
Two years after Windows 10: Windows 7 is still threatening a 2020 EOL meltdown - DRS1973
https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3016575/two-years-after-windows-10-windows-7-is-still-threatening-a-2020-eol-meltdown
======
fake-name
I'm still on windows 7, and frankly at most I can anticipate upgrading to
windows 8.1.

Windows 10 is a complete non-starter until microsoft provides:

    
    
      - A way to COMPLETELY disable and remove the Cortana/Search system.    
      - A way to COMPLETELY disable (and keep disabled) all the telemetry.    
      - A way only EVER install updates manually.
    

It's not too well known, but you can uninstall the entire search/indexing
system from windows 7. It's in the "turn windows features on and off" dialog
in "Programs and Features". I've never had the W7 search actually be helpful,
and the complete lack of documentation on it doesn't really help. Turning it
off entirely at least prevents the indexing service from using all my CPU at
random times.

The "Everything" search utility from Void Tools is basically exactly what I
_want_ from the filesystem search tool.

I've looked at the W10 LTSB variant, and it's a hell of a lot more attractive
then the normal variant.

~~~
Stratoscope
Everything is one of my most indispensable tools. I use it many dozens of
times a day. I have 1.7 million files on my C: drive, and it can find any of
them as fast as I can type. Map it to a hotkey so it is always there ready to
go.

[http://www.voidtools.com/](http://www.voidtools.com/)

------
peterburkimsher
There's another story in those statistics. In the last 2 years:

"Mac OS has dropped from 7.66 to 5.85." (-1.81) "Linux ... from 1.68 to 3.37"
(+1.69)

I speculate that many of the ex-Mac users are moving to Linux.

It also begs the question, what did Apple do wrong in the last 2 years?

~~~
thunderrabbit
They stopped producing good hardware.

~~~
peterburkimsher
If the definition of "good" is MagSafe, full-size USB, and HDMI, then I agree
completely. It was for those reasons that I recommended a friend to buy a
refurbished 2015-model MacBook Pro instead of the touch bar version.

The neglect of user needs in the hardware department doesn't totally explain
the software shift, though.

~~~
King-Aaron
> If the definition of "good" is MagSafe, full-size USB, and HDMI, then I
> agree completely

Also a decent range of graphics options, as well as large RAM options. I don't
feel any of the current 'pro' level hardware offerings come anywhere near the
requirements of a professional, at least in terms of costs when compared to
other options from smaller vendors.

------
fencepost
Meh. A lot of those systems are in offices where there's really not been a
compelling reason to have upgrade cycles less than 5 years. Even a first or
second generation i3/i5 has more than enough compute power for anything in
most office environments, and if a machine is sluggish day to day it's almost
always addressed by taking it from 4gb (or even 2!) up to 8 at very low cost
or by replacing that overloaded 10/100 switch in the closet. An upgrade to SSD
may be appropriate for a few, but that gets close to the "just replace it"
point.

If you're a small company paying for outside support having someone do the
upgrade would likely have been $100+ per machine, for what gain?

I'd expect a surge of replacements this fall as Office 2007 goes EOL and
systems get replaced instead of upgraded (unless there's a shift to Office365
subscriptions) since non-subscription Office upgrades will die with the
machine, at least for companies with decent IT staff or contractors. Note that
this is for small companies not doing volume licensing, which is its own
separate and special hell.

------
phire
Fun fact: Windows 7 is now older than Windows XP was when Windows 7 was
released.

~~~
daigoba66
But it doesn't _feel_ that old.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
That's because not much has changed with the OS between Windows 7 and Windows
10. That's a big reason why many people are staying with Windows 7: It works
just as well, is (currently) just as secure, doesn't spy on you as blatantly
as Windows 10 does, and doesn't randomly reboot when you don't want it to.

~~~
fellellor
I use both Windows 7 (desktop) and windows 10 (laptop). I haven't found much
difference between the two, unless you count the time after Win10's release
when they "accidentally" screwed Win7's update feature.

The Win10 features I like are the multiple desktops and bash on windows. I
don't think these alone warrant an upgrade. Win10, however, has become much
better since launch, when I found it to be utter trash.

------
remir
You know you have a problem when people refuse a FREE upgrade to your latest
product. In my opinion, this is a consequence of Microsoft's refusal to just
give people what they want: an even better, more optimized Windows 7. That's
it.

They could have delivered that with Windows 8, but we all know what happened.
God knows how much money they wasted in that process (Nokia deal, Win 8
failure, Win Phone failure).

Instead of learning about their mistake, they kept this strategy going with
Windows 10, but UWP is not taking off and Windows Mobile is dead.

~~~
ux-app
that's just armchair quarterbacking. If they did deliver just a better win7
then people would be saying that you can't be relevant by staying in the past.
Good on them for experimenting, even if it didn't pay off this time around
(yet anyway)

~~~
remir
Then why are so many people still on Windows 7 despite the fact that there was
a free upgrade to Windows 10? Is it possible that a lot of people simply don't
like the new "modern" apps (UWP) MS is pushing? Is it possible they got burned
by Windows 8 and don't see the point in upgrading?

~~~
ux-app
I'll concede that the market hasn't responded, but still applaud MS for
pushing forward with new ideas.

------
Silhouette
It would be interesting to know how much of the stagnation in market share
movement is because people just aren't buying new computers right now if they
don't absolutely have to.

Windows 10 is unattractive for well-documented reasons, and it seems Microsoft
is still stubbornly refusing to acknowledge or deal with them.

Apple's recent hardware has been disappointing, and after a series of
questionable developments, macOS no longer has the reputation for being rock
solid that it did a few years ago either.

The only thing we've seriously considered buying recently was a small number
of Linux laptops, which do fine if you're mostly using web-based software
anyway and/or you're doing techie things where Linux might have better tools
available anyway.

I'm still slightly wondering whether, somewhere in the corner offices of one
of the IT giants, there might be a team of executives discussing whether they
can make a serious play for the general purpose desktop computing market in
2020 while Microsoft and Apple are both asleep at the wheel. Sadly, as much as
I'd love that to happen, I suspect no-one could be far enough along to pull it
off in time and yet to have nothing leaked yet. Which means that yes, in 2020,
a lot of bad things are probably going to happen in the industry one way or
another.

------
y0ssar1an
Even though the free upgrade offer has supposedly ended, it's super easy to
upgrade to a fully legal copy of Windows 10 for free. It's a giant side door
that MS has intentionally left open. Just google it.

~~~
Stratoscope
For the curious, it sounds like you may be referring to the "assistive
technologies" upgrade. Anyone who uses any kind of assistive technology is
entitled to a free upgrade. And they do mean _any_ kind, and they don't ask
what you use:

"We are not restricting the upgrade offer to specific assistive technologies.
If you use assistive technology on Windows, you are eligible for the upgrade
offer."

[https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/accessibility/windows10upgra...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/accessibility/windows10upgrade)

If you're worried about the ethics of saying you use an assistive technology
when you don't think you really do, take a look at the Windows 10 Ease of
Access settings. Anything in there obviously qualifies you, and many of them
can be useful for just about anyone. For example:

Do you get tired of the crazy Windows 10 Start menu animation, and the
downright awful cursor animation in Word and Excel? (Really, what were they
thinking: when you click on a cell in Excel, the box cursor _animates_ from
the old cell it was on to the cell you clicked on! Who in the world cares
about the _old_ cursor location when clicking on a new cell? And when you type
text in Word, the blinking cursor animates across the screen as you type
instead of moving in sync with your keystrokes like every other program in the
world.)

You can fix that: Ease of Access / Other Options / turn off the "Play
animations in Windows" setting.

What if you have a high-DPI display and find the default one-pixel cursor
width a bit hard to see? You can make it thicker in that same panel.

Have a keyboard with a numeric pad and would like to be able move the mouse
cursor using the numeric pad? Ease of Access / Mouse / turn on Mouse Keys.

Don't have a numeric pad, or you would like to be able to move the mouse
cursor from the home row keys? Get my JKLmouse program that gives you IJKL or
HJKL mouse cursor movement:
[http://www.jklmouse.com/](http://www.jklmouse.com/) \- forgive the shameless
plug, but it is really useful to be able to move the mouse cursor precisely
pixel by pixel. MouseKeys or JKLmouse let you do that, and either one also
qualifies as an assistive technology. (And sorry my installer isn't signed,
but if you prefer, you can get the source code from GitHub and run it under
AutoHotkey - just put a shortcut to the script in your Startup folder.)

Have a high-DPI display and want the better support that Windows 10 offers for
it? Or do you ever use a screen magnifier to see individual pixels - either
the one built into Windows or one of the many others available? Same story.

Anything along these lines legitimately qualifies you for the upgrade, so you
don't have to feel guilty for clicking the "Yes, I use assistive technologies"
button.

~~~
sogen
The animated cursor also appeared on Excel for OSX, I wanted to kill someone
(but I went with plan B and downgraded to a previous Office version).

~~~
Stratoscope
They did finally add an option to the Mac version Excel 2016 to turn off the
cursor animation. It's in the Excel preferences panel, not a systemwide
setting like on Windows.

I don't recall whether it was in Excel 2016 all along or if they added in some
update, but the option is definitely there now in the Mac version.

~~~
sogen
Thanks, will re- install!

------
klondike_
By the time Microsoft drops support for Windows 7, I plan on finally making
the jump to Linux full time. I see no compelling reason to use Windows 10,
considering the complete lack of privacy and annoying features like forced
updates and uninstallable apps.

~~~
gruez
sounds like "2020 is the year of the linux desktop" to me, and you know how
well that turns out.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
The person above isn't saying "everyone will be using linux," but rather
"(s)he will be using linux." There's a big difference there. Nowadays since
most applications run in a browser, it's absolutely possible to switch over to
linux without much hassle. The stranglehold that Windows had on the OS world
has weakened significantly in the last decade.

------
overgard
Why would I want Windows 10 if 7 is working fine? The only major upside is hi
dpi and touch screen support, which I only care about on newer devices. Also
the stability is substantially worse because Microsoft will force update my
machine frequently with updates that can take 30+ minutes.

~~~
lewisj489
Very much each to their own. Even though I use FreeBSD, I personally love
Windows 10 and feel like it's a significant improvement over Windows 7 and
8.1.

~~~
overgard
Unless you're technically inclined, there's nothing really exciting about
going to windows 10, but a lot of things can go wrong. I'm not saying 10 is
bad, I just see no real incentives to upgrade from 7. (Im using 10 btw, I just
can't think of a real reason why a 7 user needs to switch)

------
limeblack
I'm still on Windows 7 on my Thinkpad because my apps work fine and because
windows 10 added these stupid scroll animations when you hit the page down
key. Many people don't care but I use the page down key a lot and event time I
press it in Windows 10 it animates the scroll down gesture which is annoying.
I don't want a tablet on a Thinkpad. I know on Windows 8 it wasn't possible to
disable it when I tried. Hopefully disabling animations will now fix this in
Windows 10.

~~~
Stratoscope
I'm not sure which animation you're talking about, but you can turn off a lot
of superfluous animation by going into Settings / Ease of Access / Other
options / turn off the "Play animations in Windows". This also turns off the
Start menu animation and the wacky cursor animation in Word and Excel. Set my
other (lengthy) comment for related tips.

------
btown
Is the bump in Linux attributable to Chromebooks/Chrome OS? There's this
thread from a year ago speculating about NetMarketShare's methodology with
regards to Chrome OS, but nothing was confirmed:
[http://www.omgchrome.com/chromebooks-fuelling-rise-linux-
os-...](http://www.omgchrome.com/chromebooks-fuelling-rise-linux-os-
marketshare/)

If true, it's incredible that this seems to be biting directly into Apple's
marketshare: the Generation Z "I'm a teenager/college student who just wants
to use Facebook and do all my homework" demographic now has an alternative to
the millennial's "I need a MacBook to be cool and work effectively."
Tremendous ramifications for those of us who still make desktop software,
especially in the professional multimedia space.

~~~
osd
"not least of all, the variety of form factors and new players such as Chrome
OS, which isn't included here for logistical reasons."

From the article, no the chromebook is not the reason for the bump in linux.
It would be interesting to know exactly why chrome os is not counted.

My guess on Apple's dip is that Apple's current offerings are not that great
compared to where they stood 4-5 years ago.

------
foobar1962
I keep hearing the free upgrade to Windows 10 is over, but I have no problem
downloading the latest ISO, installing and activating it.

------
foxylad
"ChromeOS is not included for logistical reasons."

It would be interesting to hear why logistics prevent reporting this. And it
would be REALLY interesting to see the ChromeOS figures.

------
yuhong
What is funny is the support status of Win10 1507 (non-LTSB) where they
provided extra months of updates but did not extend the official deadline
beyond May.

------
Mikeb85
Honestly, I think the future is going to be iOS and Android for consumption of
media and basic tasks, consoles for gaming, and Linux for development.

Apple and MS both ruining the desktop.

~~~
q845712
Don't underestimate the number of desktops used in business enterprises.

I'm currently developing a product in a Windows environment. We're trapped in
Windows for historical reasons- the first draft of the codebase 10 years ago
was for Windows, and even just a few years later there was already too much
momentum for the guys who tried to do a *nix port to make any headway.

I've been in meetings with business partners where we pushed for an upgrade to
Win10, only to hear that they're so risk-averse to upgrading that some of
their systems are still XP.

I do agree desktop OS feels like a race to the bottom- I can't believe, given
the resources available on modern hardware, that windows 2000 remains my
favorite MS OS, with both win7 and 10 unable to replicate its stability and
core competency of being good at just running what I asked it to run.

However, I think offices and commercial applications are going to continue to
lean heavily on desktop OS-es for decades to come.

~~~
orf
> they're so risk-averse to upgrading that some of their systems are still XP.

I'd say that's risk ignorant rather than risk adverse. I hope those XP systems
are tightly locked away with no network access of any kind, but I doubt they
are.

~~~
sixothree
I've heard first-hand accounts of hospitals running XP as recently as a few
months ago.

------
haecceity
Does anyone do serious work on Windows 10? How do you guys deal with the
forced updates (that use up all CPU and disk I/O resources), forced reboots,
etc?

It seems whenever I turn on my Windows 10 machine, there's a service using all
the resources.

~~~
JoBrad
I do all of my work on Windows 10 Insider Edition. I have an update about once
every other week or so, and have to reboot. In between those times, I only put
my laptop to sleep by shutting the lid, and wake it up by opening the lid.
Despite using a "beta" version (Insider Edition), I can count on one hand the
number of unplanned shutdowns I've had that weren't due to an update. Maybe
I'm just lucky, but my experience with Windows 7 (which never figured out how
to sleep and wake up properly, on the same laptop) makes me think not. I've
had the same experience on 2 other models of laptops and 2 other models of
desktops.

