Windows 7 Support Ends in a Year

[Hellser]

I hate Home editions for so many reasons and I have no idea why Microsoft even sells it.

For people who don't care about the advantages of what Windows 10 Pro gives, or have no need for it: the average PC user, not us power users.

[Rachael]

Fine - but the price point is still utterly ridiculous. I should not have to pay more to be a power user.

I got my Windows 7 Pro license through Microsoft's Genuine Advantage program. My Windows XP Pro at the time failed the genuine check, and they were willing to offer me a pretty steep discount to continue using it (fully legal and licensed) - so you bet that I took that. I've had it for years now - but I didn't know I could just plug the key into Windows 10 and it'd work. (I think I tried it once before, and it didn't)

Still - I am very happy now, that I have a Pro version, instead of Home.

[Graf Zahl]

Home seems to get better, it seems:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-1 ... e-process/

I'd still buy a pro license if I needed a new Windows. For now 8.1 is good enough, I even got an enterprise license through my former employer's MSDN subscription.

[Rachael]

That is really good news. Having more control over the update process will definitely help everyone. They're still forced to some degree, but it's a far more livable compromise than what we had.

[Graf Zahl]

They have to force it to some degree, otherwise all the idiots out there would leave their systems unpatched forever because their paranoia always wins out.

[Rachael]

Indeed. But at least now you can schedule it better - i.e. say "saturday night I'm not using this thing, so run updates and reboot". And not have to worry about it deciding that for you.

[Enjay]

How big an issue is Windows randomly forcing an update and shutting you down to install it without your permission? I see lots of people complaining about it but It's never happened to me - but then I'm on Pro and I check for updates manually quite regularly anyway too.

[Graf Zahl]

If you let Windows 10 do an auto update it can be something from not noticing anything to blocking the entire system for a few hours. I had both happen on my secondary work computer.

[Enjay]

Does it actually just start updating with no warning though? Even on my wife's machine, where she checks things far less regularly than me, she gets a pop-up asking if she wants to update now or later. I don't *think* she's ever had Windows just spontaneously restart itself; which is what a lot of people seem to complain about.

[dpJudas]

That popup has some timeout and if no user reacts it will decide to update now. I'm not sure how long the timeout is (could be hours), but I have a few times returned to my computer to see it with no programs running anymore (which means it updated and restarted). In the early days of Windows 10 it was particular bad where I experienced it happen once when I went to the toilet - nowadays their code is a lot better at guessing when it probably will be alright.

My main issue with all of this is mostly that my computer could be running some operation that can't handle the reboot. This makes their update policy potentially destructive.

[Rachael]

How big an issue is Windows randomly forcing an update and shutting you down to install it without your permission? I see lots of people complaining about it but It's never happened to me - but then I'm on Pro and I check for updates manually quite regularly anyway too.

It's a critical issue. Second to what dpJudas said, I've actually had those experiences where I'm running software that should not be interrupted by a reboot.

It's also really bad from a security standpoint. All it takes is one buggy update to destroy your system. And we saw that in October of last year when people lost tons of files due to a poorly tested update. There have been other instances of this, too - especially back in the Windows 7 days - where people would deploy updates and suddenly get a BSOD boot loop, or even worse, their machine would stop booting at all. Where Microsoft dropped the ball here, they effectively DoS'd their customers because of shoddy programming and testing.

And that's also completely ignoring the fact that every system is not created equal. The changes are so deep and they disregard that computer X or Y might not like it when you send instruction Z to the CPU. I understand it's impossible to test every conceivable system setup and combination - but they have the ability to know what kind of systems are in use and mitigate such disruptions from happening to the point where they're extremely unlikely.

I have had a teacher who is an utter security freak - and he refuses to install Windows updates until they are properly tested and he is 100% sure they won't cause problems. And he's responsible for the security of a multi-billion dollar international corporation. He always applies the Microsoft patches, but he does it only when they're tested and he's sure they won't corrupt his environment. Because one aspect of security is "availability". If the company's assets are unavailable - he's failed his job. Microsoft really needs to keep such things in mind.

[Armaetus]

I am not going to upgrade to Windows 10. Period.

I already declined the free upgrade when it was offered and I still won't upgrade when support ends.

[Graf Zahl]

Have fun when someone hijacks your computer and runs a botnet on it which could bring you into trouble...

[wildweasel]

I am not going to upgrade to Windows 10. Period.

I already declined the free upgrade when it was offered and I still won't upgrade when support ends.

Your choice is your own, but I swear we just got done arguing about this with somebody else not long ago.

[Rachael]

Hey, if Glaice wants to be a willing botnet participant in a couple years or so, who ware we to stop him? Not our problem! We told him what to do to prevent that, and it's his own fault for deciding that we were wrong.