User complaints about Microsoft’s unfair upgrade strategies keep rising. Judging by the type of complaints and their frequency, it seems that Microsoft is choosing to deploy even fiercer methods in response.
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Despite these accusations, Microsoft insists users do have a choice when it comes to upgrading their OS. Redmond does not seem to be bothered about the tension building up among its users, recently having boasted about the recent 2% Windows 10 market share growth.
But what if Microsoft’s scariest nightmare comes true? What is Windows 7 becomes the next Windows XP? What if most users refuse to upgrade and continue to use Windows 7 until 2020 when support expires, and even beyond.
We believe this is a very probable scenario for the following reasons[...]Their list of reasons covers the spectum pretty well: loss of trust and feelings of betrayal; well-documented privacy issues, to which Microsoft have yet to respond adequately; Microsoft's long track record of new OSes being bugged as fuck; software and driver compatibility issues, especially for older software and devices; and, of course, the fact that Windows 7 is still a perfectly fine operating system:
You know what they say: if ain’t broken, don’t fix it. We have a computer running Windows 7 Professional, and we’re pretty satisfied with it. Windows 7 can run many of the programs you find on the Windows 10 version, except for a few apps such as Cortana or Edge.
If Windows 7 meets your computing needs, you don’t have to hurry up and accept the upgrade just so that you can get it for free: Windows 10 might be more trouble than it’s worth.
If you’re worried about security issues, don’t forget that Microsoft will continue to roll out security patches until 2020.Windows XP still enjoys 10.09% market share, which is pretty good after 15 years, a span in which four newer versions of Windows have been released (Vista, 7, 8/8.1, and 10). Satya Nadella should be waking up in a cold sweat at the prospect that Windows 7 customers might just dig in their heels, and continue to make up a double-digit percentage of the OS market until 2024 and beyond. Because Windows Report may well be right; this scenario isn't just possible, it's plausible.
I'm a Windows 7 user, and I am not planning to switch to Windows 10 anytime soon, if ever. The "free" Windows 10 offering simply doesn't provide the the same degree of privacy, and the same degree of control over my PC and over Windows itself, that I currently have in Windows 7. In order to enjoy in order to enjoy that same degree of privacy and control, I'd need to buy an Enterprise license (Pro doesn't actually allow you to control Windows Updates).
If it's going to cost me $200 to upgrade while keeping all my current functionality intact... Well, I can put that off until my next PC purchase, which won't be for years yet. Assuming that I haven't mastered Linux sufficiently by then to just ditch Microsoft entirely, of course, which is more or less the plan.
It'll be interesting to see how Windows 10's market share has moved over the month, especially relative to Windows 7 -- has Microsoft succeeded in tricking and pressuring enough Windows 7 users into "upgrading" to meet their targets and projections, or have Windows 7 users actually managed to take a stand for consumers' rights? I certainly hope not, but I don't want to get my hopes up too high on this one; I've just been hearing too many people saying things like, "Microsoft are going to force me to switch eventually, anyway, so I decided to just get it over with."
I find myself in the awful position of rooting for failure. I hate rooting for people to fail, but Microsoft are being such dicks about Windows 10 that I can't honestly say that I'm hoping for any other result. MS will only change their ways if what they're doing ends up costing them more than it earns them; they're proven quite thoroughly that they won't do the right thing, simply because it's the right thing to do.