Windows 7 may be an aging operating system, but there are still plenty of individuals and organizations using it. With the end of support date of January 14 fast-approaching, Microsoft is getting twitchy and is eager for everyone to upgrade to Windows 10.
Having already started to notify Windows 7 hangers on that support is due to come to an end, the company is now ready to get a little more aggressive. If you haven't moved on from Windows 7, soon you will see full-screen notifications warning you that "your Windows 7 PC is out of support".
The messages are due to be displayed from the day after support ends. So when January 15 rolls around, anyone who has doggedly stuck with Windows 7 will find that they not only have no support and no security updates, but also that they are pestered by an invasive message delivered by a program called EOSnotify.exe.
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The good news is that it will be possible to dismiss the message and opt to never see it again.
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| Where do I even start with this shit? |
When Microsoft first announced that they were launching Windows 10, and that they would be giving it away for free to anyone who wanted to upgrade, there appeared to be very little downside, either for MSFT themselves or for Windows users. A new version of an OS you're already using, at no up-front cost? Why wouldn't we be interested?
Of course, we wouldn't want to switch right away; as veterans of Windows OS releases going all the way back to Windows 95, we were fully aware that any new version of Windows came with more bugs than a bait store; at the very least, a savvy user would want to wait for a year of patches and bug fixes, and maybe even a service pack, before jumping. But the free period was scheduled to last for a year, so that wasn't a problem; like a lot of users, I pencilled in the end of the following June on my calendar, and put Windows 10 out of mind. Windows 7 was still working fine, after all, so I had no urgent need to switch to a new version of Windows.
That didn't suit MSFT, though, for at least three reasons:
- First, there was the fact that MSFT had recently let go all their product testers, not coincidentally just after those same product testers had voted to unionize. MSFT couldn't allow us to wait for the product to be thoroughly tested, and have its bugs fixed, before we switched; they needed us to do the testing, identifying the bugs that needed fixing so that Windows 10 would be ready for business when that 1-year free period ended.
- Second, MSFT were banking heavily on rapid adoption of Windows 10 to drive adoption of its included Universal Windows Platform software architecture by developers. UWP programs were supposed to be write once, run anywhere, on any Windows 10 device... including the Windows 10 phones and tablets which Microsoft were also developing. UWP would bridge the app gap, allowing them to bootstrap their way to parity with Android and iOS, in spite of being several years slow out of the mobile race's starting gate.
- Third, there was the fact that UWP apps could only be installed from Windows 10's built-in digital distribution channel, the Windows Store. MSFT had tried this already, with Windows 8's "Metro" interface, which had attempted to replace the Windows desktop with a touch-friendly app-store "live tile" screen instead, something which Windows users had resoundingly rejected; the unpopularity of this approach was the reason why so many people were still on Windows 7 in the first place. MSFT restored the desktop in Windows 10, but clearly hadn't given up on monetizing their Windows user base... somehow, and UWP was the tool which would make that happen.
Windows 10 was never free. It always came at a cost for its users.
And so, with Windows 10 being buggy and consumer-hostile, and its adoption being slow, MSFT started to push. First came the nag screens, reminding us of the "free" offer. Then, when that didn't work, MSFT started downloading the "upgrade" in the background, which was about then press coverage of their aggressive GWX push started to turn negative. Then, they removed the option to decline the upgrade from the GWX app, leaving increasingly wary users only the option of closing the GWX window to avoid the upgrade.
And then, finally, they changed the behaviour of the close window button to schedule the upgrade, rather than just closing the app. MSFT effectively turned the Get Windows 10 app into malware, turning Windows users' operating systems against their users; and those users responded by digging in their heels. Users removed the Windows update that included GWX; when MSFT countered by renaming the update, turning this activity into whack-a-mole, many users turned off Windows Updates entirely to avoid the unwanted "feature." Savvier users installed third-part applications like Never10 to effectively deactivate GWX; others, finding themselves "upgraded" to Windows 10 against their will, rolled back to their OS version of choice.
I'd posted about this sordid series of events as they happened, but the most important part now is probably the result: Windows 10 failed to see 50% adoption in the broader Windows ecosystem for years. It wasn't until just a year ago that Windows 10 finally passed Windows 7's usage share. And in that year, while Windows 10's usage share managed to pass the 50% mark, Windows' overall share of the OS market actually dropped slightly, with MacOS and Chrome gaining the users that Windows was losing. The lesson should have been clear to anyone who cared to learn it: overly-aggressively pushing Windows 10 onto Windows 7 users just alienated them; it did not win them over.
And, so, naturally, with Windows 7's end-of-support date only weeks away, MSFT is at it again. Because of fucking course they are.
MSFT is clearly hoping that Windows 7 users have forgiven and forgotten the debacle of Upgradegate, but over a third of all PC users are still on the older version of Windows; the more likely scenario is not that Windows 7 users forgave Microsoft for their past transgressions, but that enough of them needed to replace aging PC hardware, and ended up on Windows 10 by default because it came installed on their new PCs. Windows 7 users who still have their old machines have clearly dug in their heels on this one; for MSFT to repeat the overly-aggressive sins of their GWX past is unlikely to win those users over.
Which means, I suppose, that , we come it's prognostication time:
1. I predict that Windows 7's usage/market share will still be above 30% by the end of January, and above 20% by the end of 2020. Two points will be awarded if both predictions prove true.
2. Windows 7 users that do switch OSes will mostly switch to MacOS, ChromeOS, and/or Linux, rather than to Windows 10. If Windows 7's usage/market share drops, while at least two of the other OSes' u/m shares increases, by the end of January, then I get 1 point, +1 bonus point if they're also up at the end of November, compared to the previous year.
3. Windows' overage usage/market share, as measured by Netmarketshare, will drop over the same period. Windows is currently 86% of the OS market; if it drops to less than 86% by the end of January, then I get a point; again, points are awarded at the end of January, and at the end of November, if the condition is met on either date.
Maybe I'm being overly bold in my predictions here, but given Windows 10's consumer-hostile history, and the depth of antipathy and/or apathy that clearly still exists towards Microsoft among Windows 7 users, I feel pretty good about my chances. Watch this space...