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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.
I'd rather take my chances with "unsupported" Windows 7 (been running with automatic updates disabled for years) then allow that MS spyware garbage on my networks and risk updates that break. Nothing will change next year except maybe more computers running Win 7 inside VMs.
Telemetry should be OPT IN, not opt in. If MS can't even respect my wishes then I can't respect their forced downgrades.
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NEVER mix business with pleasure; your business will get fucked over by someone who enjoys the pleasure
With Windows 10 not being a viable replacement to 7 due to forced updates and telemetry there is going to be an unprecedented amount of people using Windows 7 after the deadline. It will be bigger than the end of XP. There is certainly going to be more wannacry style attacks due to the amount of sitting ducks that are going to be created. Microsoft could easily prevent this but they will instead risk world security for a few billion extra dollars. In a sane world legal action would be taken to force Microsoft to make a fit for purpose successor to Windows 7, but Microsoft enjoys money too much and can bribe their way out of it.
We've been actively investigating alternatives since the point where you could no longer buy new machines with Windows 7 preinstalled. Running smaller businesses, you're typically on Pro rather than the enterprisey/volumey alternatives, so 10 doesn't look like a viable option and the paid ongoing support for 7 is of limited relevance. However, the need for everyone to run the exact same thing on every computer is also much less than organisations with hundreds or thousands of staff. Everything is customised to each user's needs anyway, so having people with newer machines running different software isn't necessarily a problem in this sort of environment.
Currently we're erring towards Linux but also keeping around some Windows 7 machines. We do use a few very expensive specialist packages that are either only available on Windows or expensive if we wanted to acquire further licences on other platforms, so retaining some Windows systems is important. However, based on watching what's happened in recent years, both in terms of actual behaviour of Windows and the strategy/attitude of the leadership at Microsoft, our judgement is that the risk of bad things happening to our businesses on Windows 7 even with no further security patches after this time next year is much lower than the risk due to Windows 10 compromising or breaking something.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Except that Microsoft has always made most of its Windows revenues from volume licensing and preinstallation on new PCs anyway, and neither of those is particularly affected by the current version being stable because big organisations still want updates and new computers still need an OS. In my entire life, I think I've bought an off-the-shelf copy of Windows on physical media exactly once, and the staff looked at me all funny like.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
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
Umm... ESCALATING? Do you mean free patches for a full decade, with a free upgrade path to the fully supported next generation of the OS, along with constant pleas to upgrade off your decade-old OS for the past several years? With *optional* extended support available for a fee for that small percentage of users who are unable or unwilling to relegate their decade-old to the dustbin of history?
Face it, OS technology moves forward, and unless you are still using Windows 1.0, this should not be a surprise to you.
If there was a better version of Windows to be purchased I would buy it and be happy about spending the money. So would a lot of other users.
The problem is Microsoft has neglected to release a viable replacement.
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.