Microsoft spent years convincing PC users that Windows 7 was safe as houses. Now that Windows 10 is out, however, they want to scare people into switching to their new operating system by claiming that Windows 7 really isn't as safe as they've always claimed it to be. That's... awkward, to put it mildly.
From Softpedia:
Windows 10 is now running on more than 20 percent of the world’s desktop computers, and yet, Microsoft’s bigger challenge isn’t necessarily to boost the market share of its latest operating system, but to convince those on Windows 7 to upgrade.
Even with Windows 10 on the market, Windows 7 continues to be the preferred desktop operating system across the world, and third-party data shows that it’s still close to 50 percent market share.
With Windows 7 support coming to an end in 3 years, Microsoft is well aware that it could very well experience another Windows XP moment when users might refuse to upgrade despite the obvious security risks.
So it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that Microsoft has already started the offensive against Windows 7, with a blog post published by the German subsidiary of the software giant pointing to the setbacks of this old operating system as compared to Windows 10.
Here's the thing: with Windows 7 users firmly convinced (by years of Microsoft's claims about that operating system's security) that Win7 is just fine if kept up to date, and Microsoft committed to keeping it up to date until 2020, there's very little chance of those same users believing that they really have to switch after all, for their own good. If Microsoft had made this pitch a year and a half ago, i.e. before pissing away all the trust and goodwill that they'd spent years building with their PC user base, then this might have worked, but GWX happened, and now can't be made to un-happen.
Bottom line: Users who weren't convinced enough of Windows 10's security superiority to switch OSes for free are almost certainly not going to switch now that switching will cost them, and unlikely to believe anything Microsoft says to scare them into switching. Microsoft just don't have much credibility left with Windows 7 & 8 users, which is why we didn't switch to Windows 10 during their GWX campaign, and they haven't done nearly enough to win back our trust and good will since the GWX push ended. Until they do, I think Microsoft can expect their transparent scaremongering to yield little, if anything, by way of results.
Give Windows 10 Home users the right to opt out of data collection entirely, give Windows 10 Home users the right to update their PCs on their own schedule, and make new features that, e.g., tap users' webcams to monitor whether they're at the keyboard something that users have to opt into, rather than out of... do all that, and give current Windows 7 users some sort of incentive package to want to switch OSes, and maybe they'll consider switching. But with Windows 10 Home coming laden with a bunch of Big Brother corporate bullshit and a US$150 price tag, Microsoft shouldn't be expecting too many takers.