My own children are still using computers with Windows 7. They play Spore (Windows only), Sims 3 (Windows only) Minecraft (Java, so playable anywhere), Osu! (no idea, really), and a couple of other games. I have no intention of upgrading Windows on their computers past 7. Take a look at your options, you might be surprised how easily Windows is replaced with anything else.

As a parent, I'm also not sure if an equivalent of Family Safety exists on other platforms. Windows sends me weekly overviews of our kids PC use and blocks inappropriate content. Also, our kids log into their own profiles, I don't give them Administrator level access, they have to aks me if they want to install something.

After being out of the PC scene for 10+ years -- and as a rabid apple fan -- let me say this: PC gaming is AWESOME. Games I'd only played on Mac before come to new life on a proper gaming PC. That said I would probably go into a different line of work if I had to use Windows as my primary dev box.

As a Java application, Minecraft runs perfectly fine on any operating system.

As for your parental controls, if you wish to apply them you can do the exact same thing on any GNU/Linux platform.

http://www.imore.com/metal-os-x-so-huge-i-no-longer-need-mac...

Hopefully, Valve OS's initiative might bend this and allow the Linux world to be at least on par with MSFT when it comes to graphic drivers. Considering that from the three main console out there, both the Playstation and the Nintendo are using a flavor or another of OpenGL, there is some hope for the future of alternative to MSFT outside the office and MSFT centric software development.

I would drop Windows in a heartbeat if that happened. There is no other reason keeping me using it other than games.

Even though I personally hate literally almost every new feature of Windows 10 and the design of the entire OS, I'm still running it, simply because I get much better performance out of it than I do on Win7 - and I can generally customize my UX.

worth the time it takes to check it out, imo...

Some kind of "off the record" mode would be invaluable for voice interfaces. Hell, it would be nice if there was a check box under the Google search box as well, but I imagine Google would never make it too easy to avoid their data mining. I feel like we never had the proper privacy conversation we needed to have with companies like MS, Google, Facebook, etc. I think some level of easy to use yet strict segregation between what I consider my public life and my private life should be cooked-in, and enabled by default, into all this software.

Isn't that what incognito mode is for? If don't want your searches in cards at all, you completely opt-out of the cards that are strictly based on your search history. Ctrl+Shift+N seems like a small, reasonable step to go off the record. What is the alternative?

There's no reason why they couldn't to the same thing Mozilla does: a) have a pretty clear account thing for "sync", b) have a pretty clear page for opt/in out on what to sync, c) Have working self-host sync solution, d) have an open source sync solution so you can easily see what's going on, and how things are encoded/stored.

Second I explained that under 13 means stuff won't work, so let's add 10 years or so to make sure they don't have trouble.

Well, maybe Child Protective Services should be involved? They intervene when children walk home alone from the park, perhaps they'll start to intervene when children are raised to use Microsoft products? http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents...

Just kidding, of course. But my daughters are now 14 and 17 and I don't think they know how to use Microsoft products. We've been on OS X for about 10 years.

So maybe CPS should investigate me? Am I doing my kids a dis-service by not exposing them to the dominant OS?