Support for windows 7 is ending in coming days in my country, Australia.

a reply to: ChesterJohn

Now they have to be clear about it, at least for EU citizens, because of the General Data Protection Regulation.

www.zdnet.com...

Win 10 is fine usage-wise - not sure why people say it's hard to navigate. You literally click on the Start button, and start typing what you are looking for and it comes up. Pretty easy. I don't care for some of the settings, but have learned to live with them. Win 7 will no longer provide security updates after the 14th. Are they important? Yea, they actually are. Your computer will become much more susceptible to malware, viruses and so on, and it will grow as time goes on. You may not need their tech support, but you do need security updates.

I also hate the forced updates. It's challenging to turn that off, at all. They are also now forcing things like.. their own antivirus, enabling the firewall and so on. Still, it's manageable. I do hate the metrics being taken from your computer by MS. And even if you disable every option given to you via privacy, and doing reg fixes, there is -still- traffic going to MS servers from your computer while connected to the Internet. I was (and still am) skeptical of a "free" version of their OS. That is SO not a Microsoft thing to do. As an IT director, I am used to being gouged every way imaginable with MS licensing - from server licenses, core licensing, remote, user, device, server CALS - you name it. Saving you money isn't something MS does - unless something is in it for them. Whenever they change their policies or licensing, it's always to make more money. Even their new CSP offering seems too good to be true.

I think we have one Win 7 computer floating out there in our company - we have over 500 computers running 10 without any major issues. It is definitely more stable, with many less blue screens overall. Edge is generally terrible as a browser, but most of our folks utilize Chrome anyway. But overall I can't think of any good reasons to continue to use Windows 7. If you disable anything that is grabbing you info, turn off some privacy features and so on - it's not too terrible. We have a script we run that turns all that off.

There are signs they are using their platform for other things, or will be. For example, they patented a technology a couple years back to block shared content if deemed illegal. Torrent sites started blocking Windows 10 users as a precaution. People were worried they would start blocking or reporting illegal music, movie and so on. Personally I don't think the scope of their software should go beyond illegal MS software. But who knows what they will roll into their OS as time goes on.

As security update drop off Windows 7, expect any software that has a connection to a provider, a SaaS, gaming platform, whatever.. to stop supporting it. They don't want non-secure computers connecting to their platforms. Over time, you will find your options quickly shrinking if you continue to use Windows 7.

originally posted by: fleabit
I was (and still am) skeptical of a "free" version of their OS. That is SO not a Microsoft thing to do.

Well, they have had free versions of some software (SQL Server and Visual Studio) for several years. Also, most of their revenue comes from Office sales, not Windows.

originally posted by: fleabit
Win 10 is fine usage-wise - not sure why people say it's hard to navigate. You literally click on the Start button, and start typing what you are looking for and it comes up. Pretty easy. I don't care for some of the settings, but have learned to live with them. Win 7 will no longer provide security updates after the 14th. Are they important? Yea, they actually are. Your computer will become much more susceptible to malware, viruses and so on, and it will grow as time goes on. You may not need their tech support, but you do need security updates.

I also hate the forced updates. It's challenging to turn that off, at all. They are also now forcing things like.. their own antivirus, enabling the firewall and so on. Still, it's manageable. I do hate the metrics being taken from your computer by MS. And even if you disable every option given to you via privacy, and doing reg fixes, there is -still- traffic going to MS servers from your computer while connected to the Internet. I was (and still am) skeptical of a "free" version of their OS. That is SO not a Microsoft thing to do. As an IT director, I am used to being gouged every way imaginable with MS licensing - from server licenses, core licensing, remote, user, device, server CALS - you name it. Saving you money isn't something MS does - unless something is in it for them. Whenever they change their policies or licensing, it's always to make more money. Even their new CSP offering seems too good to be true.

I think we have one Win 7 computer floating out there in our company - we have over 500 computers running 10 without any major issues. It is definitely more stable, with many less blue screens overall. Edge is generally terrible as a browser, but most of our folks utilize Chrome anyway. But overall I can't think of any good reasons to continue to use Windows 7. If you disable anything that is grabbing you info, turn off some privacy features and so on - it's not too terrible. We have a script we run that turns all that off.

There are signs they are using their platform for other things, or will be. For example, they patented a technology a couple years back to block shared content if deemed illegal. Torrent sites started blocking Windows 10 users as a precaution. People were worried they would start blocking or reporting illegal music, movie and so on. Personally I don't think the scope of their software should go beyond illegal MS software. But who knows what they will roll into their OS as time goes on.

As security update drop off Windows 7, expect any software that has a connection to a provider, a SaaS, gaming platform, whatever.. to stop supporting it. They don't want non-secure computers connecting to their platforms. Over time, you will find your options quickly shrinking if you continue to use Windows 7.

In general, it honestly kinda makes me wish Google had pushed the Chromebook idea harder and gotten more of them out there. If you have to have everything in the cloud, at least Google didn't force you. I haven't seen anything like what MS did with W10 on that scale when you consider they pretty much have a monopoly. I mean, sure. You can do Linux or Apple but Windows is really the only game in town when it comes to universal coverage of almost everything you'd want to do with a PC. I kind of doubt the government will do anything to break their monopoly either. Although this is one case where I'd be in favor of it.

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
If you have to have everything in the cloud, at least Google didn't force you.

Why do you say that, Microsoft doesn't force you either.