with something that is literally spyware, and in some ways keeps trying to blackmail me.

Re:Not Surprising

[unixisc]

Pull out a 386 machine that has 1GB of RAM (it needn't be DDR3, it can be the old DRAM if you can get SIMMs of that density) and 120GB of storage, and it will run just fine. Nobody ever claimed that any NT version - be it 2000 or XP - was faster than Windows ME or 98

Re:Not Surprising

[TheRaven64]

You might want to read all of the words, and then you won't be so surprised.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I'm one of the very few people who likes Windows 10.

I rather like it - Windows 10 has never automatically installed an update or rebooted for me.

Then again, I'm not a complete tool, and so, am capable of actually configuring my system.

The real problem with Windows 10 is that the massive number of improvements came with a bunch of shit choices - the entire app nonsense; Cortana; telemetry. The fuck is notepad.exe trying to make outbound connections for? It's a fucking simplistic text editor.

Re: Not Surprising

[Killall -9 Bash]

Windows 10 is more hated than Vista. This is not what the M$ cheerleaders want it to be either.

Re:Not Surprising

[unixisc]

How many computers come w/ graphics cards these days - that's so 90s. Then, there was a bonanza of graphics cards and chipset vendors - Diamond Multimedia, 3Dfx!, 3dlabs, Matrox, S3, Media Vision, et al. All that in addition to NVidia, ATI and Intel. Today, there is just the last 3, and the whole graphics card concept has been lost in the GPU discussions.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

That rectangle touch screen UI which Win8 brought does not provide any performance benefits. Actually that fullscreen crap requires even more drawing compared to the simple windows. The Win10 is just the same crap as before underneath, they just aligned the naming between their desktop OS and Windows mobile.

Re: Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a security only bundle on the Microsoft catalogue, but you have to grab it manually and hide the one in windows update. Use windows update as a reminder.

Re:Not Surprising

[thegarbz]

A day with wire shark does that the OS talks to MS servers. Nothing more because it's encrypted. Now do you have sooner smoking gun no other experts have been able to produce that shows telemetry info being sent?

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Does an airgap really require such an extreme distance (5 miles)? Either there is a really lonely PC sitting out in the middle of nowhere doing Olsoc-know's-what, or else that's your cabin in the woods, playing Civilization VI.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're one of the average mundane masses who likes Windows 10.
Slashdot, at one point, was not a place for the average mundane masses. It's heartening to see that for the most part opinion shows it still isn't, at times. Because for the most part its popularity and resales detracted heavily from what made the community great.

Aside from that, a couple of points:
* As others said, you CAN'T "disable all that crap." The only way that works is if you run a custom proxy between your machine and the Internet, and even then Microsoft will change up IPs on you during "updates."
* ANY change of OS which trashes several years of band-aid patches will speed up computer performance. UNTIL you get enough new band-aid patches on the new OS.
* In starting / using a browser.... how much collective history are you making your machine sift through on startup? (See last point.) Keeping a browser responsive over time takes WORK. And knowledge. (When it doesn't totally screw you up with proprietary webpage applications that will absolutely REFUSE to work under Edge.... and once you set defaults back to IE, Microsoft will provide oh-so-helpful "Oh, You're Not Using Edge! Let Me Help You Fix That!!!" messages. Or throw up "error messages" and then override back to OEM default from what you SPECIFICALLY TOLD THE OS TO DO.
* You're lucky you've had no problems with compatibility. Ask certain webcam users, or legacy hardware users, if they had no problems.
* You DO use Cortana, whether you want to or not. More specifically, use Edge and all that data will feed to Cortana, whether you think it does or not. Use search.... you've just done business with Cortana. They've just allowed you to superficially hide a search bar, is all.

Whether you think it is "better" is subjective. Many don't. Sorry to burst your illusion bubble with reality.

Re:Not Surprising

[PRMan]

I'm running Windows 10 on an Asus eeePC Netbook (901 HA). It's by far the fastest OS I've ever used on that 2 GB RAM machine. Of course, that may be because I replaced the hard drive with an SSD, since with Windows 10, SSDs are really not optional.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

...386...1GB of RAM..120GB of storage...

On what planet would this even be possible?

Re:Not Surprising

[ScienceofSpock]

They know exactly why people are still using Win 7. Especially when you consider that the update from 7 to 10 was AUTOMATIC for most lay people. The rest of us still on 7 are here because we blocked the update to 10. In most cases, because we didn't want the damn spyware, or the horrible UI, or the lack of control over updates.

The reason they are trying to push telemetry to 7 now is not to find out why we're still using it, but to gather as much sellable data as they can.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I've found Windows 10 to be almost comically bad. Every update breaks something new. After the "Anniversary Update," the power button on my Dell tablet will no longer put it to sleep when on battery. It's still set to do that, but it doesn't work any more. Still works the useless case of being plugged in, when I'm not worried about turning off the screen sooner to save battery.

Re:Not Surprising

[David_Hart]

I use Spybot Anti-Beacon...

https://www.safer-networking.o...

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

The enterprise version of Win 10 doesn't force any updates.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, and your wife is sneaking out at night to volunteer in soup kitchens.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

My pfSense gateway disagrees.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget that EVERY VERSION OF WINDOWS since Vista has had ALL of the same telemetry.

EVERY VERSION SINCE VISTA! yes that means Win 7 also.

and your phone collects 100x more information about you then Win 10 does.

really people grow the fuck up.

I have win 10 running on 4 machines, 2 of them are old win 7 machines 1 is a win 8 laptop and another is a old Vista workstation.

They all faster than ever.

and the refresh feature is the single greatest thing MS has ever done since introducing system restore.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

just run a hacked version of Winders7 that springs as "non genuine" - they don't update that.

Re:Not Surprising

[iampiti]

Exactly this. I'd gladly pay to have Win 10's internals with 7's UI and of course no spying but no, whether you paid for your Win10 or not you get the same crap

Re:Not Surprising

[Motherfucking Shit]

Now do you have sooner smoking gun no other experts have been able to produce that shows telemetry info being sent?

No, because as you mentioned, it's encrypted. We can't see what data is being sent, so no one can find a smoking gun.

Maybe it's just "Machine ID 324698018 ran NOTEPAD.EXE" which, while still unacceptable to me, isn't too terrible. On the other hand, maybe it's more like "User ID poor_bastard@live.com ran NOTEPAD.EXE to open file \\COKESERV\\TRADESECRETS\CocaColaRecipe.txt whose contents are..." in which case it's incredibly bad. But we don't and can't know, because the communications with the mother ship are encrypted.

Re:Not Surprising

[myowntrueself]

Windows 10 uses less resources and starts up faster than my previous Windows 7

I've heard the same claim about every Windows version since Windows 95. Every version is faster than the previous version. Let me just dig out a 386 machine, and you can prove how lightning fast Windows 10 is...

Meanwhile, the company I work at is buying everyone new PCs, because the old ones have become too slow since upgrading to Windows 10. Except mine, my PC is still running Windows 7, and is plenty fast for a Windows PC.

Try running Linux on a 386. To make it a more or less fair comparison make that Ubuntu and not some trimmed down minimal command line only version.

(Of course you won't even be able to install the latest Ubuntu on a 386, probably not any version of Ubuntu but you could probably achieve the same effect with hmmm Gentoo plus a reasonable Gnome desktop environment. The build time might take a few years unless you compile on other boxes but you may well be able to do a comparison of sorts).

Let me know how you get along!

Re:Not Surprising

[Motherfucking Shit]

EVERY VERSION SINCE VISTA! yes that means Win 7 also.

Windows 7 does not have the telemetry if you don't install the KBs that infect you.

and your phone collects 100x more information about you then Win 10 does.

Enough with this red herring.

My phone doesn't have access to the files on my computers - I repeat, my computers, not Microsoft's - where I keep my private data. My computers, not my phone, store my tax documents, source code, proprietary work product and trade secrets, client data and invoicing, my passwords to everything, backups of family members' computers containing much of the same personal information, etc. My computers, not my phone, are where I conduct online banking and shopping and do anything else involving financial transactions and credentials. All of that data is private, and no one has permission to go fishing through it trying to "monetize" me or "enhance my experience." This is non-negotiable.

Google (or NSA) can siphon whatever they want off my phone. They'll find out I play Words with Friends, check Slashdot and Ars while I'm taking a dump, send and receive mostly boring emails on the account connected to the phone, and probably am overzealous about the number of server monitoring texts I have set up. If I really don't want to be physically tracked for some reason, I can leave the phone somewhere or pull the battery and drop the phone in a Faraday bag.

Just because I'm relatively OK with my phone being "leaky," and therefore rather cautious about what winds up there, does not mean I also must accept anyone mining through my private data on my computers. They are two entirely different worlds.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 uses less resources and starts up faster than my previous Windows 7.

This is such nonsense.
The RAM requirements actually increased with anniversary update:
https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-windows-annivesary-update-demands-at-least-2gb-memory/

W10 also uses more video memory and slightly more disk space.

It neither boots faster nor resumes from sleep faster. But it does include a new startup mode (since W8) called "fast startup", which is essentially just partial hibernation.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

The have burned nothing because people are still installing and using Windohs. Who cares what version it is. It is still Windohs.

Re:Not Surprising

[citylivin]

"But Apple does protect your privacy"

One of the first things OSX does after you install it is bitch at you about enabling location services and then forces you to create and link an apple ID to even get software updates for the OS. The level of cloud integration turned on by default on ipads is sickening as well.

So claiming OSX/IOS is better than windows as far as privacy is concerned is laughable. Microsoft is obviously playing catchup to OSX here but apple did start this BS first. Its just apple users crave loss of privacy because they dont have to worry about backups and things "just work(tm)". The reason they work is because of the tight control of apple corporate overlords.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

>...worked wonders by greatly improving startup times and no longer locking up randomly when starting or using a browser. HD video on Netflix or Amazon Prime is greatly improved.

OK, if her computer was hiccupping when opening a browser or had lackluster resolution whilst streaming video, then your problem was never Win7. It was your network, the laptop's hardware, hardware's age, or just plain 'ol drivers.

Win10's "improvements" were the same thing you could have done yourself easily, yet by going 10 you have accumulated all the curses of the new OS. And in fact used up more hard drive space than ever before!

What you did is akin to noticing your home's front door sticking, and instead of oiling the hinges you bought a new house. A haunted house.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

I have something to report. Go to hell for even hinting at excuses for this bullshit.

Re:Not Surprising

[david_thornley]

Gates was quite competent and only tried to screw over competitors, without letting little things like legality and morality get in the way. Ballmer is the one behind Windows 8 and RT. I had hopes for Nadella, but right now I see no reason to like him better than Ballmer.

Re:Not Surprising

[david_thornley]

"Just working" doesn't depend on spyware. The walled garden is control over what you can do and what hardware you can use, not spying. I'm not familiar with iCloud, but I think it uses 256-bit encryption. I know my iPhone is encrypted using AES-256.

I'm not saying that Apple isn't spying, but that they have no more incentive to do so than Microsoft.

Re:Not Surprising

[david_thornley]

Unfortunately, the "shady stuff" seems to be everywhere. My wife's work computer got infected from the New York Times website.

Re:Not Surprising

[techno-vampire]

Or a marketplace solution. If enough people stop using Windows because of all the spyware, Microsoft will have two options: take it out or go out of business. No, I don't expect that to happen, but it's not impossible and would get rid of the issue once and for all.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Updates can be controlled in group policy editor mine do not download till i allow them.
I would prefer win 7 but it would not boot on my skylake build.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

here's your technical solution: ubuntu.com

Re:Not Surprising

[Ol Olsoc]

A day with wire shark does that the OS talks to MS servers. Nothing more because it's encrypted. Now do you have sooner smoking gun no other experts have been able to produce that shows telemetry info being sent?

Oh - I just found out. All that telemetry is just suggestions for baby names and puppy videos.

Seriously? you are making the argument that because it is encrypted that it doesn't exist or doesn't matter? I add the doesn't exist because your argument seems rather ludicrous

There is obviously a certain amount of telemetry that all Operating systems use. That's how they know about updates and legit OS software. No problem. As well, if I have a program crash, I can voluntarily send the crash log to them. I'm all for that sort of thing.

But when an OS collects non-appropriate information even after you tell them not to, and resets your data collection settings to "express" after updates, which means you allow everything - I do not need to know exactly what is in the data that my system sent to them to know that they are operating in defiance of my wishes. Nope, nope, nope.

Re:Not Surprising

[Ol Olsoc]

Now do you have sooner smoking gun no other experts have been able to produce that shows telemetry info being sent?

No, because as you mentioned, it's encrypted. We can't see what data is being sent, so no one can find a smoking gun.

Maybe it's just "Machine ID 324698018 ran NOTEPAD.EXE" which, while still unacceptable to me, isn't too terrible. On the other hand, maybe it's more like "User ID poor_bastard@live.com ran NOTEPAD.EXE to open file \\COKESERV\\TRADESECRETS\CocaColaRecipe.txt whose contents are..." in which case it's incredibly bad. But we don't and can't know, because the communications with the mother ship are encrypted.

And if it was the first case, send in in cleartext. If I have an application crash, I can review the crash log to see what is sent - and have the option to decline if I so wish. As far as I know - that is sent cleartext and there is nothing sneaky going on. And just wait until they go to their subscription model.

Re:Not Surprising

[Ol Olsoc]

Does an airgap really require such an extreme distance (5 miles)? Either there is a really lonely PC sitting out in the middle of nowhere doing Olsoc-know's-what, or else that's your cabin in the woods, playing Civilization VI.

No, it doesn't have to be that far - It's on a fairly remote mountaintop, and for me, as long as its unconnected to the internet, it is protected from Microsoft.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

MS could have had that money. And far more easily than whoever will develop that anti-spy tool.

I agree with you.

But I'm also concerned about two things: For one thing, we know that MS is baking this telemetry stuff pretty deeply into the OS. I may be willing to pay another company a price for stymieing that, but then, who do I put my trust into to reach that deeply into the OS? Honestly, I'm really out of the loop about what software authors I'd trust these days.

Also, I'm concerned that this might open up another vector for malicious actors to fool unsuspecting users into installing software purported to do that. "Install AntiSpy 2016, it strong like bull to prevent the stealing of the informations!"

There are certainly counterarguments to these things; I mean, if I'm already supposedly putting my trust in MS and continuing to run Win7, then I know people will point out the hypocrisy of questioning trust in other software companies. It's just a damn shame that this whole line of worries / arguments is being opened in the first place.

(For what it's worth, I am seriously looking into switching to Linux, but I am required to use software that is Windows-only for some of my work, and even with virtualization and other options at my disposal, the switch to Linux WILL have a non-trivial impact on my livelihood. It's not as easy to migrate away from Win7 when it could impact my income, which my family depends on.)

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Never understood why saving 5 seconds a day booting up was supposed to be such an amazing thing that it compensated for untold amounts of other fuckery.

Re:Not Surprising

[guacamole]

I have had enough experience with Windows 10 machines to find out that Windows 10 is probably the most fragile and buggy OS since Windows 95. For example, I have seen machines enter into some kind of endless CPU eating loops. The task manager only shows that "system host process" uses 30% CPU, but for some reason does not tell you which specific Windows process is doing it. Forums are filled with people complaining about it, and there seems like a dozen of solutions, and you have to try each one of them. For example, one time clearing the event log ended it, but other times nothing helped.

Another serious problem with Windows 10 is that it has this ability to corrupt its own update system, and now it gets stuck half way through trying to install a month old update, eating CPU and all that. This seems like a very common problem, and strangely Microsoft does not seem to have a solution for this besides offering a bunch of canned answers along the line "reset the auto update components, reboot, reinstall all apps, reinstall the OS", none of which seem to work. I have seen one PC run into exactly this problem right after a clean reinstall.

And then I realized that I have spent so many hours of my time troubleshooting all those Windows 10 issues, but nothing in this "free" upgrade really made it worth it, specially when this OS constantly installs new software at the moment you don't want it to, and even takes the liberty to reboot your PC, even when there is a PC user logged in and an application is running.

And so I just backed up my files and put Windows 7 back on my desktop. It was a bit of pain as I had to hunt for the most basic hardware drivers, like optical drive or 802.11ac card, but after that it was a relief.

Re:Not Surprising

[Woldscum]

SpyBot Anti Beacon From the SpyBot S&D guys.

https://www.safer-networking.o...

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Or more likely.. sue the shit out of the person/company that develops it..... I gave up MS products when I retired from 20 years as a Windows/Linux sysadmin.. MS can go fuck itself

Re:Not Surprising

[unixisc]

Guess what! I have disabled backing my photo or video collection on iCloud. Since that only has 5GB. I have 1TB of OneDrive storage as a result of buying Office 365 Home, and that is adequate to fit everything I've been doing the last 2 years and for a while

Linux Mint

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome provides Netflix. Steam provides games. Just install latest nvidia driver. Cast your shackles, go for Mint!

https://www.linuxmint.com/

'nuff said.

Re:Linux Mint

[Opportunist]

And I'm sure you have a driver for my Asus sound card (that will make it work in 7.1 instead of just stereo), for my gaming keyboard, a way to make the mouse work (it doesn't in Mint for some odd reason, even the alleged fix doesn't make it work, and I'd already be happy if at least the main buttons worked, I don't even insist in all the other ones), to get TrackIR to work properly, as well as the Thrustmaster Warthog (I'm willing to configure it in Windows if you refuse to create programming software for Linux for it (no, doesn't work in Wine), but I would at least want to USE it).

And when you're done with that, find me some Linux drivers for all the hilariously incompatible hardware Asus stuffed into its G752 laptop.

You see, the problem isn't software. It's hardware. Yes, Linux works fine with "normal" hardware. It even has drivers for the most esoteric raidcontroller in the world. But when it comes to gaming hardware, we're still running into very basic problems.

Re:Linux Mint

[mwvdlee]

If all you're going to do is Netflix and games, a console might be a better computer for you.

Re:Linux Mint

[drinkypoo]

as well as the Thrustmaster Warthog (I'm willing to configure it in Windows if you refuse to create programming software for Linux for it (no, doesn't work in Wine), but I would at least want to USE it).

It's not Linux's fault that Thrustmaster is a bitch. Yank the electronics out of there and slap in a mini Arduino Mega.

Re:Linux Mint

[Anonymous Coward]

I love Linux Mint. Unfortunately, I am tied to several MS-only applications to earn a living:
          1. Autodesk Inventor
          2. Microsoft Excel (Inventor uses this to handle some things)
          3. Exchange Server access (No, I cannot just add access to this port or that one to make xxx work.)
          4. Pro/II (although there used to be a VMS version)

Number 3 is getting close to being practical under Linux, but 1 and 2 are never going to be available under Linux.
In the meantime, I'm hoping we can still get Win7 until hell freezes over.

Re:Linux Mint

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it is, and that's exactly the point, you fucking fanboi. You want to know why people aren't adopting Linux on the desktop? GP just answered that question.

Don't blame the hardware manufacturers for what the distro writers didn't implement.

Re:Linux Mint

[drinkypoo]

Yes it is, and that's exactly the point, you fucking fanboi. You want to know why people aren't adopting Linux on the desktop? GP just answered that question.

Because they're too stupid to look at a hardware maker's history and recognize that they are shit at software? Thrustmaster has been creating shitty programming interfaces for their game controller since time was time, literally from the very beginning with their original POS HOTAS that, let's face it, worked for shit. It was totally unreliable and it would just fail to send keystrokes sometimes when you were using emulation mode. And what the fuck is up with the springs on the F22 pro? They couldn't design them to last more than a week? That was supposed to be the world's best joystick.

Re:Linux Mint

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, for starters itd would be useful to know WHICH soundcard. what kind of keyboard, which mouse etc. Without specifics how the hell do you expect us to reply to this.

Re:Linux Mint

[Merk42]

You can do whatever you want* with Linux



*unless you can't actually do it, but then you're stupid for wanting that.

Re:Linux Mint

[Alain Williams]

Don't blame the hardware manufacturers for what the distro writers didn't implement.

Microsoft does not implement a lot of the drivers either. They are sourced by the PC vendor who then integrates them into the MS Windows installation that you get when you buy the box. A vanilla Linux install will, generally, do far better at supporting hardware than a vanilla MS Windows install.

So: the problem is often with the hardware manufacturers who do not make the specs available for Linux people to use.

Re:Linux Mint

[fbobraga]

wait: a good argument on /.? WTF?!








just kidding :P

Re:Linux Mint

[fbobraga]

2. Microsoft Excel (Inventor uses this to handle some things)

what an opportunity to demand ODF!

Re:Linux Mint

[david_thornley]

Demand of whom? Autocad makes high-end professional software. When their customers want to set up a system with their software, they go by Autocad's specs. It's a case of getting the OS your applications run on. Autocad probably has very little interest in releasing their software on other systems, since it would be extra work that would get them very few additional customers.

Re: Linux Mint

[Anonymous Coward]

From suppliers?

Re:Linux Mint

[Opportunist]

Thanks for the offer, and I hope you have more luck than I did.

Asus Xonar Essence STX (works as stereo sound card, but no Dolby or other features the card supports)
Mad Catz R.A.T. 7 Gaming Maus (buttons don't work, and the alleged fix fixes nothing)
Sharkoon Shark Zone K30 Gaming-Tastatur (works as a normal keyboard, but with none of the extra buttons and it's a gamble whether the Windows-Keys are on or off)
Trackir 5 Pro (didn't spend much time on it but so far I couldn't get it to work)
Thrustmaster Hotas Warthog Joystick (programming software does not work in Wine/Linux and the throttle doesn't work properly)
Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals (Brake function (X/Z axis, IIRC) doesn't work)

Good luck.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Unsurprising

[some old guy]

As a hard-core MMORPG'er, I got fed up with the wasted resources being hogged up by unwanted crap like Cortana and went back to Win 7, which amazingly enough still runs all of my work-related Rockwell and Siemens stuff just fine. Screw Windows 10.

Re:Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

...Screw Windows 10.

I'd recommend against that but if you insist.... just remember to use at least two condoms.

Re:Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

You know you can turn cortana off, right?
I have a tiny, underpowered media center PC. Came with Windows 7. Was sluggish. Installed Windows 10, incredibly more responsive.

Re:Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

You know you can turn cortana off, right?

Except, you can't. The only thing you can do it hide it. But don't take my word for it. Bring up Task Manager. There it is. Kill it. And it immediately comes back.

You *can* disable Cortana, I figured out how to delete it. But it made my computer unstable.

Re:Unsurprising

[SeriousTube]

No you can't. http://betanews.com/2016/07/26...

Re:Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

It also consumes practically zero resources even when running.

Re:Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Go back to Redmond or New Delhi.

Re:Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us don't like our computers to have an open microphone that is connected to Microsoft and possibly government agencies.

Re:Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

As a developer, gamer, and Windows 10 user, I can tell you with a great deal of certainty that you're an idiot.

Cortana currently sits in my task manager's list of processes using a "whopping" 33MB of memory and nothing else.

If your gaming rig is so sensitive to the loss of 33MB of RAM and none of the processor time, you need to 1) upgrade your hardware to something from the last, say, 10 years, and 2) turn in your "hardcore gamer" card.

And to all the other twits out there whining about Cortana "hogging" resources: just stop. It makes you look like an uninformed Linux zealot. (But I repeat myself...)

Re:Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Filthy causal, you wouldn't recognize a hardcore gamer card if your game awarded it for matching four gems at once.

I grew up gaming in DOS days when we had to extract every KB out of the first 640 to get games to run (remember himem.sys? emm386?)

Your 33MB of useless trash is an affront to my very existence, I am honor-bound to fight it to the death.

In closing: REEEEEEEEE

Re:Unsurprising

[myowntrueself]

You know you can turn cortana off, right?

Except, you can't. The only thing you can do it hide it. But don't take my word for it. Bring up Task Manager. There it is. Kill it. And it immediately comes back.

You *can* disable Cortana, I figured out how to delete it. But it made my computer unstable.

So... Cortana contributes to the user experience by keeping the computer stable?

Re:Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Add to that when updates decide to start while you're in the middle of a raid, wasting not only your time, but the time of everybody else in the group....

Re:Unsurprising

[david_thornley]

You really need to spend the extra hundred dollars on the Pro version, which allows you to delay updates.

VM's

[Mike Sheen]

About once a month I install Windows 7 on a VM to test out my application on that OS. I wonder if such activity taints the analysis. My application has "online help" which uses a web browser to deliver help when the user presses "F1" - stats from visitors to that webserver that shows unique Windows 7 declined from 31% in Oct 2015 to 10% in Oct 2016, compared to unique Windows 10 users growing from 38% to 53% in the same period.

Re:VM's

[Mike Sheen]

Of course it doesn't. A license can only be used once unless you're on a very expensive corporate free-for-all scheme. Obviously I'm assuming you're not running pirated version.

As a developer, why are you creating new VMs? Do you not know you can save a clean VM, and duplicate it / trash it with no effort. You must be horribly inefficient.

Because experience has taught me to replicate what users do. Users reinstall from scratch, and don't restore a previously saved VM. You must be horribly inexperienced.

Re:VM's

[Anonymous Coward]

why do you keep installing Windows 7 "on a VM"? Are you some kind of knucklehead? You need to install it exactly once.

Re:VM's

[Mike Sheen]

why do you keep installing Windows 7 "on a VM"? Are you some kind of knucklehead? You need to install it exactly once.

Because replicating what users actually do is better than an artificial test scenario where the VM is imaged years ago.

Re:VM's

[fisted]

But you have already installed from scratch, and saved the hard disk. What's the difference between restoring and reinstalling anew? You must be horribly confused.

Re:VM's

[Mike Sheen]

But you have already installed from scratch, and saved the hard disk. What's the difference between restoring and reinstalling anew? You must be horribly confused.

Unlike yourself, I've done both and there is a difference. Ever heard of "Windows Update" ?

Re:VM's

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are missing the broader point here which is you can cleanly install an OEM version (no updates, not even service packs if you desire) of Windows 7 into a clean VM, and then save that specific freshly-installed state for later. That freshly-installed state should not differ AT ALL compared to a fresh install of OEM windows you may do at a later time. After installing updates and service packs, yes there will be differences. But why not save the base, freshly-installed state so you don't have to replicate that portion anymore (since nothing will change as long as the installation source doesn't change)? You seem to be making this harder than it has to be for reasons you can't seem to express clearly enough so that we all understand why you are working so inefficiently.

Re:VM's

[TheRaven64]

What's the difference between:

1. Install Windows, install security updates, use it each time.
2. Install Windows, install security updates, snapshot VM, restore it each time, use it

The system state will be the same i both cases, but one results in your doing a lot more work.

Re:VM's

[Anonymous Coward]

No, just copy the image and update it, especially if older version.Your user scenario is more compromised through VM testing, because you are not replicating what users actually do.

Re:VM's

[houghi]

This might influence the numbers, but I doubt it has any influence on the percentages.

Re:VM's

[Anonymous Coward]

That freshly-installed state should not differ AT ALL compared to a fresh install of OEM windows you may do at a later time.

So you admit to the possibility that it could differ.

Re:VM's

[Anonymous Coward]

why do you keep installing Windows 7 "on a VM"? Are you some kind of knucklehead? You need to install it exactly once.

Because replicating what users actually do is better than an artificial test scenario where the VM is imaged years ago.

What kind of crappy software do you sell that requires users to keep reinstalling Windows 7?

Re:VM's

[plague911]

Because the " install security updates" phase from a year ago, is different than the " install security updates" today. IT would also be different than Install Windows, install security updates, snapshot VM, restore it each time, update security updates, use it

Re:VM's

[fisted]

Ever heard of restoring a snapshot, installing updates and creating a new snapshot? then you branch off of the latest snapshot for your tests. Jesus, get a clue.

Re:VM's

[fisted]

Yes. magical little devices, those computers.
That said, if you think that before the users install your "application", they'd nuke their OS and install a fresh one from scratch, then you must be even more confused than i initially thought you'd be. In fact a much more realistic testing scenario would be to make random junk changes to your VM and snapshot those too, intermixed with the occasional update. But i'm not advocating that.

Re:VM's

[phorm]

About once a month I install Windows 7 on a VM to test out my application on that OS. I wonder if such activity taints the analysis

It probably depends on how they determine what a "new install" is. The most reliable stat would probably be based on the product key, but not sure how they'd come by that information unless they are getting it from a source at MS.

Maybe?

[EzInKy]

Could it be more people like Windows 7 and 8 better than Window's 10? In a free market economy the most popular option should win.

Re:Maybe?

[TheDarkMaster]

True "free market economy" do not exist.

Re:Maybe?

[EzInKy]

So if the majority perfer Window's 7 Window's 7 shouldn't win?

Re:Maybe?

[TheDarkMaster]

Uhhh... You do not understand, I was ironic. Obviously Windows 7 should win, but as Microsoft does not get more money from it then it will force Windows 10 we like it or not. That's why I said that the free market does not really exist.

Re:Maybe?

[hyades1]

Pity you had to explain that to the lad.

Re:Maybe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Licenses ensure this software is nowhere near a free market. Licenses are required for support, have restricted transfer/resale options and cease being available at retail with the release of the next version (not forgetting that recently 8.1 and 7 were discontinued for OEMs as well).

Re:Maybe?

[unixisc]

True "free market economy" do not exist.

Well, in this case, the same company makes both the 'competing' products in question, and one is in their plan to replace the others. So 'free market' ain't the issue here.

The real issue for the companies is that they make a product that's good enough, which results in nobody being interested in a 'better' product if and when it comes along. Granted, this Windows 10 vs 7 argument may be subjective, but then, there's also the case of Intel, where CPUs that they sold 10 years ago are still batting strong, and there's no reason to change. In short, the companies are victims of their own success

The free market has no formula dealing w/ what to do if a company creates a product that's so long lasting that it wipes out its own opportunity for renewable income

Re: Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Anonymous Coward]

With Windows get girls. With Linux get asses.

Best bet is to download Windows 10 and install bash.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean there's nothing wrong with homosexuality? Faggots must die!!

There is a large number of scientific studies who have shown quite conclusively that there tends to be a direct correlation between how much guys hate homosexuals and how flamboyant their own repressed homosexual tendencies are. You should buy some butt-lube, find yourself a boyfriend and learn about the prostate gland. It would do a lot to solve your blood pressure problem.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a large number of scientific studies ...

Quotation needed.

Killer feature

[Anonymous Coward]

For me, the killer feature of Windiws 10 vs Windows 7 is the Ubuntu 'subsystem for Linux' thing. Having a sane command line which permits package installation via apt-get rocks. (cygwin was always a bit of a kludge for me.)

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Maritz]

Yeah. Straight people who are comfortable with being straight don't need to bash gays. Repressed homosexuals seem to need to blab 'faggot this, faggot that' to demonstrate to everyone how straight they are. Pretty sad state of affairs.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Feral Nerd]

There is a large number of scientific studies ...

Quotation needed.

Firstly, it's [citation needed], if you were a real nerd you would know that. Secondly: here you go.. Thirdly, try this site the sooner you sign up the better you'll feel when you finally break out of the circle of denial.

Methods

[Anonymous Coward]

How are they measuring when new installs are performed?

Re:Methods

[Mike Sheen]

How are they measuring when new installs are performed?

That's what I would like to know also.

Just the government upgrading

[Anonymous Coward]

It's probably just the government upgrading from XP to 7.

Windows 10 is bloated

[indytx]

Why is it a surprise that an OS created for desktop and mobile doesn't run as well as one written exclusively for desktops? Why is it a surprise that small businesses prefer an OS that works better for them than the "upgrade" which removed Pro features? Apple and M$ are both dumbing down their professional offerings. I anticipate the day when I'll have to go full Linux just to have something professional grade, and I'll have a single box for QuickBooks. Alas.

Re:Windows 10 is bloated

[unixisc]

Honestly, what Microsoft should have done was given the Windows 8 kernel to Windows 7, but otherwise kept the UI unchanged for the desktop version. For tablets, like the surface, they could have gone w/ Metro, but kept to that - don't have a desktop at all. Windows 10 in tablet display mode is what Windows 8 for tablets should have been. Either desktop or tablet mode would have been selected at time of installation, so that one wouldn't end up w/ the bloat.

Only thing - I'd make Windows Defender on by default - so that all systems are protected. It would have every antivirus, anti-malware, firewalls and anything else that is needed

Re:Windows 10 is bloated

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong in so many ways...

Yes, the kernel should just be updated independently. But then nobody would buy a new version, and Microsoft wouldn't get paid, and then development would stop. Try a business model instead of wishful thinking.

The desktop UI should have been unchanged, but with improvements added, for years. Like "since NT 4.0". That kind of "for years". The improvements could have been things like proper theme support (not just color swapping, but actual theming) and transparency and whatever. That would be the ongoing improvements to explorer.exe.

The web browser should not have been called Internet Explorer. Instead, a webdav/ftp/whatever network filesystem browser should have had the name iexplore.exe. Call the web browser something else. And, no, network filesystem browsing should not be part of the regular Windows Explorer. That type of division of responsibility prevents all kinds of terrible exploits in an instant.

The tablet interface from Windows 8.1 (never used 8.0, so I can't comment on that) was (nearly) perfect. This should have been texplore.exe. Windows 10's tablet mode is crap and lost all of the usability of the Windows 8.1 one. It should have been knifed as a baby. Seriously. Edge-swiping is fantastic. But it had no place in a desktop OS, so all the whiners demanded that it go away. Fuck those assholes, and fuck the MS twits that gave in to the whiny bullshit.

The DOS-like CLI from Windows should be its own shell, fully functional with or without any other shell running. This is currently cmd.exe.

The Powershell shell should also be an option. This is currently powershell.exe.

Now we have a sane, logical, dare I say "unix-like" system where we can set up the startup shell, as well as kick off instances of any of the various shells any time we need them. Then they could extend their system with a simple bsh.exe, csh.exe, ksh.exe, and bash.exe just to make a ton more people happy. (Yes, that's Bourne and Bourne Again listed separately. You're welcome.)

There would be, of course, a default choice (probably plain old explorer.exe) that would be set at install time. You would be able to choose a different one through a control panel at any time, and the next boot would drop you into whatever shell you chose.

And as for your concerns about "bloat", don't bother. %systemroot%/explorer.exe is only 4564 KB and %systemroot%\System32\cmd.exe is only 228 KB as of the latest non-insider-channel Windows 10 release.

But back to that "business model" idea. Once all of this is in place, they could sell themes from the Windows Store. The could sell new shells. They could sell non-security-related system updates. And they'd have an extensible system that could be further expanded upon in the future. For a price, of course.

Re:Windows 10 is bloated

[david_thornley]

How many people buy new versions of the OS anyway, as opposed to never upgrading the OS on the computer they bought? I don't remember ever upgrading the OS on a Windows machine (I've done it on Macs and in Linux).

Win 10 sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Was going to do a fresh install of it and used my original Win7 pro key (that's how I got the 10 upgrade). Well the key wouldn't work so I was "stuck" with 7 and couldn't be happier. Don't miss 10 at all.

Not Significant When Values have +/- ERROR RATE

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid people playing with stats they do not understand. Euthanize! I say. Euthanize!

In Soviet Microsoft Windows 10...

[aliquis]

In Soviet Microsoft Windows 10, Windows update and reboots you.

Bullshit propaganda story filed under DUH

[Anonymous Coward]

Where can you go out and get a copy of windows 7? It has been discontinued for the past 2 years to the general public? This is NOT news.

Re:Bullshit propaganda story filed under DUH

[Anonymous Coward]

We have many customers who won't accept Win 10 so we fix them up
with high-end refurbished computers that come with Win 7. They are
still readily available.

Not only are they happy with Win 7, but they avoid the high cost of a
new computer. Even with our service contract, they are still saving.

Re:Bullshit propaganda story filed under DUH

[Anonymous Coward]

Bootlegs don't count.

MS Failed at delivering an OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

An OS should be as streamlined as possible and at worst be something the user can customize.

Win7 did this.
Win8 had more bloat but you could still strip out most of the bloat and get it to do what you wanted if you invested the time.

Win10.... where to even start, it's bloated and MS has gone out of their way to say FU this is what you get and you're going to like it. Worse still, instead of fixing the issues with Win10 they doubled down by retroactively inflicting those undesirables onto the users of Win7&8. I can only assume in an attempt to get people to upgrade because if they make all their OSs shit you might as well "upgrade" to the newest shit right?

As far as I am concerned MS has failed at delivering an OS. The amount of contempt they have displayed for their CUSTOMERS would almost be impressive if I didn't have to put up with it. As it stands the only reason I still use Windows in any capacity is because of games. When/If games start to regularly require DX12, I'm done because I am not "upgrading" and when my computer finally dies I the OS that goes on the new system sure isn't going to be anything from Microsoft.

Re:MS Failed at delivering an OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a minute. I agree that Win 8 has a lot of bloat , but
please be more specific on what bloat you can strip out and
how you did it.
The OS components are so tightly integrated that you can't
really remove anything. The best case you can hope for is
to paper over the really ugly parts - resulting in more bloat.

If you have serious suggestions, I would be very interested.

That's moronic

[Gadget_Guy]

You can find great discrepancies between the OS market share reported from different sources, which shows how inaccurate they are. Let's face it, all they can do is guess by the only external method they can find - web browser stats. Only Microsoft can tell you anything even close to accurate as far as usage goes, and even they are limited to computers that are connected to the Internet.

The percentage changes listed in the TFA are going to be dwarfed by the error margin such that it is completely meaningless to try to make any proclamations that a significant number of people are downgrading Windows.

Re:That's moronic

[Anonymous Coward]

Netmarketshare.com is an aggregation of tens of thousands of sources. It provides a reasonably decent estimation of market share amongst web users. Microsoft's stats would be poor by comparison due to selection bias. For example, if 25% of users have Windows 10, 0% have Windows 8 and 50% have Windows 7, but only 5% of the 7-users have allowed the tracking KBs, then Microsoft would think that 91% of the market used Windows 10 and 100% of all Windows 7-users have the tracking updates installed. That's how bad your stats would be if you relied on Microsoft: 25% would be reported as 91%, 50% be reported as 9%, and 5% would be reported as 100%.

Re:That's moronic

[Gadget_Guy]

Microsoft also gets version numbers from Windows Update. There is also a site to which the networking system attempts to connect when determining whether a network has both local and internet services (giving a different status icon in the system tray). You can disable this, but I wouldn't be surprised if they submitted the Windows version in the HTTP request header.

Well...

[MitchDev]

... that's because WIn 10 is malware/spyware and is shit....

All MS has is an operting system

[jenningsthecat]

Clearly, Microsoft isn't really interested in satisfying their desktop users. Instead, they're desperately trying to get into the 'customer as a product' business model, because they sense, (probably correctly), that they're doomed if they don't. That's why they did what they did with Win10 - they want a captive user base whose data they can control and exploit. Bing has been pretty much a failure, and their foray into the mobile market has been a total disaster. They're losing a lot of server business to *nix. They see the likes of Google and Facebook dominating the Web. They see leveraging their desktop presence as the only possible path to the kind of success that others are enjoying, because they no longer posses the imagination to strike out in a truly new direction, and because they're iron-bound by the artery-hardened internal bureaucracy that all big corporations eventually succumb to. Windows 10 was the desperate plan of a dinosaur in its death throes.

Re:All MS has is an operting system

[Anonymous Coward]

Their primary product is Office. Desktop Windows is a major focus and driver for lock-in, but it sits at about 2/3rds the total revenue of Office, and for many people the face of Microsoft *is* Office. As standalone product lines, only their Server products (most of which host Office components like Exchange, Skype for Business or SharePoint) come close to the desktop Office product revenue.

For a long time Microsoft was aggressive about complete lock in around the Office ecosystem. They've become a lot more open recently, as they've realised it drives people towards building solutions around their Office software and related cloud services. They're solidly engaging the reseller and partner channel again to encourage anyone building their own IP around Microsoft solutions. Office 365 and cloud - once it's there, it's a pain to get back out, the ultimate recurring-revenue lock-in.

Source for revenue stats 2016.

Re:All MS has is an operting system

[Anonymous Coward]

So you gonna take your millions out of MSFT and move to AAPL?
Not if you are smart. That would be pissing into the wind.

Wise up Charlie. Win 10 was Microsoft's way of showing the world that
they are no longer in the OS business. They don't need it.
They've found bigger and riper fruit on lower branches.

Re:All MS has is an operting system

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, Microsoft isn't really interested in satisfying their desktop users. Instead, they're desperately trying to get into the 'customer as a product' business model, because they sense, (probably correctly), that they're doomed if they don't. That's why they did what they did with Win10 - they want a captive user base whose data they can control and exploit. Bing has been pretty much a failure, and their foray into the mobile market has been a total disaster. They're losing a lot of server business to *nix. They see the likes of Google and Facebook dominating the Web. They see leveraging their desktop presence as the only possible path to the kind of success that others are enjoying, because they no longer posses the imagination to strike out in a truly new direction, and because they're iron-bound by the artery-hardened internal bureaucracy that all big corporations eventually succumb to. Windows 10 was the desperate plan of a dinosaur in its death throes.

This kind of true but MS, despite going bat shit crazy, is still doing pretty well. They still dominate the desktop market (which despite mobile growth is HUGE) and have no real competition there. IMO, Apple is killing itself faster then MS and *nix just has no interest in winning the desktop space. MS still dominates the business sector and a good portion of the developer market plus they've essentially won the cloud war by bundling OneDrive and Office365. All 3 of the main cloud services offer 1TB for $99 a year and work basically the same but OneDrive includes the most popular productivity software on the market. MSSQL still has a decent market share that doesn't seem to be declining. Not to mention the Azure platform which has also been doing pretty well. Hell, even Windows 10 isn't bad if you use enterprise. While currently there's a justified hatred for what MS is doing to the retail consumer desktop OS segment they still seem to be doing pretty well in a lot of other areas. Personally, I think they feel so secure in their markets they're just trying to see what they can get away with. Sure, it might backfire but what alternative do most people really have? Both the other OS's come across as snobbish, largely unsupported and niche. You're truly average user doesn't want those things. The devil you know.

Re:All MS has is an operting system

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly could not have said it better myself.

I wanted to post to say that "windows 10 was microsoft's attempt at scooping up some of the newest, most valuable currency: customer data" but ended up patronizing their customer base. You said it ten times better than I could've.

When I finish with windows 7... it's linux all the way. Until then, I'm going to try and get a few enterprise copies of windows 7 and hang onto them as long as I can.

Re:All MS has is an operting system

[jez9999]

But when you edit stuff in Office online, you're unshackled from Windows. Which is nice.

Re:All MS has is an operting system

[Anonymous Coward]

> they want a captive user base

Why not try captivating users with an OS that doesn't suck ass?

Re:All MS has is an operting system

[guacamole]

because they no longer posses the imagination to strike out in a truly new direction

Honestly, Microsoft run out of imagination and new ideas some time in the mid-1990s. All of their OSes starting with 2000 were simply an iteration the Windows 95 and NT GUI concept. The introduction of all new Microsoft products has always been leveraged and tied to their desktop dominance.

Windows 10 marketing tool for MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately Microsoft couldn't resist mucking up a perfectly good OS in Windows 10 and turning it into a data miner, and marketing tool. Forced updates, downloading apps you don't want, reinstalling them after you deleted them. Constant nagging to try their services or products. I am thinking now that Windows 10 was not even worth it for free. Because as I now know nothing is really free and I'm paying the price now. Seriously looking at alternatives in operating systems to escape this Microsoft mess.

Re:Windows 10 marketing tool for MS

[guacamole]

This. I went for the free Windows 10 upgrade on all five PCs in the household, and now I have downgraded one machine to Windows 7 with a clean install. Besides offering effectively no new features to the desktop users, Windows 10 is also surprisingly fragile. The updater corruption is a serious problem, for which Microsoft has no real solution besides some canned answers that don't work.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Anonymous Coward]

scientific studies who have shown quite conclusively

Please cite these studies. As a scientist I am unaware of them. This is just bullshit liberals and faggots say to justify their perversion and make them feel better about themselves by slandering the rest of the world.

No suprise. W10 = Shit spyware

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 is shit spyware. Windows 7 was the last usable MS operatng system. So these figures are not really suprising at all.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Feral Nerd]

A whole thirty five people! Penile girth as a measure of homophobia?

Well if you find other men sexually attractive there is bound to be a reaction in that region of your anatomy and if you are also a rabid homophobe, like you seem to be, .... well, ... it doesn't take a rocket scientist to add those two facts up.

No improvement

[sjbe]

Considering that Windows 10 was designed as a "one size fits all" solution that is intended to run on machine with limited power, it's not surprising that in this case the performance is an improvement.

I've run Windows10 and Windows7 on some machines I've upgraded for work. There was no user discernible difference in speed or performance. Maybe there was some minor benchmark difference but it certainly wasn't enough to matter. The boot up times are not meaningfully different, the interfaces didn't speed up, and none of the applications run any better. There might be some under the hood improvements but they certainly aren't obvious.

Also they did away with the flashy Windows 7 UI and replaced it with rectangles - another performance improvement that I don't mind. I like minimal, simple things.

Windows 10 is many things but "minimal" and "simple" are not among them. The rectangle thing isn't easier or simpler, particularly if you are talking about Windows 8... shudder.

Re:No improvement

[PRMan]

Windows 10 is much faster. It uses 850 MB less in the working set. How can you not tell that you have nearly an extra Gig of RAM?

Re:No improvement

[Anonymous Coward]

I have W7 here and with no programs open it uses around 450MB of RAM (just like W10, by the way, there is no real difference).

The RAM requirements actually went up with W10:
https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-windows-annivesary-update-demands-at-least-2gb-memory/

Re:No improvement

[david_thornley]

W7 felt faster to start up. It may have been that, in W7, I'd get to the login screen predictably. With W10, I look at this really pretty splash screen, clicking randomly, and wondering when the login popup will appear.

Re:No improvement

[Anonymous Coward]

Unused RAM is a terrible way to measure performance.

Re:No improvement

[Anonymous Coward]

That is easy to get back in windows 7... shutdown the windows update service. It uses 930 MB on windows 7.

Re:No improvement

[VisceralLogic]

On my work laptop right now with Windows 7, I have 10.59 GB free out of 15.9 GB total (running applications: ENOVIA, CATIA V5, Outlook, OneNote, Lync, FireFox). I'm not sure I would notice if I had 11.59 free instead.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Holi]

Your requested sources were posted an hour before you wrote that, And yeah we believe the AC is really a scientist.

Whatever, same as always

[Anonymous Coward]

People said the same stuff in the switch off from XP to Windows 7. WIndows 7 sucks, Windows 7 whatever. Yet here they are, using Windows 7 saying it's the best. lol, idiots.

Personally I'd like to run Windows 2000 because that was the first and last "well designed" (not really but this is Microsoft) version of Windows. OK, NT 4 was probably the first; I wouldn't mind running it either. 2000 is just a polished version of NT4. XP was a huge change and it sucked because it was fat, cumbersome, and slow. Same for Vista/7 and 8/10. I hated the change from 3.1 WFW to 95 as well. 3.1 was so much faster.

Re:Whatever, same as always

[supremebob]

I don't think that a lot of people said that Windows 7 sucked when it came out. Actually, they mostly praised it, and said how much of an improvement it was over Windows Vista.

Likewise, Windows 10 seems like a huge improvement over Windows 8.

Re:Whatever, same as always

[david_thornley]

The ironic thing is that Vista got to be pretty decent after a few years. While 7 was a dramatic improvement over what Vista was when it came out, so was the version of Vista when Win 7 came out.

Microsoft isn't dying... unfortunately

[sjbe]

The weird thing is that Microsoft seems to have adopted suicide as a business model. Their main competitor is Android creeping up with the 'it's all free, in exchange for all of your personal data' business model.

Really? Because nothing Google is doing with Android has replaced a single computer at my office or the office of anyone I know. Some of the kids at the local schools use Chromebooks but that's about it. Android (along with iOS) has the mobile market but there is no evidence that Windows based PCs are going to go away any time soon because of that. Heck the computer I'm typing this on has 6 applications that are critical for my day job which are in no way, shape, or form available on the Android platform and aren't likely to be on that platform anytime soon. Microsoft Office is still the de-facto standard for office documents and that is showing little sign of changing either. (For my part I've standardized my company on LibreOffice... not that it matters)

Microsoft has made some big mis-steps to be sure but they have a Scrooge McDuck pile of cash and a near impenetrable fortress in business PCs. I don't think they are going anywhere any time soon and certainly not about to keel over and die. I'm strongly in the camp that dislikes Microsoft but I'm under no illusion that they are in any real danger of dying.

Re:Microsoft isn't dying... unfortunately

[Ol Olsoc]

they have a Scrooge McDuck pile of cash and a near impenetrable fortress in business PCs. I don't think they are going anywhere any time soon and certainly not about to keel over and die. I'm strongly in the camp that dislikes Microsoft but I'm under no illusion that they are in any real danger of dying.

You need to read Ozymandias:

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Re:Microsoft isn't dying... unfortunately

[david_thornley]

My mother-in-law had a laptop that she used with trepidation. We gave her a low-end Samsung tablet (didn't know whether she'd like it, figured we could upgrade later), and she loves it. Microsoft's home sales are suffering from Android, I'm sure.

Makes sense to me

[ninthbit]

With residential PC purchases dropping as people use more mobile (Android/iOS) devices, this makes sense. I'd wager that most new Windows installations are in the corporate environment, where Win7 is still the standard image being installed.

Re:Makes sense to me

[dwywit]

I make things very clear to my customers (mostly domestic, some small business) - I recommend *against* W10, and *for* W7, or, if they insist, W8.1. If they choose W10, their support costs (i.e. my hourly rate) will be higher. I've only had one person request W10 after those discussions, and they were OK with the conditions.

Microsoft have stopped supplying W7 to OEMs, so if you want a new laptop with W7, it'll be whatever your supplier has in stock. Otherwise, make sure you've got a W7 Pro DVD, then buy a machine with W10 Pro, and downgrade.

2017 may be "The year of the linux desktop"!

[fbobraga]

Thank's to Microsoft and his fucked-up W10!

Re:2017 may be "The year of the linux desktop"!

[PRMan]

Well, Linux did just hit a recent high of 2%.

Re:2017 may be "The year of the linux desktop"!

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux still holds 99% of the server and workstation market though.

also every IoT device ever.

Windows 10 isn't compatible with everything

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft tried to force Windows 10 onto older computers as a forced upgrade with all of the memory hogging and spyware telemetry enabled by default. Their first mistake was assuming that all of these laptops could be upgraded. Many had incompatible software or drivers installed, which required a clean installation not an upgrade. Many others are too slow to run Windows 10 or have incompatible hardware. Even if they eventually work, the upgrades are excruciatingly slow. Assuming Windows 10 does manage to install, you have to go to the trouble of disabling the spyware using programs like Spyboy Anti-beacon, and then you never completely trust it. You can never really prove a PC isn't backdoored and Microsoft has lost the trust of many of its users. Of course anyone putting private information into Google or Facebook online servic es or software shouldn't be complaining too loudly about Microsoft unless they're sworn off the others.

The short answer is use Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD or other open source OSs if you're at all concerned about privacy or squeezing performance out of your CPU and memory.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a terrible study design. They group people into homophobe and not homophobe with a survey, then they show gay porn to the homophobes and straight porn to the non homophobes. This proves what? That people who answer as homophobic are more prone to penile enlargement? Show the homophobes BOTH gay porn AND straight porn and see if there is any DIFFERENCE in enlargement. Then do the same for non homophobes. THAT is how you design a real study. But since they didn't test this, all they managed to prove was that homopbobes are more prone to penile girth enlargement. Heck just the fact that their penis is being measured could be the enlarging factor - YOU DON'T KNOW BECAUSE IT'S A SHITTY STUDY DESIGN.

But I expect no less from that branch of pseudo-science called "psychology".

Re: Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Type44Q]

Look at the Microsoft shills: so desperate to derail the topic, and so lacking in their ability to actually do so, that this is their chosen strategy. Priceless!

obligatory

[fbobraga]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I don't think they are "new installs"

[morethanapapercert]

TFA links to NetMarketShare, but doesn't detail how NetMarketShare determines whether a given machine is an existing or new installation. Windows 7 only went up by 0.11%, while Windows 10 went down by a mere 0.06%. Trying to make any solid conclusions with such skimpy changes in the numbers strikes me as futile.

One possibility occurs to me to explain the increase of Windows 7 installs. For a year, users of 7 and 8.x were allowed a free upgrade. (and let us not forget the shenanigans Microsoft pulled in "persuading" users to upgrade.) Thing is; none of those upgraded users received a physical copy of the Win10 installation media or a license key. So if a hard drive dies or the install gets corrupted badly enough, the user is going to have to reinstall whichever version they had been using previously. (I won't get into the stupidity of having ones physical copy of the OS actually be provided by a hidden restore partition on the root drive)

As far as I know NetMarketShare is just counting installations based on what peoples user agent strings are reporting during normal web surfing. I don't know of any way to determine an OS date of install from a user agent string.

Re:I don't think they are "new installs"

[Lonewolf666]

As far as I know NetMarketShare is just counting installations based on what peoples user agent strings are reporting during normal web surfing. I don't know of any way to determine an OS date of install from a user agent string.

This.

All you can tell from the numbers is what OS people actually use, and that may be distorted by some people changing their user agent strings.
Not many people probably, but (without proof) I suspect that it will be some users with exotic OSes or browsers, who want to pretend having a mainstream system.

Because sometimes, stupid websites decline to serve browsers their developers are not familiar with.

Re:I don't think they are "new installs"

[guacamole]

Sounds like someone hasn't don't much research about the free Windows 10 upgrade. If you went for the free Windows 10 upgrade, then your PC's license and activation are registered on Microsoft servers. You can download media and reinstall Windows 10 any time you like.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[stealth_finger]

There is a large number of scientific studies ...

Quotation needed.

There is a large number of scientific studies ...

There you go.

10 vs 8 vs 7

[unixisc]

I think I'm one of the very few people who likes Windows 10. Yes, the telemetry features are not a great move, but just disable all of that crap and you're all set. Windows 10 uses less resources and starts up faster than my previous Windows 7. But the real improvements where on my girl's older laptop, where the update from 7 to 10 worked wonders by greatly improving startup times and no longer locking up randomly when starting or using a browser. HD video on Netflix or Amazon Prime is greatly improved. She was very sceptical about the update because she preferred the "nicer" look of 7 compared to 10's spartan look and feel, but has had zero regrets after the update.

I have also had no incompatibility problems with applications and everything worked just as before, after updating. I was actually very surprised about how smooth the update was. I also like how 10 will explicitly ask me before performing updates and not simply decide to shut down and restart whenever it sees fit, like all previous versions of Windows seemed to do.

I don't use Cortana and whatever other privacy invading crap there might be, and as standard Windows installation for gaming and media, I think Windows 10 is better than 7.

I am one of those who voluntarily upgraded from Windows 8 to 10. In fact, in 2014, I got a laptop that had 8 on it, and hated it so much (10 was not out then) that I wiped it out w/ PC-BSD 10.0. I later had a job that required me to have my own laptop w/ Windows, so I got a cheap $250 laptop w/ Windows 8, but upgraded it to 10 at the first available opportunity.

On the resource consumption question, Windows 8 would have indeed consumed less had they not mucked up the user interface. By tossing in that variable and trying to put a touchscreen UI on a laptop OS, thereby making a section of laptops touchscreen, they totally ruined it. Even installing Classic Shell didn't get rid of the hot corners issue. In fact, Classic Shell is a better utility for Windows 10, where it allows you to make the OS look like 7, 8 or even XP. Only shortcoming of Classic shell - if you want to change the appearance of the Start button from either the Classic Shell logo or the Windows logo and put in an image, which they allow, they don't know how to scale it properly.

But on the privacy issue, I sidestep it by not using any of their social features at all. Cortana - I don't use any of the voice searches, be it Cortana, Siri or Okay Google. For all my financial transactions, I use my PC-BSD laptop. If I need to shop from Amazon, I either use that, or I use my Ellipsis tablet (Lollypop). Similarly, anything official, it's the PC-BSD laptop. The only thing I use the Windows laptop right now is for work, as well as for games, since I still don't have TrueOS 11 w/ a Steam VM which should allow me to play Civ V and VI.

Hopefully, by the time Microsoft migrates to a subscription based OS, I'll be gone from Windows completely.

Re:10 vs 8 vs 7

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI you've got a few things incorrect about Classic Shell. It has a setting to scale the Start button Windows logo or other image on the "Start button" tab in its Settings. Adjust the Size parameter there. Also, Classic Shell can fix the hot corner issues but the default is to disable only the Start screen hot corner. Set Disable active corners to All to disable all hot corners.

Re:10 vs 8 vs 7

[unixisc]

I tried scaling the logos using the tool provided, but it never worked. Ideally, it should center the logo, but it pushes it to one of the ends, thereby mucking the whole thing

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Feral Nerd]

This is a terrible study design. They group people into homophobe and not homophobe with a survey, then they show gay porn to the homophobes and straight porn to the non homophobes. This proves what? That people who answer as homophobic are more prone to penile enlargement? Show the homophobes BOTH gay porn AND straight porn and see if there is any DIFFERENCE in enlargement. Then do the same for non homophobes. THAT is how you design a real study. But since they didn't test this, all they managed to prove was that homopbobes are more prone to penile girth enlargement. Heck just the fact that their penis is being measured could be the enlarging factor - YOU DON'T KNOW BECAUSE IT'S A SHITTY STUDY DESIGN.

But I expect no less from that branch of pseudo-science called "psychology".

I'll ruin this by you one more time and maybe you will understand. If you are (A) a homophobe, (B) you get an erection from homosexual porn and (C) homophobic men disproportionately often get an erection while watching gay porn while non-homophobic men show little or no reaction then it is safe to conclude that homophobia is a product of uncertainty in homophobic men over their own sexuality. Usually these individuals have been raised to believe that 'homosexuality is a sin and the wages of sin are death' (directly quoting a US American bible thumper the Lutheran church in my country invited to a theological conference) or some similar religiously motivated dribble. So, if a man raised in such a culture finds him self getting aroused while watching good looking guys in the locker room the psychological reaction of such men, with monotonous regularity, is rabid homophobia. You being a case in point. Oh and stop screaming, it's rude.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[The Real Dr John]

Amazing how many Trolls jump in to make sure that everyone else can't have a discussion about the topic. What a bunch of losers.

Microsoft. The only company that can prove...

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft. The only company that can prove that 10 > 8 and 7 > 8 and 7 > 10.

No one else can work such math.

Apples and oranges

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have enough interest to research this but comparing market share to percent growth of of new installations is meaningless.

Where can you buy Windows 7 nowadays?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorely tempted to buy Windows 7 for use in a VM. Where can you buy it nowadays? Most copies I see on online stores, including Amazon, seem to be pirate OEM copies that don't activate, while places like ebuyer are still ridiculously expensive.

Spyware Galore, Lack of Administrative Control

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 is another Vista - utter garbage for business users.

Windows 7 has been the best business OS they've released yet.

It seems that there's way too much 'surveillance friendly' effort going into microsoft products as of late.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[jedidiah]

Nope. You are not rubber.

This is the EXACT kind of bullshit that caused me to flip to Republican this year. You nit wits all act like a bunch of commies. They were big on the group think and re-education camps.

Is this any surprise?

[ilsaloving]

I did a trial of some Lenovo laptops with Windows 10 enterprise at work. When the Anniversary update came out, they all got hosed. One was completely unrecoverable so I trashed the whole thing and put Windows 7 on it. The rest managed to back out, but still lost a day of productivity in the process.

Microsoft has demonstrated quite clearly that they do not have the ability to successfully update their own OS without causing all hell to break loose.

And to make matters worse, Home and Pro users cannot opt out of updates and telemetry. Microsoft even disabled the group policy elements for it.

And meanwhile, Apple *could* be raking in marketshare from Microsoft's screwups, but unfortunately they appear to have their own collectives heads shoved up their asses as well.

So now Linux is starting to gain popularity. Between Chromebooks and machines being pre-loaded with Ubuntu, I really hope Linux tightens the screws on all these old guard companies that have lost their way.

Commercial Installs

[Anonymous Coward]

Going to upgrade a financial firm from XP on Monday and a gas station on tuesday. Both going to Win7. Commercial IT is slow to change.

Re:Commercial Installs

[Anonymous Coward]

My last contract was at HSBC upgrading several thousand employees to Windows 7. It was supposed to take 6 months and took 4 years to barely get passed the 80% mark. What a hilarious shit show. 4 years, 4 different managers, not a single person working in the same state/office as the other.

Re:Commercial Installs

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM switching to Mac machines. Is there something we're missing here?

Misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

What this post failed to mention is that Microsoft has recently discontinued W7 and W8.1, therefore OEM PCs with these OSes pre-installed are on sale now, some very powerful machines out there. So, the scoop is not about the old OSes but about the machines that are actually upgradable to Windows 10.

Piles of cash

[sjbe]

You need to read Ozymandias:

Already read it and it doesn't apply here. Microsoft has enough cash that they could buy BOTH Ford and GM at the same time in cash with money left over if the mood moved them. Unless they are completely idiotic they could simply buy their way into a new industry in the (unlikely) event their current one stops being profitable for them. People have this naive idea that just because Microsoft has a cash cow with Windows/Office that they will never be anything else and that their fate is tied to those products. That might have been true once but it isn't true anymore.

Re:Piles of cash

[Ol Olsoc]

You need to read Ozymandias:

Already read it and it doesn't apply here. Microsoft has enough cash that they could buy BOTH Ford and GM at the same time in cash with money left over if the mood moved them.

Gaze upon their stacks of money and despair, for they are Microsoft.

For Microsoft has managed to make financial perpetual motion, and 50 thousand years form now, Microsoft wil still be exactly where they are now, perhaps even bigger?

Right. and I have some Enron and Bethlehem Steel stock to sell you. People for one reason or another tend to think that the present situation will continue forever, no matter what happens. We see it in business where success allows those in that business to assume that since they caught lightning in a bottle once, that every decision they make in perpetuity will continue to catch lightning in a perpetual supply of bottles.

Nope, you didn't get it.

Re:Piles of cash

[david_thornley]

What you're saying is that Microsoft has a very long way to fall, and could get into other industries on their way down. That doesn't say that Microsoft will stay in the computer industry indefinitely; it does say that Microsoft will be there for a long time.

Old Proven Technology

[ThatNakedGuy]

Is it just me or is much of the latest tech lately not very impressive? I'm using Win 7, a 2012 Macbook Pro, and a Galaxy S5 phone, and feel no desire to upgrade anything. Stop changing a UI that everyone likes, stop removing features that people like, stop adding features that no one wants.

Re:Old Proven Technology

[hackel]

And get off my damn lawn!

Re:Old Proven Technology

[guacamole]

Indeed, the PC technology hit its peak many years ago, and smartphones are getting there too.

resource limitations

[unixisc]

Honestly, 4GB is the minimum that Windows 10 needs to run well. Given that factoid, I've long argued that Windows 10 should have dropped support for 32 bit altogether. As it is, 32 bit can't address even all 4GB that the address space allows, and the OS doesn't include PAE. So they should have aimed Windows 8 and 10 at 64-bit capable computers only, and sidestepped the issue of resource consumption.

Re:resource limitations

[Killall -9 Bash]

32-bit version runs fine on 2GB RAM. 64-bit W10 needs more.

Re:resource limitations

[PRMan]

Nah. The 32-bit version runs great with 2 GB. The 64-bit requires 4 GB.

Recovery Partitions?

[acoustix]

I'm guessing a chunk of these are people reverting back to their originally installed OS by performing a system recovery.

Sure, the Windows 10 upgrade was free for a while, but if the computer was wiped or reset, all the user could do was install the original OS.

Re:Recovery Partitions?

[ArtemaOne]

As long as you don't change the motherboard or hard drive you'll be able to reinstall Windows 10 on a previously upgraded PC without any kind of code. The authentication system remembers your unique combination and just activates it automatically.

The reason is XP

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason you are seeing more installs of Windows 7 is due to the lack of updates and support for XP. Many corporations have hundreds to thousands of computers still running Windows XP (bank branches, for example) that need to be upgraded to a supported OS in order for other software to work. Mozilla and Google have both ended support for XP in their browsers which leaves companies no choice to switch to 7. A license for Windows 7 costs less than a new computer and may be handled differently against quarterly financial reports. The vast majority of these older computers are capable of running Windows 7 and may have even shipped with a Windows 7 license originally. I know one of my past employers would downgrade Win7 systems to XP. The Win8/8.1 growth is from people wanting a solid media center device or cheap Windows tablet.

Re: Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rainbows used to be simply beautiful, now you wonder where it's been. Tossed salad used to be something cool and soothing, now the thought is nauseous. Come to think of it there was a time gay just meant happy. The issue is not what they do in privacy, but how they have soiled media, culture, and language.

Foxus on this

[Anonymous Coward]

Which window has foxus? Isn't it obvious? Every windows fucks us.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Anonymous Coward]

Repeating junk science often doesn't make it true. This "study" does not exclude all variables and therefore is bogus.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't feed the trolls, douchey mc douchebag.

How?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are the Windows 7 and 8.1 installations coming from, since OEMs are not allowed to install these versions any more? Is it pirating, people reverting from 10 back to either 7 or 8.1, or something else? I just can't see that there are that many people buying OEM disks from Fry's or the like to put 7/8.1 onto new machines that came with 10.

Also, my understanding is that Microsoft is cutting off support for older CPUs in their newer versions of Windows10, so I suspect that any trend back to Win7/Win8.1 won't have long legs.

Re:How?

[guacamole]

I do not get all the hostility that Windows 7 downgraders get.

Windows 7 may be +7 years old, but it's still the best desktop OS Microsoft really made. It went downhill with Windows 8, and everything that followed.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Anonymous Coward]

First the study showed straight, lesbian and gay male porn to BOTH groups. You just made up that bit about only showing the straight porn to the non-homophobes and the gay porn to the homophobes because you have no argument against it.

Second, you are showing signs of classic denial. If you are gay, then just be gay. There is no need to be all angry and constantly trying to prove how macho and non-gay you are. Nobody really cares except for you and other homophobes. The sooner you accept the fact that you like men, the sooner you can move forward with your life and the happier you will be because you can let go of all of that defensive aggression.

8.1

[Anonymous Coward]

I moved back to 8.1 after trying 10, and I'm much happier sticking with 8.1 than 10. I wish my new laptop had drivers so I could install 8.1 on it instead of W10.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Anonymous Coward]

Projection much?

double or nothing

[eaglesrule]

It seems clear to me why MS decided that only Win10 would support Intel's new Kaby Lake processors, and the Zen line from AMD. They are betting that they can overcome resistance to Win10 by limiting the choices you have for running windows applications on new hardware.

Then they'll wonder why Chrome devices are gaining in popularity.

(Supposedly) you can't buy 7 & 8 after Oct 31

[Ungrounded Lightning]

So few people use features specific to 7,8,10. To general user its arbitrary.

I'm working with a production tool from Nordic for flashing/burning and testing their IoT devices in mass production.

It's software development environment (necessary for testing the peripherals you added to your board) is only supported under 7, 7-pro, 8, and 8.1. (I've since heard that 7 Pro 64-bit is still available for a while but haven't checked that, or whether they really went ahead with the threatened shutdown this time.)

Microsoft end-of-lifed the OS versions and (supposedly) the last time you could get a new one from a retailer was Oct 31, (and then only preinstalled on a new machine).

I suspect the Oct purchase spike was, at least partly, users of mission critical applications that only run on the relevant versions, trying to head off disaster if a machine fails or they need additional seats.

How?

[hackel]

Why are they still selling Windows 7 and 8? That makes no sense. I understand if they feel the need to support them seemingly forever, but they certainly don't have to sell any *new* licenses. This is just idiotic. Using Windows is bad enough, but a 7 year old version of it? Come on...

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the EXACT kind of bullshit that caused me to flip to Republican this year.

OK, we get it! You're gay. You really don't need to keep coming out to us like this.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Kjella]

What you call insecure is what they call tempted by the devil and their own feelings their inner demons. If you are not tempted by evil, you're not threatened by it. If you are tempted by evil, you do feel threatened by it and as long as you think homosexuals are instruments of evil then homophobia is almost rational in context. If they hear "give in do the dark side" when you say "trust your feelings" you're whispering the devil's words in their ear. That's kinda the basis of the whole religion, we're relentless sinners in thoughts and deeds who are all in need of mercy and forgiveness. They certainly made enough rules to make sure...

Silly question time

[nehumanuscrede]

While my current systems are Win 7 with all auto updates disabled or some flavor of Linux, my next purchase will likely be a Win 10 based unit ( Wacom Mobile Pro ) since finding anything new with Win 7 on it is unlikely.

Since disabling the spyware is pointless if MS just re-enables it with updates you can't disable, is it possible to just blackhole known MS address space at the router or would that ACL be epic in size ?

Wireshark is easy enough to watch, but didn't know if that work has been done already or not.

Technically, I can just tell the router to disallow the unit from getting off the local lan completely ( I do this with several devices already ), but some software will need authentication from time to time ( I'm looking at you Adobe ) so will probably just allow access to specific subnets only and block the rest.

Other than Adobe stuff checking in, net access won't really be needed. I'll just transfer project stuff to a share drive and pick up with another system if I need to get it out on the net.

Re:Silly question time

[Pentium100]

You could probably do it with an ipset. The only two problems I see is that 1)how can you be certain that you got all of the addresses it can use to send the data and 2) the computer cannot be used with an internet connection that does not go through your router, which can be a problem for a laptop.

Re:Silly question time

[guacamole]

I believe someone did research on this when win10 just came out, and it turned out the amount of distinct IP addresses and ip blocks involved is incredible, and they may change in future.

Maybe they should just give it away for free again

[Anonymous Coward]

and this time no previous version should be required. Sign up, download, install. This pirated copy of 7 is still working just fine, so unless there is a valid reason, 100% free or gtfo.

I was finally forced to use 64-bit W7 HPE SP1...

[antdude]

... From my Seagate 1 TB HDD crash (clicks of death) with the ancient, updated Windows XP Pro SP3 stuff on it. It was a good run and reliable. It was time to o/` let it go o/` ... :P

Re: Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Anonymous Coward]

Run apple products. You get a nice rimjob with your purchase.

Should have made dx12 ready

[AHuxley]

MS should have made dx12 great. Ready with the gpu makers. Worked with game makers to ensure they knew what to expect and how to make great games with MS products.
Then released a ready product that worked with gpu's and made games better.
That would have driven upgrades, great new features that would have been ready at release, full supported by games and been gpu ready.

Re:Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[lsatenstein]

There is a large number of scientific studies ...

Quotation needed.

There is a large number of scientific studies ...

There you go.

I still run Windows 7 on my desktop and laptop, as a backup to Linux. I just keep it around because of nostalgia and because of older MS Office software. However, wps.com offers me a reason to free up that diskspace and replace it by a more recent operating system.

Re: Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only on slashdit does a statement about Windows market share Degrade to pseudo-science studies and flamewarring between an homophobic ingrate and a irrational it's true if it's on the internet flaimbaiter

Re: Which Windows will help me get nubile girls?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wih the new ridiculously priced and Unasked for tool bar, you don't even get a reach around.

why isn't this modded as "funny"?

[mschaffer]

Obviously, you don't know how Inventor uses Excel in this context. It's not an ODF issue.

Re: why isn't this modded as "funny"?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://youtu.be/J4TX94CcPIM

Re: why isn't this modded as "funny"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Such a great wisdom! Enlighten us!

How is this not a duh?

[CTU]

Windows 7 is a very stable OS and works well. Windows 10 just has to many bugs with the forced install , the uncontrollable updates, the spyware and such just is driving users away.

Re: (Supposedly) you can't buy 7 & 8 after Oct

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been notified by an OEM vendor that Win 7 will be available on new PCs with non Skylake cpus for another year (Oct 2017). Can't give out particulars due to NDA.

Nerfed CPUs

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft and Intel (Wintel) are nerfing CPUs and that's why Windows 10 is installations are decreasing. I had to sell my Core i7 4770K (very similar to Xeon E3 1230 but without graphics part Intel 4600) and buy Core i3 4170, becuase it couldn't boot installed SSD disk and installation USB stick. Probably because microcode update. Also same faith are G3258 and Xeon E3 users. And don't even mentioning Microsofts spying on Win10. Very disapointing OS!!!