Sure, OS X has new releases, but adoption rate is high, and Apple is quick to cut support for legacy versions. Microsoft is working towards that.
The visceral reaction towards Microsoft for trying this is just a general "I want to be in control for the sake of being in control" reaction that carries no legitimate value.
This actively harmful view of how computer security works needs to be swiftly punished.
They're the ones telling you to upgrade.
They never said how they would offer you support.
Edit: Also, I'm not entirely sure there are any support contracts for Windows by itself, I think you need to buy a contract from Microsoft for something like that.
Did they not say they'd offer "security fixes", and not "complete UI changes, deprecation of perfectly working runtimes, shoving of new runtimes". The former is support; the latter, is finalization of misleading marketing.
In effect, you're agreeing with RMS. (I'm thankful I don't use Windows, precisely for this reason that Microsoft may do whatever they want with my hardware and my data, and without even playing fair to get my consent.)
Your unhappiness as a customer of Microsoft is completely worth it for me, as someone who would eventually otherwise get spammed by the botnet on your computer, not to mention the Iranian citizen who thanks you for not participating, unwittingly, in a TOR identification network.
I don't know how to put this in a way that will break through your selfishness, but being on the Internet is not just a "you" thing. You're participating in the worlds largest network of computers, and if you get to pick and choose, manually, when you update your computer, then you're going to be a bad actor.
Your "kid" and my "kid" are in the same "classroom", so I'd like for you to keep up with modern "medicine", even if it's temporarily inconvenient to you.
There isn't a specific unsupported thing that's currently out there, but only because Microsoft has committed to supporting legacy versions of Windows. There is a fundamentally superior solution to fixing bugs in many places, and that solution is to only have one place to fix a bug.
This isn't hypothetical, look at OS X. There have already been a number of vulnerabilities they've simply refused to fix in relatively recent legacy versions of their OS, because of the cost in doing so.
From a "how does this personally help me?" standpoint, if Microsoft can cut legacy teams, the people on those teams get to work on new cool things that make your investment in their latest OS more valuable. By forcing them to support legacy versions, you're holding them back, and therefore holding yourself back (since you bought their product).
They will have to provide security fixes anyways for the product lifetime of Windows 7 and 8.1 they promised, because I don't see large companies, governments etc upgrading now just because. They are not going to shorten the announced life-time, and they will keep providing updates during it.
So even if you don't believe they shouldn't interrupt their users like this, they won't save money by badgering people now about Windows 10 and they are generating a lot of bad press that possibly even actively stops people from upgrading (at least in the computer press I read, focus on windows 10 has shifted from "quite good, we recommend you upgrade" to "Microsoft is fucking their users even worse than last months, here is what you do to stop upgrades")
So from my perspective they are causing massive negative disruption for not much gain.
My grandfather doesn't care, he just wants to not have his credit card stolen, and upgrading to Windows 10 is Microsoft's recommendation to make sure that doesn't happen.
Since Windows 10 brings built-in surveillance functions to the table and will be the first version to support the dubious Intel SGX (Software Guard Extensions), it is much better to be safe than sorry or in your words: better to be in control for the sake of being in control than in no control.
It's got GPS in it, they know where you are all the time!!!
Give me a break...
That is one of the many reasons why I don't have a cell phone.
I think you're either not being very honest, or you don't know about the myriad of privacy issues Microsoft has had over its entire lifetime...
I nevertheless still stand by my thesis that the privacy issues that Windows introduced in the past have been far less severe than the privacy issues cell phones introduce (let alone for the fact that one can be geolocated for the whole time).
By the way: I know quite some people who don't have a cell phone for similar reasons.
Please, I beg of you -- don't even pretend like this view holds a significant percentage of the greater population's mind.
1. You assume another person has a cell phone, a spying cell phone at that.
2. Even if your assumption is true, that makes Microsoft's actions okay because ... ?
Seriously? I think this old Hacker News comment thread¹ does a good job of covering all the points outlining why that’s a bad idea. Also, do you seriously think that upgrading their OS will stop users from continuing to download and install malware?
――――――
Yes, I do. An operating system without a particular vulnerability cannot be infected by malware that exploits said vulnerability.
As for that thread, you're going to have to be more specific, nothing I read in there is much more than what I said earlier, control for it's own sake.
This is tantamount to the antivax movement.
Could you please not be offensive. Vaccines don't have keyloggers or forced-adware.
It did. There have been documented cases, and I have discussed this in the past.
----
> but the fact that this comment actually "offends" you
It does. In another comment, you call people refusing to be force updated from a perfectly working (and security-supported) OS (in the name of "security") "luddites". In this comment, you generalize and compare us with a movement that can only be characterized as "willfuly ignorant", to say the least. That is offensive.
I do get the parallels you were trying to point to: people running insecure OSes are detrimental to the rest of the internet community at large. But you get carried away and set up a far too extreme comparison. The people/kids that need vaccines are those that don't have security against pathogens (you wouldn't give someone a second dose/shot of a vaccine, when they've already been vaccinated and it's not even close to time for a booster dose, would you?), but Windows 7 is a perfectly secure OS (at least against non-Microsoft-affiliated agents).
One has to be careful when setting up analogies, for while one may see only the similarities, others will see the differences also.
> tells me we're not playing on a level field
So what? Are you claiming I unleveled the field? The field was already unleveled, especially when you begin with a view that all those who disagree with you are "luddites" "as wrong as the antivaxxers".
You made some claims from a certain level, and I made counter-arguments from a certain level. If the field needed to be level in order to "play", I wouldn't even have presented any counter-arguments from the very beginning.
What you're doing now is invoking moral outrage, which is completely useless in any real conversation, so what you're signaling is that you've completed being useful to talk to, and are now commencing your own justifications for continuing to believe as you do, despite a well-reasoned argument to the contrary.
You've unleveled the playing field by removing rationality from this conversation, but by continuing to use terms from the world of rationality (evidence, claims), you try to mask that fact.
Do you realize that when you do this, you isolate yourself and alienate the person you're talking to? I don't want to talk to you anymore, regardless of the validity of your other points, simply because of how... annoyingly self righteous you're being. It's like a religious conversation now, and why would I engage someone on the Internet in something like that?
And it is necessary sometimes, to discuss the individual parts. Just because one strung together a big comment doesn't mean others shouldn't be able to question an individual part of that bigger comment.
> and is intellectually dishonest
One could argue the same about trying to hide a weak argument in a bigger comment with a plea like "please don't break up the comment, it removes context".
> What you're doing now is invoking moral outrage, which is completely useless in any real conversation, so what you're signaling is that you've completed being useful to talk to, and are now commencing your own justifications for continuing to believe as you do, despite a well-reasoned argument to the contrary
Funny, I see the same in you. I feel you were trying to provoke moral outrage by using words like "luddites" and comparing to antivaxxers. If you wanted to have "real conversation", you should have treated your conversation partners with a reasonable amount of respect.
You think your argument is well-reasoned. Guess what, almost every participant in every debate thinks their argument is well-reasoned, or they wouldn't be debating any longer.
> You've unleveled the playing field
Again, our perceptions differ, yet in a mirror-like manner. I felt you had unleveled the playing field by being so sure of your beliefs being well-reasoned that you think anyone that didn't agree with you were stupid; elevating yourself.
> by removing rationality from this conversation, but by continuing to use terms from the world of rationality (evidence, claims), you try to mask that fact.
Completely disagree, and totally understand why you'd think so. Only your own reason makes sense to you (this has been a theme in your other comments, also, see above), so obviously anyone that disagrees with you is unreasonable and irrational.
> I don't want to talk to you anymore ... It's like a religious conversation now
Same here. Only, it seemed like a religious conversation from the beginning that I took a risk while getting into. I guess when one describes thoughts or beliefs (or conversations) as "religious", they mean firm, unbudging belief. And I guess you see that in my arguments as much as I do in yours. Obviously, we can no longer discuss with each other.
Good day to you, sir.
I didn't read what you wrote, but I'm sure it was important enough to use tricks like selective quotation to get across.
Imagine waking up one morning and realizing you can't use uppercase on your file names anymore because of a rolled back vulnerability.
Too many people are running insecure versions of Windows, and frankly I'd rather break them (the small percentage that they are) than have that many botnets out there, sending spam, breaking bitcoin consensus, and all kinds of other nefarious things.