
"Customers are likely to see regressions with Windows 7 ongoing servicing" - petethomas
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/01/15/windows-10-embracing-silicon-innovation/
======
mback00
I have outgrown a few laptops since 2006 when I finally gave up dual boot and
just ran with Linux. Linux admittedly does have the occasional mixup
(especially about competing graphical interfaces and init systems) and does
sometimes need a little experimentation to get things working as I would like;
however, these seeming inconveniences are mostly caused by newly presented
"options" and are not about forced lock-in. Besides, Linux also has some very
positive qualities that have become essential to me. Linux maintains
compatibility with old code (sometimes very very old code) that is still
useful to me. Linux puts an astounding array of tools at my fingertips that
help me automate work and learn new things. Linux also keeps me secure, virus-
free and conveniently keeps everything installed on disk up-to-date... and it
gradually (every 6 mos for me) gets better all the time -- for free. I can't
see a reason why I would ever want to return to an OS as restrictive and
inconvenient as Windows.

~~~
eloff
I went in the other direction. I used to use Linux (Ubuntu) but I got tired of
essential things breaking after updates, like Nautilus, and the constant
battle with getting the printer to work. Eventually I just got too frustrated,
went out and bought Windows for $300 and considered it cheap.

Now I need Linux for work (software dev) again, so I gave dual-boot a try. I
installed OpenSuse, Ubuntu, and Debian a total of 7 times since Christmas,
each time ending up with something unbootable within days. And I spent a
couple thousand dollars of my time getting them to work, fixing the horrible
fonts on OpenSuse, etc. Eventually I gave up and bought VMWare where Ubuntu
now sits happily isolated from real hardware, a configuration that it's
somehow more stable in. And at least I have automatic snapshots on every
reboot, so when something goes wrong I just roll back.

Honestly, desktop Linux is the most expensive OS out there if you count the
value of your time. I really like Windows, not because it's a pleasure to use
(Windows 8 with that metro crap was terrible!) but because it just works. If I
can't get desktop Linux to work nicely as software engineer, what chance does
your average person have? Unless some company does to Linux what Apple did to
BSD (SteamOS?), I don't see any hope for it ever being anything but a niche
desktop OS.

~~~
JupiterMoon
I wonder if you used hardware than is actually supported by the distributions
you tried? If you need/want Linux I would highly recommend buying something
pre-installed. You don't have to use the pre-installed OS but at least you can
reasonably assume that drivers will be available.

~~~
click170
I wonder if part of the problem is people going outside of the OS's curated
repositories.

With Debian at least the curation of the repositories is one of the biggest
attractions for me. Everything in there is tested at length and is known to
work well together. I've never had problems staying within the repos.

Friends on the other hand always want to install the latest version of
whatever package and install tens of external PPAs to achieve that, without
consideration for what that means for the stability of their system.

They still carry their windows experiences and think that to install software
you have to go find the software authors website and read their instructions -
which much of the time apply to other distros and not the one you are using. I
have to keep teaching people the Linux way to install software, use your local
repos.

~~~
JupiterMoon
It turns out the OP borked one of his attempts at Linux by trying to install
Spotify in OpenSuse...

I.e. exactly what you are saying.

------
revanx_
For me personally, support for W7&8 has ended months ago when they tried to
sneak in the same privacy invading updates that infest windows 10. Windows
update has been disabled since then, can't even install updates manually since
I can no longer trust that the package does what the wiki page says.

~~~
arm
Damn, yeah, same for me actually. After I found out that Microsoft was
including that crap in updates for Windows 7 & 8, I also completely disabled
Windows Update.

It would be really nice if there was some site that kept an up-to-date
database listing of all the KBXXXXXXX update numbers that include this crap (
_up-to-date_ being the key here since Microsoft actually renames old KBXXXXXXX
numbers every once in a while to include the same crap the old KBXXXXXXX did).

~~~
Dylan16807
I don't think they rename them. They make a new version that unhides the
update, but it keeps the same KB number.

~~~
arm
There have been some updates in the past that people are suspicious have been
renumbered¹, although I suppose that without confirmation from Microsoft, we
can’t say for sure.

――――――

¹ — [http://www.eightforums.com/windows-updates-
activation/66805-...](http://www.eightforums.com/windows-updates-
activation/66805-update-kb3022345-renamed-kb3068708.html)

------
cenal
I remember when XP shipped and people bemoaned the Tinker Toy GUI that it came
with. Years later people are still complaining about change in the UI of
operating systems by Microsoft. At least with Windows 10 they seem to be
dedicated to sticking with something for a while as they plan to continuously
update the same OS for a long while.

~~~
cm2187
Windows XP was very close to Windows 2000. I have not met any windows 2000/XP
user that missed windows 98, even in the first few minutes of using it.

~~~
JoBrad
I heard quite a few people who (even after Windows 7 came out) were
complaining that MS made DOS harder to boot into with Win 95.

~~~
cm2187
We should have never moved away from our trusted 16bit systems.

------
bsder
> Do you want to support two major versions of your software for years? No?
> Well neither does Microsoft.

Well, if they hadn't made both Vista and Windows 8 such piles of fail perhaps
Microsoft wouldn't have had this problem.

Lots of people stayed with XP for a very good reason ... drivers for hardware
that worked reliably for better than a decade simply wouldn't work with Vista.

Similarly lots of people are staying with Windows 7 for very good reasons ...
Windows 7 was actually decent, Windows 8 sucks, and Windows 10 is a resource
pig which someone who hasn't upgraded a computer in 3-5 years can't run.

~~~
forrestthewoods
Windows 8 is fine. Like its actually fine. I use it at home every day. I use
Win10 at work. I can't even tell them apart.

Edit: Fuck your downvotes. You can't provide an objective list as to why Win8
is garbage because it's not. If you simply ignore the metro screen and swap
out the Start Menu with Classic Shell it's the same damn thing as Win7 but
with a variety of minor improvements.

~~~
cm2187
Let's start a list (a mix of 8 and 8.1):

Notifications appear as big banner accross the screen which is extremely
disruptive

When you do a right click, the contextual menu appears at the bottom of the
screen, very very very far from your mouse on a 4k monitor.

Full screen apps, with often no intuitive way to get out. Why full screen apps
in a world of 4k monitors???

When you install the system you have to click on some really non obvious sub
menu to opt out of using microsoft accounts over local accounts. I am not
completely computer illeterate and I missed it the first time. This is really
cavalier.

Two control panels, like if the win7 control panel wasn't confusing enough
already.

Enormous buttons that look ridiculous when clicking them with a tiny mouse
cursor.

Hidden (but critical) buttons requiring to move the mouse to the edge of the
screen, again a long way on a 4k monitor.

I am sure that if I start using it again I can double this list. There is a
reason why Microsoft fired the head of the windows division shortly before he
even announced windows 8.

~~~
alkonaut
Full screen apps: Do you mean "modern" UI apps/tools that ship with Windows?
Don't use those. You likely don't need any of the built in win8 apps like
Mail. And you never ever need to go to the start page or any other part of the
modern UI. Everything can be done from desktop (I'm talking about Win8.1 now,
not 8). I agree the control panel thing is a fiasco (barely sorted in win10)
but have found the classic one to still cover e everything I need.

4K: In Win7 I thought you couldn't even have per-screen scaling settings, so
4K was practically useless unless you were on a single screen or all screens
had the same dpi scale? At least in win8 that feature is clearly better than
win7.

~~~
cm2187
On modern apps, I agree, I actually created this very morning a script to
uninstall all of them in one go. But I still have to fight windows' defaults,
and reassign a decent default application for each extension.

On 4k, some people use 4k to get high dpi, I am rather into the big screen,
native resolution category. I need the real estate space more than the high
resolution (provided the screen is big enough to allow it). As probably most
people who do any development.

------
dexwiz
Not surprising. Last week HN celebrated the "death" of IE, but this week will
bemoan the passing of their dear Windows 7. Windows XP was ended last year. Do
you want to support two major versions of your software for years? No? Well
neither does Microsoft. The "legacy systems" explanation of maintaining
outdated software is vanishing with the rise of the modern web browser and the
cloud. The local machine has less and less responsibility to run anything
beyond a browser. And coders recognize they can no longer lock users onto
Windows XP using IE 7, or the modern equivalent. Progress marches on, and at
an ever quickening pace.

~~~
wnevets
If windows 10 didn't have that metro ui and wasn't plagued with spying
accusations most people wouldn't be bemoaning the death of windows 7. However
because windows 10 comes with many different ways to track users, I see this
not as an effort for "progress" but just another screw for microsoft to turn
against their users.

~~~
qntmfred
There's nothing wrong with metro ui, people just didn't like full screen start
menu in win8. Win10 has the old start menu back

~~~
Dylan16807
The search on the windows 10 start menu is oddly broken. Really a lot of 10 is
quite buggy right now.

~~~
ju-st
The most ridiculous "bug" is: [http://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/forum/windows_10-...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/forum/windows_10-win_cortana/windows-10-search-does-not-index-exe-
files/2b451f16-6a0e-49b4-a245-ebfeadf0d82e?auth=1)

But I'm just using Everything as search app, it's much better than any other
search function.

~~~
Dylan16807
I think the limit of 512^H^H^H2048 start menu items that can be searched is
more ridiculous, not sure if they fully fixed that yet. All too easy to hit
with programs that install a dozen entries.

------
PhasmaFelis
What does the title phrase actually mean? That's not a use of "regression" I'm
familiar with.

~~~
bcoates
The new hardware systems discussed will result in driver updates for pre-
existing hardware to take advantage of/fix bugs with Skylake/Tablets/SoCs.
Once Windows 7 is no longer the primary mainstream version, vendors will spend
less QA effort on not breaking Windows 7 with a driver update.

------
eikenberry
It does look like it is almost time to upgrade. The OS of the majority of
steam users (ie. the best supported) is getting close to going from 7 to 10...

Windows 7 64bit 34.81% -0.82% ￼Windows 10 64bit 31.25% +2.44%

------
yuhong
"After July 2017, the most critical Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 security updates
will be addressed for these [Skylake] configurations, and will be released if
the update does not risk the reliability or compatibility of the Windows 7/8.1
platform on other devices."

I think this only refers to driver updates and the like, right?

~~~
Sanddancer
Security updates, etc too. PCs in the past few years have been growing more
and more towards being Systems on Chips that have a few more interesting ports
on them. One of the reasons MS is doing this is because the underlying
hardware is changing pretty severely, so the OS needs to change to match.

------
walterbell
If a corporate app needs Windows 7, can it be run in a client Hyper-V VM on
top of Windows 10?

~~~
cm2187
Yep, but I have heard it doesn't work very well on laptops, that having
hyper-v running messes up with the sleep features. On a desktop, windows 10
hyper-v is very good.

~~~
blinkingled
That might be the case for Surface but I'm running Hyper-V on two laptops
without issues. One is a Macbook actually.

------
hjek
the line: > enables up to 30x better graphics and 3x the battery life reminds
me of these "save up to 50%" sales.

~~~
dantillberg
Yeah, that line was odd in particular because they're comparing Windows 10 to
Windows 7, not Windows 10 to Some Other OS. They're effectively saying, "Wow,
Windows 7 is _really bad_ ; you shouldn't use that crap. But Windows 10 is
great!" Which is kind of an odd sales pitch, even if you ignore how
exaggeratedly outrageous those numbers sound.

