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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.
1) Use Windows 7 and maybe get infected with malware.
or
2) Use Windows 10 and definitely have malware built right in.
They just don't like being spied upon...
"We still REALLY want to get you on Win 10. Our tricks and coercions did not work very well so anything we can do to scare you over is a good thing".
I suspect there is some truth to what they say, but the reality is that Windows 10 has had many unstable updates. Companies can turn these off or defer them, but the home user has no recourse. And for mission critical applications, Windows 10 has shown to be not reliable as you never know when an update that you can't eliminate might break your system.
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.
Or does it still open 400+ connections to pull multi-gigabyte files every time, taking up all available bandwidth, and shutting down everything else on the network?
Windows 10 is literally not usable without an update server to let you control this, since they have apparently removed all controls for who much bandwidth it uses to pull updates. And it makes your entire network unusable, as well.
In other news, my insurance salesman says I need more insurance.
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.
At this point, Windows 3.0 offers users more privacy and security than Windows 10.
Microsoft believes that our PCs belong to them. They need to lose more market share.
The Windows app store is not something that we all want. It should be an optional add-on for all versions of Windows.
Some of us also like Aero. Windows 8 removed Aero simply because mobile devices could not run it well in Windows RT. We are asked to give up Aero solely because of Microsoft's mobile platform that failed in the market and was essentially discontinued.
Microsoft, we refuse.
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.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
They weren't late, they were one of the first, but got caught with the NSAKey debacle.
After that they had to regain trust (of those paying attention).
If you disable the "recommended updates" you don't appear to get any of the "old" telemetry - but it may all be back in the rollups and we would never know.
The old telemetry updates could be removed with the following:
wusa /uninstall /kb:Patch# /quiet /norestart
The patches to remove are: 3065988, 3083325,3083324, 2976978, 3075853, 3065987, 3050265, 3050267, 3075851, 2902907, 3068708, 3022345, 2952664, 2990214, 3035583, 971033, 3021917, 3044374, 3046480, 3075249, 3080149.
When counting the cost are they counting in all the breakage that windows updates have caused for win 10?
That is a huge number for most people.
I co-own a small IT services company and one part of the business is basic IT support. In that we have just over 500 customer computers under management and during 2016 the on average 147 windows 10 computers have had an average of 3.4 problem tickets each. The on average 304 windows 7 computers have had an average 0.8 problem tickets each. That is a factor of more than 4!! (The numbers do not contain planned maintenance, new software installation/version upgrade, hardware installation or similar events, just the "something is broken fix it!" classified things.)
All proprietary software should be suspected of being malware. Microsoft Windows before version 10 was known to not behave in the user's interest and certainly not in the user's control (as per the definition of proprietary software). Microsoft tried pushing a Windows 10 "upgrade" on users by force, for example. Other "features" in Windows 10 (such as ignoring a user's privacy settings and doing what is in Microsoft's interest) were simply more along this line. Microsoft's aggressive sales tactics pointed to in this /. story are another example. In time there will be an announcement that Windows 7 will no longer receive updates and the hard sell for Windows 10 (or some other Windows variant) will continue. The question for all Windows users is how much more treatment like this they'd like to receive. It's never been easier to switch to a fully free software OS and run nothing but free software on top of that.
Digital Citizen
You forgot "Microsoft can access your machine and pull anything they want from it at any point in time without your knowledge and/or consent".
You also have zero control of updates. Unless you have a WSUS server, your machine WILL get updates on the schedule Microsoft forces upon you, and if those updates happen to hose your system, then too bad so sad.
I have a small pilot of Windows 10 machines at our company, and the last Anniv. update hosed *all* of them. Some were able to get up and running again by reverting to the previous version. One couldn't even revert, requiring us to re-image the machine.
The problem is that Microsoft wants all the control of your computer, but none of the responsibility. Maybe that's all well and good for home users, since the average home user wouldn't know what to do anyway, but for professional users and administrators who (for whatever reason) don't have the benefit of WSUS, that is *absolutely* unacceptable.
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.
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.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
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.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Microsoft: "Windows 7? why are you still running that pile."
Users: "Well, you said it was the fastest and most secure operating system ever. Besides Windows 10 doesn't really offer any new functionality and I don't really like the UI."
Microsoft: "No no that was old Microsoft. He was a dick. You need to scrap that gnarled bag of bolts and install Windows 10. Its the fastest and most secure operating system ever!"
Users: Windows 10 Does Not Meet the Demands of Modern Technology; Recommends Linux.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.