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Microsoft Will Now Pester Windows 7 Users To Upgrade To Windows 10 With Pop-ups (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the up-next dept.

Mark Wilson writes: Anyone who is still using Windows 7 doesn't have much longer until the operating system is no longer supported by Microsoft. Come January 14, 2020 only those enterprise customers who are willing to pay for Extended Security Updates will receive any kind of support. Microsoft has already done a lot to encourage Windows 7 diehards to make the move to Windows 10, and now it is stepping things up a gear. Throughout 2019, the company will show pop-up notifications in Windows 7 about making the switch to the latest version of Windows.

16 of 271 comments (clear)

  1. There is a quite easy way to kill win7 by Z80a · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Release another good windows.
    Worked wonders with windows XP.

    1. Re:There is a quite easy way to kill win7 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or allow Professional users to disable telemetry and turn off automatic updates instead of keeping it to inaccessible Enterprise licenses. Some of us need the stability of planned rollouts but aren't large enough to get Enterprise licensing yet and the telemetry is a no-go for many professionals.

    2. Re:There is a quite easy way to kill win7 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Release another good windows.

      Exactly.

      Windows 10 is useless garbage. Endless bugs, glitches, inconsistencies and a horrifically bad UI.

    3. Re:There is a quite easy way to kill win7 by ctilsie242 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I just wish MS would release Windows 10 LTSB/LTSC as a standalone OS. No telemetry, no Candy Crush. Just does its job.

    4. Re:There is a quite easy way to kill win7 by Z80a · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't consider an OS that comes bundled with malware as a good OS.

    5. Re:There is a quite easy way to kill win7 by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There's still a significant amount of useful Windows-only software out there. The lock-in effect is growing weaker as other platforms develop competitors and particularly as online services displace desktop software for a lot of users, but it's still there.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    6. Re:There is a quite easy way to kill win7 by dryeo · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well, I'm sure Microsoft can deliver that.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
  2. Good luck with that by xack · · Score: 3, Interesting

    China still has 10% market share for Windows XP. There will still be substantial Windows 7 usage in the 2030s. Businesses wih critical workloads that can’t be rebooted all he time for “updates” means that 7 isn’t going anywhere.

  3. Re:Too bad MacOS isn't broken beyond repair by demon+driver · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Linux is out, because of specific software packages I use that do not support Linux.

    May I ask which ones? I ask because that was what I thought until the end of 2017, when out of sheer frustration with the idea of having to move to Windows 10 in the foreseeable future I just gave Linux a try. The plan was to resort to Wine and/or a Windows 7 VM for those Windows applications I really cannot do without yet. I wasn't too optimistic, I saw a less-than-fifty-percent chance for it working out well. But it did. A few weeks later, all machines in the household (the other inhabitant had been very sympathetic to the plan, too) had been converted to Linux as the only or primary OS, and we have never looked back. There's just one thing I've been asking myself once or twice – why did I wait that long?

  4. Re:The company will, but I won't by supremebob · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yeah, I don't remember the Windows XP update warning messages being all that effective, either. I just disabled them, and then hacked my Windows XP box into thinking that it was a POSReady 2009 system to get another 5 years worth of updates.

    POSReady 7 still gets updates until 2021. I wonder if that same registry hack will still work...

  5. If only W10 Pro was more like W10 Enterprise... by toejam13 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Many of my complaints about Windows 10 are absent in the enterprise branch and long-term servicing branch of Windows 10. The problem is that the cost of obtaining legal copies of those branches for personal use is ridiculously high. So I continue to use Windows 7 Ultimate, even if it means sticking with my aging PC and having to resort to tricks to keep the updates coming (remember the point-of-sales trick for XP?).

    If people could install Windows 10 and have it look and act somewhat similar to Windows 7 without having to resort to exotic editions, registry hacks, or third-party tools, I think a lot of people would finally jump ship, even if they had to pay extra for those features. I sure would.

    I say this as someone who just this week had to roll their own installation DVD in order to install Windows 7 on a new NVMe SSD. So I am set for a while longer.

    1. Re:If only W10 Pro was more like W10 Enterprise... by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Have you tried 8.1+ClassicShell? Looks and acts like Win 7 (or XP if you prefer) but with better hardware support and faster boot times, updates are rock solid, and it took less than 3 minutes to turn off any phone home BS and in the 2 years I've been running it it never once has turned back on. I have to say its been a hell of a workstation OS, as good as XP X64 was back in the day, even win 7 wasn't this rock solid and hassle free.

      I deal with enough customers with Win 10 to know its a "do NOT want" for me, the updates are buggy as fuck, every patch you have to go through tons of settings as MSFT might just decide to reset everything back to default (because "fuck you 10 Home and Pro user you are a beta tester for our REAL customers and a source for data mining" seems to be their mantra for Win 10 these days) and it generally seems less stable than Vista RTM. 8.1 OTOH has been a treat, not a single crash, it even handled a dying GPU without crashing, and never gets in the way of what I'm doing.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  6. Microsoft is EXTREMELY poorly-managed. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Informative

    My understanding: Microsoft is an EXTREMELY poorly-managed company. I think much more attention should be given to that.

    Microsoft trash talks Windows 10 LTSC -- again (Dec. 5, 2018)

    Microsoft scrambles to limit PR damage over abusive AI bot Tay. (Nov. 30, 2017)

    Guess what country sued Microsoft over abusive user data collection! -- Brazil (Apr. 28, 2018) Bad adjective: "beloved" Windows 10.

    Apparently the present worsening management began with Ballmer-osis: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book (May 23, 2012)

    But Microsoft was always abusive, apparently: 'Crush Them': An Oral History of the Lawsuit That Upended Silicon Valley. (May 18, 2018)

    Bill Gates still runs Microsoft: Two years ago, during a Jan. 17, 2017 discussion with Charlie Rose, Bill Gates said he spends "15 percent" of his time managing Microsoft. I interpreted that to mean that Gates is still extremely involved and very influential. Did Gates want the mess that is Windows 10?

    From the transcript at that Charlie Rose web page:

    08:42
    "Bill Gates: I'm there about 15 percent of the time. And I get to work just on the R and D part, brainstorming with people, thinking, OK, how are we going to take this artificial intelligence and make it understand, help you use your time better. It's a very exciting time in software. There's five companies that are, you know, in a really strong position. Microsoft is leading in some really cool stuff so --"

    It seems obvious that Bill Gates still has a huge amount of overall influence on the management of Microsoft, even if he mostly focuses on other subjects.

    Lately, Windows users are not allowed to know what Windows updates actually do. In the past, for example, users were pushed to Windows 10, without giving their permission. So, now Windows 7 customers will be paying for updates that may be abusive.

    Some of the many stories about Windows 10 indicate deliberate abuse of customers:

    Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." (Aug. 4, 2015)

    Microsoft's Intolerable Windows 10 Aggression (May 27, 2016)

    Microsoft is infesting Windows 10 with annoying ads (March 17, 2017)

    Microsoft, stop sabotaging Windows 10. (March 21, 2017)

  7. Re:The company will, but I won't by DickBreath · · Score: 4, Funny

    > Because I turned off updates years ago.

    Popup dialog decorated with Clippy says:

    Hey, it looks like you haven't yet upgraded to Windows 10! I'm from Microsoft and I'm here to help you!

    To automatically upgrade to Windows 10 do any one of the following:
    * Click Yes, I want to upgrade!
    * Click No, I do not want to upgrade
    * Click the X to close this popup
    * Immediately pull the computer's power cord from the electrical outlet to have Windows 10 automatically installed at the next reboot -- for your convenience!

    With Windows 10, nothing can go wrong. Nothing can go wrong. Nothing can go. thing can go wrong. go wrong.

    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  8. Re:The company will, but I won't by exomondo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    macOS is just as bad, it does exactly the same thing if you don't upgrade. Periodically popping up a notification in the top right hand screen which, unlike most notifications that display there, you can't simply hit "Dismiss", the only options are "Install" and "Details", the latter opens up the update in the App Store program.

  9. I'll Miss The Games by ewhac · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Some of us remember the jaw-dropping arrogance and hubris Micros~1 demonstrated with their Get Windows 10 (GWX) initiative:

    • The new icon in the systray that was an advertisement, and couldn't be disabled (unless you knew the exact KB numbers to uninstall),
    • The pop-up windows nagging you to take the upgrade before it was "too late,"
    • Downloading a multi-gigabyte hairball containing the update to your system drive -- without your knowledge or consent -- "just in case" you finally said yes,
    • Turning your PC into a Bittorrent node to distribute the update to other PCs, because why should Micros~1 pay for their own bandwidth when they can leech off everyone else's,
    • Using maliciously confusing prompts to trick people into accepting the upgrade, even -- and especially -- after they'd already explicitly said No several times,
    • The upgrades that failed,
    • The rollbacks that failed,
    • The machines that Win10 just plain didn't, and never would, support,
    • Arrogating all system administration to themselves, and still constantly fscking it up,
    • The promises and features that, to the surprise of no one who's been paying the slightest attention for the last 35 years, were never delivered -- shitty security, shitty performance, shitty UI, system updates that could break the machine at any given time, and device driver updates that never worked.

    So I guess my question to Micros~1 is: What in your brain-worm-infested minds do you imagine has induced us to change our opinions on this matter? You are every bit as incompetent and every bit as untrustworthy as you were five years ago, ten years ago, 20 years ago...

    Windows exists in my house solely to play games. If you feel you can't handle that duty any longer without completely fscking over my machine, then I guess I'll have to learn to live with just NetHack.

    TL;DR: The Answer Is No.

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    Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions