I agree. To be honest I'm not even angry at Microsoft, just very disappointed and surprised. Windows 7 is a technological marvel in my eyes - it's stable and dependable with amazing backwards comparability. How many millions* of man-hours of productivity has it enabled I wonder? How can Microsoft be so quick to burn decades of credibility and trust?

I switched my very very non-technically savvy parents to Ubuntu several years ago and I don't regret it for a second. Once I got their wifi, browser and printer set up and reminded them about the UI once in a while, the tech support burden was minimal. They use their PCs even less now that they have large Android phones for email and messaging.

I'm still hoping Microsoft will come up with something to challenge Android. They have the resources and brains. Unfortunately they're copying Googles business model of dark patterns to swallow as much of their customers data as possible (whether you choose to call it smart business practice or privacy destroying unethical behaviour), but additionally charging them for the privilege.