After weeks of horrible PR surrounding their strong-arm GWX tactics, Microsoft seem to have weathered the storm and are now bringing the hardest sell they can to bear on remaining non-Win10 users. Pro-Redmond outlets are flooding the 'net with articles urging users to switch, even if they only switch to Win10 so that they can switch back, reminding us over and over again that time is running out, and that it will cost us later if we don't switch now.
Don't believe the hype. If you're running Windows 7, and you're happy with it, then you don't need to switch to Windows 10, and here's why:
1. Windows 7 still works perfectly well, and will be supported by Microsoft until 2020. Odds are good that you'll need a new PC before you need a new OS for your existing system. Win10's advantages (like a smaller footprint and faster start-up sequence) are nice, but not game-changing, and not significant enough, in my opinion, to warrant changing the OS on any machine. Also, these advantages will erode over time, as the OS inevitably accumulates cruft from continuous use, just like Windows 7 did. Win7 used to start a lot faster than it does, and I'm fair certain that I can get that back with a clean install; I haven't done that, because its performance is still good enough that I can't be bothered.
2. Windows 10 is missing features you may currently be using. Like Media Centre, a "classic" Start menu, and Solitaire, which Microsoft used to include for free but now wants you to pay extra for, as if there weren't already dozens of free alternative available for download -- which may be partly why "side-loading" (i.e. installing programs acquired by means other than Microsoft's Windows Store) was originally disabled by default in the free version, and why only the $200 Enterprise version allows you to disable the store entirely.
The Start menu thing is particularly vexing -- the only recent Windows version that didn't come with the option to keep a classic start menu was Windows 8, which people hated. Yes, this is fixable with a 3rd party program, but every 3rd party program you have to install in order to add functionality which should be standard will erode performance, undermining the entire reason for switching in the first place. Also, the only reason this stuff isn't standard, is because Microsoft wants everyone using Win10's new hybrid Metro/Start Menu interface, complete with advertising.
Which brings us to...
3. Windows 10 comes loaded with "features" you don't want. At all. I've already mentioned the Windows store, which can't be disabled in any Win10 version except Enterprise, but the dodginess doesn't stop there. From the spyware that's baked right in, to the ads that will run on your Start menu, to the fact that you won't have any more control what updates are installed on your PC, or when, to the fact that changing your privacy setting is no defence, since Windows Update can (and will) revert some of them to non-private defaults at Redmond's whim... There are still too many problems, and Microsoft has done nothing to address them.
4. Your existing software and device drivers may not be supported in Windows 10. If you're keen to spend a few hundred dollars on a new printer and/or scanner, and replace all your existing applications with Windows 10 compliant versions, the by all means, switch... but isn't the whole point of switching now supposed to be the advertised zero cost? If switching is going to cost you anyway, you may as well do it on your own schedule.
5. Switching can "brick" your PC. It's a worst-case scenario, but there are reported cases of people who weren't able to use their PCs at all because Microsoft's GWX program failed to properly assess their systems' readiness for the "upgrade." Rolling back to Windows 7 might mean reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling your OS of choice from scratch -- hardly the "easy" 30 minute process that Microsoft is promising.
6. We should not reward Microsoft for their bad behaviour. Microsoft has made it really easy to take a principled stand on this one. Denying them this tiny victory, refusing to cave to pressure and change my OS simply because they're being such dicks about it all, really will cost me nothing. Seriously, if I'm still using this same PC in 2020, and find myself wanting to upgrade my Windows version, I'll happily pop for the Enterprise SKU, which is the only Win10 version that will allow me to retain all the same control over my PC that I enjoy now.
Microsoft have been absolute dicks about Windows 10, turning what started as a really smart PR move (giving us their new OS for free) into something of a PR nightmare. If there were compelling reasons to switch, or at least no compelling reasons not to switch, then I'd probably still be holding my nose and making the change, but neither of those is the case, so I'm not. And neither should you.