Well, if you were thinking that Patrick Pilcher was going to be a lone voice in the wilderness on this one, you can think again, because he's already got company.
From Owen McCarthy at BizEdge NZ:
There are always alternatives. This morning I was greeted with another dreaded, “Please wait while we set things up for you…” messages when I rushed to my Windows 10 laptop. Er, in reality it’s my wife’s but she allows me to use it, bless her. I thought it was time we looked at some alternatives to Windows 10.
Alternative 1: Windows 7: Forget about Windows 8 or it’s much vaunted offspring, 8.1. They are so bloated and memory-grabby that most corporates ignored them. Windows 7 was a different story. For me it was the best thing to come along since XP. At the time I was a teacher, part of the TELA scheme, and it didn’t go un-noticed that Windows 7 was the logical progression from XP. Most schools hung on to XP til the last moment before upgrading. Why? Well for one thing it was an easy OS to distribute using Windows Server and for another, you didn’t need a dedicated 4GB of RAM to run it.
Alternative 2: Mac OS: I’ve heard all the stories of why you shouldn’t consider Apple Computers. The nay-sayers keep on inventing new ones. For years I’d hear from former bosses that Apple was about to fold. They were strangely silent when they overtook Microsoft in terms of value. Apple is here to stay. You can even run Office on your Apple, but many Mac users prefer Pages to Word and Numbers to Excel. Personally I hop from one to the other without any problems. When it comes to Microsoft Office, the only drawback is that Publisher and Access are not part of the Apple version. Many Apple users run Windows, and software like Parallels enables you to switch backwards and forwards without a problem.
[...]
Alternative 3: Linux Distros: Having cut my teeth on using Terminal in Mac OS, Linux doesn’t really scare me, but today you can avoid going into the Terminal if it really scares you. Like Mac OS, Linux exists in a unix-based world. Modern GUI (graphical user interfaces) mean that you rarely need to venture into the shell of things, and unlike Windows and Mac OS, everything is Open Source. Libre Office is just one Open Source alternative to Word, Excel and Powerpoint.
[...]
Other Alternatives: I haven’t mentioned the Chrome-OS alternative, but if you can live happily in the Cloud, Chrome machines are another solution. As a former teacher I’m familiar with Chrome Apps, and they have cloud-based alternatives to those indispensable Office programmes we can’t live without.
Interestingly, both Pilcher and McCarthy are from New Zealand; maybe there's something about the Kiwi culture or mindset that's caused them to come to their senses sooner? Maybe they have worse connections to Microsoft's Update servers? I'm not sure if there actually is a common element here, and it could just be coincidence, but it'll be interesting to see which part of the globe #3 comes from. Because I'm quite certain that there will be a third example of this break with Microsoft's PR line on Windows 10.