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Microsoft: Windows 7 Does Not Meet the Demands of Modern Technology; Recommends Windows 10 (neowin.net)

In a blog post, Microsoft says that continued usage of Windows 7 increases maintenance and operating costs for businesses. Furthermore, time is needlessly wasted on combating malware attacks that could have been avoided by upgrading to Windows 10. A report on Neowin adds: Microsoft also says that many hardware manufacturers do not provide drivers for Windows 7 any longer, and many developers and companies refrain from releasing programs on the outdated operating system. Markus Nitschke, Head of Windows at Microsoft Germany, had the following to say about Windows 7: "Today, it [Windows 7] does not meet the requirements of modern technology, nor the high security requirements of IT departments. As early as in Windows XP, we saw that companies should take early steps to avoid future risks or costs. With Windows 10, we offer our customers the highest level of security and functionality at the cutting edge.

19 of 503 comments (clear)

  1. Options by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1) Use Windows 7 and maybe get infected with malware.

    or

    2) Use Windows 10 and definitely have malware built right in.

    1. Re:Options by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Win7 doesn't have the builtin access that our modern society needs to make sure you're not guilty of independent thought.

    2. Re:Options by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Which brings us to the second main advantage of Windows 7 over 10: you're not forced to install dodgy updates

      Win7: 2
      Win10: 0

    3. Re:Options by mindwhip · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Privacy issues and rollout costs aside, Windows 10 doesn't have the business centric interface that works well in a work environment or sufficient compatibility with large amounts of legacy in house and third party applications that are business critical. Nor do most of the existing infrastructure and software management systems currently embedded in most medium to large companies work well with it. Most of these companies already have appropriate mitigations against malware, including desktop virus scanners, firewall controls including in-line scanning and content (executable) blocking, email scanning and filtering, backups, user access controls and active intrusion detection.

      Not to mention that most businesses would need to embark on a large scale hardware upgrade program to make windows 10 usable due to the lack of support for older hardware.

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    4. Re:Options by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Many people only use their computers to browse the web and access their email. An OS that only allows that would be criticized by /. for being too locked down and not general purpose, but for the vast majority of consumers this would be perfect.

      Isn't that basically Chromebooks?

  2. More like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...Windows 7 does not meet the needs of NSA, and Microsoft's marketing department, and whoever else they're selling all of your Windows 10 "telemetry" to.

    1. Re:More like... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Quite. I read this:

      Microsoft says that continued usage of Windows 7 increases maintenance and operating costs for businesses.

      and my immediate thought -- as someone who runs a few small IT businesses and is typing this on a Windows 7 PC -- was... well, it would be impolite to write my actual immediate thought at the time, so let's paraphrase it as "No, it doesn't".

      With Windows 10, we offer our customers the highest level of security and functionality at the cutting edge.

      The thing about cutting edges is that if you're not careful, you get hurt. And I have little interest in helping Microsoft's security at the expense of my own businesses.

      Oh, and just for completeness while we're debunking every single statement in TFS, we bought a final round of PC gear just in time to still get Windows 7 preinstalled, and so far the total number of devices or software products we wanted to use that haven't been compatible with it has been 0, and the number of malware infections we've had to deal with has also been 0. Literally the only thing we've had to do with drivers that was even slightly awkward was slipstreaming USB3 drivers in when installing because PCs tend to have all USB3 ports these days, in contrast to the numerous reports of driver compatibility problems with Windows 10. We're far more concerned about the potential security, reliability and confidentiality risks fundamentally built into Windows 10 than we are about any threats Windows 10 is supposedly better equipped to defend against than Windows 7.

      Ironically, the single most annoying and time-consuming thing in setting up those new PCs was applying the latest Windows security patches, because Microsoft have made such a dog's dinner of Windows Update in recent times that you basically have to use one of the alternative channels instead of the built-in one. And they want us to move to a new OS that relies on their update infrastructure and gives even less control over when it runs or what it does? Don't make me laugh.

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  3. People agree that Windows 10 has better tech by Master5000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They just don't like being spied upon...

    1. Re:People agree that Windows 10 has better tech by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That and a mostly useless UI.
      Granted it is better than Windows 8. But I don't want a tablet OS for my Workstation.

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  4. Not news by iampiti · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course Microsoft is going to criticise their own old versions of Windows and recommend people to upgrade to the latest. Why is this even news?
    Also, their incredible insistence in people upgrading to 10 makes it clear they learnt with Windows XP that people don't rush to upgrade to a new OS if they're happy with what they have. Also that they had a plan to make a lot of money off Win 10 even if people upgraded for free (increased used of MS' services (bing, hotmail, their cloud service), data gathering, people buying from the Windows Store ...).
    And pretty obvious that "Windows 7 increases maintenance and operating costs for businesses" actually means "we'll make less money if you don't upgrade".
    Maybe if you gave people what they want people would willingly update to your latest OS instead of rejecting it even when given away for free.
    Make a Windows 7 with the internals of 10 and I'll upgrade.

  5. Re:Upgrade refuseniks are idjits by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In other news, my insurance salesman says I need more insurance.

  6. Huh? by quonset · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You mean I can't type out a Word document, read my email or visit a web site using Windows 7 because it's so insecure?

    Well now, whose fault is that?

  7. Simple by darkain · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It is actually quite simple. From a technical perspective, Windows 10 *IS* more secure than Windows 7 in one very major regard. Edge (Win10 bundled browser) is far superior in both functionality and security compared to Internet Explorer (Win7 bundled browser)

    BUT NOBODY FUCKING USES EITHER BROWSER, SO IT IS A MOOT POINT!

    So yes, TECHNICALLY speaking, Windows 10 is "more secure", but nobody is using the insecure parts of Windows 7. Simple as that.

  8. Re:Expected /. response by Vlad_the_Inhaler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When Windows updates routinely override existing settings and break existing setups, they fit my definition of malware. Windows 10 qualifies fully and I wish I had never applied the update on one machine last summer. I know several people who applied the update and only one of them is happy with it (as of a few months ago, it is not topic number one).
    Microsoft seem to think we bought our PCs so we could run Windows Update and glory in its magnificence. No, I bought mine to perform certain functions and installing Windows 10 has broken more than it alleviated. It is not the security features which annoy me, even the telemetry is a lesser irritant. What really annoys me is when an update leaves something utterly broken, and the knowledge that the next update is going to repeat the experience.

    --
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  9. Re:Expected /. response by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The simple problem is that telemetry has been overstated and overblown. Try to find a comprehensive description of what Microsoft captures about users. What you get is things about Windows making DNS lookups against hundreds of domains, some chatter about what Windows 10 could be doing, and some criticisms of ill-thought-out features like Wifi network password sharing. Nobody knows what's happening, but they've all assumed so.

    The result is a bunch of people talking about how Microsoft is spying on you by doing such things as identifying all software installed, based on Windows Update removing 6 particular softwares (something that can be done locally, without sending information about them back to Microsoft); meanwhile when you run yum or apt, it sends an HTTP request for each individual piece of software you're updating or installing back to a central server--which actually does what people said Windows 10 does, but doesn't freak anybody out because... reasons. EVERYBODY PANIC!

    Every keystroke you enter into your browser's search bar is sent to a remote server, where it's logged in Web server logs. Every domain you look up goes back to a Malware service to block bad sites. Cortana used to search the web if you typed search terms into the Cortana search bar, and people freaked out.

    To be fair, people freaked out when Ubuntu started searching Amazon through the Unity bar. It's not that they have legitimate fears; it's that they fear new things, and confusion in groups turns into mass hysteria. You get a few people suggesting folks are just afraid Amazon will see them trying to look for their child porn collection, but that's retarded; the truth is everyone's scared because the next ten people are scared and nobody is inclined to take the time to verify that the next ten people aren't idiots, so they do the reasonable thing and assume (incorrectly) that a million people who have no fucking clue what they're talking about can't be wrong or someone would have told them by now.

    Someone like me.

    Do you see the problem?

  10. Re:Expected /. response by JohnFen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The simple problem is that telemetry has been overstated and overblown.

    No, the simple problem is that the telemetry is mandatory. Microsoft could have provided a way to turn it all off, but did not. How much or little about me that is exposed by the telemetry is beside the point.

  11. IT Departments? by acoustix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Really, Microsoft? You're preaching about IT security when you have completely taken some Windows 10 security decisions *OUT* of the hands of IT departments? We can no longer disable the Windows App Store in Windows 10 Pro, thanks to you. But if we still want that feature we have to update our licenses from Pro to Enterprise.....because SECURITY. Right? It's not about money, right?

    Go fuck yourselves.

    --
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  12. Re:Bashing Windows 10 by fuzznutz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now on to some bashing, we'll start with force updates that everyone complains the most about. Sorry, but this is a necessary evil, because muggles won't f'ing upgrade their systems, leaving them vulnerable and they just don't give a flying f. The only way to address this needless insecurity is to force updates. Personally I don't mind, I like to be running latest and greatest anyway, but just keep in mind, its the idiots who refuse to upgrade their crap that brought this upon us all. Deal with it. For drivers causing PROBLEMS when updated (I've had this too), Microsoft has since day 1 had a tool to disable updates on specific hardware in your machine. So stop whining and use that tool when necessary.

    Whoa right there cowboy. If the updates were - I don't know - tested and vetted, maybe the forced updates wouldn't be a problem. Since they aren't and they break countless machines, many of which are owned by the clueless "idiots" you reference, we have plenty of people with broken computers who have no idea how to fix these problems. When you wake up only to find all networking is now broken, or your printers are all missing, or your data partition is inaccessible, or you have a blue screen that won't resolve with rebooting, the forced updates are a deal breaker for the great unwashed masses, period.

    For the people who have a clue, the telemetry is the deal breaker.

  13. In other news by codeButcher · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Users: Windows 10 Does Not Meet the Demands of Modern Technology; Recommends Linux.

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