I think the point though was they want to roll out an annual subscription plan like most software models these days. So they can charge for it. Forever. I can’t blame them for wanting to shift that way; they will clean up charging annually. But I can blame them for the strong-arming controlling evil ass way they run their business.
I am rather dependent on my Windows PC for certain functions, but my Macbook Air is so much less hassle free it’s ridiculous. I’ve never paid for a new OS on a Mac. Security has never been an issue on a Mac. Apps seem so much more intuitive to the OS on a Mac. Team Mac.
My one and only microsoft computer updated itself when I walked away to visit the bathroom. It has since updated itself repeatedly at random moments with no warning, once erasing several hours of work and wasting a lot of my time, and I hate the thing. I have to use MS word/excel for work or I’d subject it to a sledgehammer. Although I must say the so-called “update” to 10 didn’t seem to change anything much. I don’t know why microsoft is so aggressive about it.
Their expectation is that they will save money in maintenance, if nearly all their customers are on the same version, so they don’t have to code & test fixes/security upgrades for so many different versions of Windows.
But a lot of us are worried that they really want to someday move to a subscription model of charging for the operating system, and this is a step on that path.
No, that’s just the excuse. If that was really their reason, they wouldn’t have bothered with the poison pills. If they wanted everyone on one OS just for the convenience of having everyone on one OS, they would have made that one OS so good that nobody had any reason not to upgrade.
Yes, it’s this. I think they’ve said as much, if you dig around. MS very much wants to get everything on the subscription model. Look at what they’re doing with Office 365, for another example. I don’t think all of you folk already on Win10 are guaranteed a free OS indefinitely either.
I’m staying away both because I think it will be a disaster and because I don’t want to get railroaded into a subscription OS.
I figure the next time I buy a new PC I’ll be okay with Win10 being on it. But that will be many years from now. Until then I’m happy with Win7, which as far as I can tell is almost indistinguishable from 10 aside from the horrible interface redesign.
If a company could predict what would make their software so good that everyone would like it, they wouldn’t make mistakes in the first place. Plus, there’s always a reason not to upgrade–keeping things the same. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. They had to do something to get those people to upgrade.
It’s not an excuse. It is what they are doing.
As for the pay model, the license specifically says that it lasts for the lifetime of the device. This might be a step towards paying for the OS on an ongoing basis, but it’s not a slippery slope. You could stop before it happens. If software starts requiring a paid “upgrade,” you’d still have to switch to Windows 10 to use it.
But I doubt this is the issue. It would be an unprecedented move. Doing it for applications is one thing, and had been tried before (See Adobe CC.) Plus Microsoft hasn’t even gone all in on that. Office 2016 does not require Office 365.
I can’t see Microsoft pushing people even more away from their OS by making people pay for it. The normal computer user pays for their computer, and uses whatever OS is on it. Having a monthly fee would just drive people to Apple, Google, or even Amazon or Linux.
The Microsoft model hasn’t changed much, I don’t think. They still make money every time the OS is put on new hardware. They get money from Enterprise. They also now get money from their Store. And they plan on getting you to want to use other Microsoft services that integrate so well with your current ones.
The only thing they lost was the small market of people who actually bought the new OS. That’s never been their main market. They don’t really need to do a lot to make up for it.
I’m a subscriber to Office 365. It’s a great product and I love having the 1tb back up on OneDrive. It works great.
As for a free OS - Look, it costs way more to provide support to four different OS models than Microsoft could ever make back on retail OS sales. It’s way less headache to just keep everyone on one service. It’s much more secure for everybody to have the latest security measures, too.
Microsoft’s plan is to get everyone on Windows 10 and then have that be the final version, with incremental auto-updates to keep the version numbers on track. This keeps everything streamlined on the development end. It means they don’t have to try and build new features into four different OSes. They can focus on one product and phase the others out as they age out. It’s a huge win for them in the efficiency department, which means it’s a huge money-saver.
Suddenly adding a subscription version means they’re right back in multi-OS hell and a loss of their improved efficiency.
Windows 10 has been out for a year now. Do you think this disaster will manifest soon? I’d like to get it over with before the Olympics start.
I thought I could download Win10 before the upgrade date and install it (or not) at my leisure. Unfortunately, after having it run for 14 hours last night for the download, now it’s telling me I have to do it today or pick a day within the next 5 days to install.
Like I said elsewhere - the deadline for the free upgrade is next week. If you want in on this, “your leisure” needs to stop farting around.
The actual upgrade install will probably only take about 30 minutes. Really. Then there will be more things to download afterwards but you can do that at your own pace.
Also: things are slow right now because all the last minute people are getting in.
Apple is even more hardcore than Microsoft about keeping people updated. They don’t offer the same amount of backwards-compatibility that MS does. They hand out free incremental updates for everything. Then iOS updates are free - although new versions are unlikely to work on older hardware. (And by older I mean, three years ago). MacOS updates are sometimes free and sometimes paid, depending on the scope of the project.
But the basic idea is the same for the new Windows X model. Having everyone on a limited number of OS builds means more people using updated and well-patched software, which makes it more efficient to develop new features and cheaper for providing support.
Maybe so, but I am perfectly happy with my non-subscription Office. Like hell do I want to give them a credit card number and get charged forever. We disagree on this point.
Of course this is true. It is also true that MS are ignoring customer feedback and dragging people along to a paid-for OS, whether or not they want it.
I disagree with this. If what they want is for everyone to be on a subscription version, they are not going to end in a multi-OS hell. Worst case (for them), they’ll go freemium, and have a light and a premium version. To get the extra bennies you will have to pay. This makes the most sense from their perspective too. They want everyone on subscription.
Not for me it won’t, since I won’t be installing it. The only disaster I was speaking of is what would happen to me if I updated a system that doesn’t need to be updated in order to install an OS I don’t want. No, and thank you.
Apple hasn’t charged for a Mac OS X update in 4 years and probably never will again.
You’re a little misinformed about iOS, as well. The iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S, each released 5 years ago, run the most current iOS 9. (Those modes will not receive the upcoming iOS 10 update.) Of course, older hardware might not be able to take advantage of all the newest OS features because they are often hardware-dependent, but the core OS still runs.
There hasn’t been a paid Mac OS X update for years, and even before that they’d pretty much dropped to “price of the disk.”
That’s why Apple force-obsoletes everything older than newest + one major versions (on Mac OS and iOS), but it’s not how they make their money. They make their money on the hardware, and to a lesser degree on the services they offer for it. Mac OS X and iOS only run (legally) on Apple hardware, unlike Windows where the hardware is usually built by–and making money for–some non-Microsoft vendor.
One day last week I accompanied a friend to a local ER. I noticed a computer monitor in the examining room with the Windows7 logo flopping around on the screen. I guess Windows10 will drive the ER insane when they finally update.
I resisted upgrading to 10 for a while. I decided, however, that for the sake of my back, I needed to swap to a lighter, smaller, more portable laptop. Sold my Windows 7 big-ass desktop-replacement Asus gaming laptop to a (now former, long story) friend, bought another Asus laptop… that came with Win 10 installed.
HATED it at first… now, however, I have fallen in love with the OS. Rabid wolves couldn’t drag me back to Windows 7.
