Slashdot Mirror
Windows 7 Will Get Updates for Four More Years -- If You Pay (zdnet.com)
An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet:
With the Windows 7 end-of-support clock slowly winding down to January 14, 2020, Microsoft is announcing it will offer, for a fee, continuing security updates for the product through January 2023. This isn't the first time Microsoft has done this for a version of Windows, but it may be the first time it has been so public about its plans to do so.
The paid Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESUs) will be sold on a per-device basis, with the price increasing each year. These ESUs will be available to any Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise users with volume-licensing agreements, and those with Windows Software Assurance and/or Windows 10 Enterprise or Education subscriptions will get a discount. Office 365 ProPlus will continue to work on devices with Windows 7 Extended Security Updates through January 2023.
The paid Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESUs) will be sold on a per-device basis, with the price increasing each year. These ESUs will be available to any Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise users with volume-licensing agreements, and those with Windows Software Assurance and/or Windows 10 Enterprise or Education subscriptions will get a discount. Office 365 ProPlus will continue to work on devices with Windows 7 Extended Security Updates through January 2023.
Because you have some crappy bit of unsupported proprietary software that doesn't run on windows 10 and will cost a bucket load to replace.
Well, I've seen it used in medical equipment. Despite Microsoft saying in the EULA that it is not for use in such environments. That is yet another level of mission-critical.
C - the footgun of programming languages
I knew Terry Davis wasn't really dead.
because they don't want to give up control of THEIR hardware or the software they've PAID FOR
because they don't want to be 'the product' forced to view advertisements, have sponsored apps shoved up their asses, or be spied on BY A FUCKING OPERATING SYSTEM, or have that same operating system download updates willy-nilly, which OFTEN IRREPARABLY BREAKS THE SYSTEM or uses up precious data quotas resulting in overage charges.
an operating system should, i dunno, OPERATE THE SYSTEM.. and JUST THAT.. i know, what a novel and retro concept... nothing else; not be a damn revenue stream and avenue for spying.
I wasted SIX HOURS updating a laptop yesterday.
And yet, you're still using Windows. At this point, Microsoft knows that they own you and your laptop. Why should they care what you want when they know you will keep paying and promoting them regardless of what they do to you?
We stopped patching Win7 2+ yrs ago when the EULA changed to allow their spying and when MSFT stopped saying what each patch was for.
It just became too hard to deal with MSFT.
We had little choice. MSFT decided to fire us by forcing things into the agreement we just couldn't agree with.
You nailed it. I run Monte Carlo simulations of electron induced X-ray microanalysis spectra. These can run for hours. I want control of my CPU cycles and don't want some update starting without my explicit permission. I have a friend who runs a big microanalysis lab. A rececent MS update broke DCOM and won't let his microanalysis computer talk to the microscope computer. We know of at least one other system with this problem. These are $1M+ systems...
My community does CPU-intensive work and we want control of OUR computers. We understand the need for antivirus/spyware software and are willing to use it. We don't want our OS to treat us like idiots and BE the spyware... We want to give explicit permission for the OS to phone home...
Not even close the reason. Because Windows 7 is better.
Because Windows is a dumpster fire and if you don't keep up you're going to get pwned sooner or later causing everybody else all kinds of problems from malware infections to identity theft.
Sure, YOU can drink and drive responsibly, it's just everybody else who cannot. I mean "run unpatched Windows".
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Windows 2000 is what killed desktop Linux. The old 16 bit Windows riding on a DOS was a stability and security nightmare. A lot of power users were ready to leap from Windows to a more stable platform. NT 4 was usable and mostly stable but Microsoft wasn't fully committed until W2K came out.
W2K gave users stability and a practical no-frills desktop. It was so good that many of us almost skipped XP, which was seen as the candyland for mainstream customers, only outdone in this regard by Vista. Late era XP then became the refuge to wait out Vista on.
Microsoft has a history of their older OS versions becoming a hedge against their newer offering. Almost like the way people on Linux resist updating to a SystemD kludge.
"The fact that people continue to use Microsoft products is mind-boggling."
Not nearly as mind-boggling as the folks who can't seem to grasp the fact that not all professional software runs on Linux or Mac OS.
Talking about software that costs more than the hardware it runs upon. Yanno, stuff you can't easily replace because it's cost prohibitive.
Thus, the reason folks continue to use what they use and will continue to do so until ALL of their daily use software applications have a native Linux or Mac OS choice.
It's really not that difficult.
That is a sad state of affairs. After all, security updates fix defects in their product. It is not as if they are improving anything, it is that they fix the mess they created. To ask for money for that is unacceptable, and to exclude ordinary users is even more unacceptable.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Well USB and built in firewall for one :-)
Old geeks remember only the good times of the good old days. Not NT4 required a ps2 to USB adapter and Windows 2000 required a reboot when you unplug a mouse as it's not plug n play or that your system was 0wned without blackice firewall software etc.
XP was a security nightmare too!
Windows 7 was gorgeous and had improved security and was light enough to run on an atom.
http://saveie6.com/