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Windows 7 Enters Its Final Year of Free Support (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Windows 7's five years of extended support will expire on January 14, 2020 -- exactly one year from today. After this date, security fixes will no longer be freely available for the operating system that's still widely used. As always, the end of free support does not mean the end of support entirely. Microsoft has long offered paid support options for its operating systems beyond their normal lifetime, and Windows 7 is no different. What is different is the way that paid support will be offered. For previous versions of Windows, companies had to enter into a support contract of some kind to continue to receive patches. For Windows 7, however, the extra patches will simply be an optional extra that can be added to an existing volume license subscription -- no separate support contract needed -- on a per-device basis. These Extended Security Updates (ESU) will be available for three years after the 2020 cut-off, with prices escalating each year.
You have a common misconception. Microsoft is a bit sneaky and devious in making it look like you absolutely must login with a Microsoft ID, but there is an easy to miss "small print" option during the initial unboxing of Acer / HP / Lenovo laptops that lets you create a local user ID instead of using a Microsoft ID. Here's a brief howto document that explains the process: https://www.austintechnology.com.au/log-windows-10-without-microsoft-account/
OSX is shit, AND, the only way to get it is by purchasing horrendously overpriced crap hardware.
Even if you really don't like the hardware (which is mostly not overpriced), you can always build a hackintosh...
I still think OSX is nicer than even Windows 7, in many ways.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No you can't.
As a small business user I can only purchase Windows 10 "Professional".
There is no way for me to regulate the update and reboot process. Yes, there are ways to defer it. Yes, it can be scheduled. But it can't be deferred indefinitely. There are two sticking points here that may not fit your own impression of the use-case:
1) My computer is running important tasks continuously and if I need it to run for 6 weeks without a restart then so be it - why can't I do this?
2) Even if my tasks are shorter, they are continuously overlapping, so there is no valid window when it can be restarted.
3) Even if my tasks are shorter, and do not overlap, the forced update and reboot is another factor that I shouldn't have to deal with.
PS: For the others reading along. There is a *lot* of confusion about this online. Most of it stems from different Win10 versions, as well as features changing over time. The short of it is that only Enterprise customers have access to the full toolkit to control updates in a sensible way. Everyone else, including a lot of small businesses that do not qualify for Enterprise licensing, are basically fucked.
Guys, seriously. Windows 10, run blackbird. Be happy.