Worse than 7 on the same hardware? Absolutely, emphatically, YES. I.e. downgrade, QED.
"Win7 means you have pretty old hardware" - well, let me see here. I'm typing this on a top-of-the-line 2016 ultrabook, with Windows 7. Exactly because this is a work tool (like "for people to do some productive work on"), enterprise tends to prefer boooooring older OS over colorful cloudcloudcloud spyware.
IMNSHO, this is just a bunch of schmucks with KPIs based on new WinX installs. "Screw the userbase over? No problem, as long as we meet our bonus targets." This feels just like the old Evil Empire, IE6-style. Kudos to the Windows team for single-handedly wiping out all the goodwill the "new and improved MS" has been trying to build up for the past few years: nah, underneath it's still the same MS we used to know, just with a new paint job.
That I agree with, and it's mind-boggling why they're doing this. As you said, it basically wiped out all the goodwill MS was building over the last few years.
It's probably not going to work out for them, given the number of issues people still seem to have about 10 even after using it for extended intervals, but I think it's fear of another XP, not malice or anti-competitive practice, that's driving this.
Well, there's a reason for that. Software seems to change way too fast and it breaks the most basic expectations people have (which I think are very good) - that if a piece of software works, it should continue to work. If I buy a machine that has Windows and Microsoft Word on it, I should expect the OS to boot up and Word to open the documents I made with it for as long as the hardware itself doesn't deteriorate. My programs shouldn't suddenly stop working because they don't feel like it. My OS shouldn't suddenly update to a different looking one because "fuck you, that's what you want anyway". And they definitely should not do any of that in the middle of you working.
I am one of those who often disable / delay auto-updates. Because of the times I had my computer reboot when I stepped out to get a tea. Because of the times I auto-updates for apps burned significant chunks of my transfer when I was using a mobile connection.
But more generally, it's a balancing act - for everyone who is running in an environment where they have everything locked out and they just want an application to keep running, there's also plenty of people who leave their machines running public services connected to the Internet with no firewall, antivirus, or anything of that nature, and refuse to install updates because it interrupts the service.
I think Microsoft decided they'd rather be shit on by consumers for forcing automatic updates than be shit on by everyone for a poor security record ever again.
I just think it came about as a result of a number of rational and ethically ~neutral decisions, rather than the level of deliberate malice and anticompetitive practice the Microsoft of the 90s had.
For example, I submit that it is extraordinarily unlikely that Microsoft will actually end the Win10 upgrade program on July 29th, because their primary goal is to migrate as many people away from their aging older platforms as possible, onto a platform they can find ways to monetize into infinite incremental upgrades.
Does 10 even have higher system requirements than 7?
[0] - Just recently I've been "fixing" such one laptop for a friend of my mother - it was barely strong enough to lift its own Windows installation. I made it much more useful by just replacing the RAM die with a one I pried off a broken laptop that serves as an "organ donor". Hell, I found getting moar RAM to be a quick solution for most of the lower-end laptops that get "too slow".
[1] - this happens for mobile too (as I experienced first-hand), so my rule of thumb is that in terms of computers and smartphones, buying cheap is worse than not buying at all
But seriously: 2 GB on Windows (7) is still usable, even though not entirely comfortable. (Of course, on LXLE, 2 GB is a lot, but that's an entirely different can of worms)
What makes us think the US is so different after the stuff that's gone down in recent years?
I genuinely consider it a possibility that this is linked to the panic over terrorism and that governments now have access to the data being hoovered up on practically everyone by Microsoft.
Of course I have no evidence. So the best that can be said objectively is that we cannot know either way, but still my gut is sending me warning messages.
(also read https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/ )
https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/
> For legal reasons
> We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:
> * meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.
> * enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations.
> * detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues.
> * protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, our users or the public as required or permitted by law.
Want to expand on that a little? Presumably the above quote is regarding skydrive etc.
For example: https://edri.org/microsofts-new-small-print-how-your-persona...
(when googling the phrase cited by kuschku, the first link is to reddit and there it links to edri).
That alone can be turned into "we can share whatever we want with anyone whenever we feel like it" very easily, you realize that?
The proper solution would be
> We will share personal information with governments if we are required by law to do so.
Nothing more, nothing less.
On a more serious note, "everyone does that" makes it okay? Really?
DanBC didn't write anything which could imply he believes that "If you want privacy, you must be a child molester or a terrist".
His comment is stating what google does and gives a pretty strong example, not justifying what they do.
What I meant is that almost all companies will invade privacy to prevent and detect certain crimes. MS does it, but so do Google, Apple, etc etc.
I honestly don't understand what's going on. This looks like one of the most idiotic thing an IT company has ever done, and Microsoft doesn't care. They don't even try to explain it. And they fucked up big time - rarely any kind of scandal from the computing world reaches the general public, but this one did. I've been asked by random people for advice on whether or not to upgrade; people seem to know Win10 is "evil" and are annoyed by nagging.