5 ms·

Got hit by this yesterday on a computer I don't use frequently and a coworker quickly turned machine off to prevent upgrade and all was well. It is sad that th

by 83457 10y ago

Got hit by this yesterday on a computer I don't use frequently and a coworker quickly turned machine off to prevent upgrade and all was well. It is sad that they would stoop this low. I just don't understand it.

Grishnakh 10y ago
>It is sad that they would stoop this low. I just don't understand it. There's nothing "sad" about it. If this increases their corporate profits, then it's the correct course of action. I'm only surprised they didn't resort to tactics like this earlier; they were much too nice with their customers before. They're doing a lot better now, by showing their customers who's boss. What's sad is that customers actually think they deserve to be treated nicely. I just don't understand that mentality. If you're willing to allow a vendor to abuse you, over and over and over again, and you absolutely refuse to ditch that vendor, then why shouldn't the vendor treat you poorly if they can make more money doing so?
- Silhouette 10y ago
  They're doing a lot better now, by showing their customers who's boss. Microsoft might indeed be about to learn who's boss. Spoiler: Absent legal or regulatory shenanigans, in the long run it's going to be the people spending the money. If you really believe Microsoft are strong enough to coerce most or all of their entire market to move to Windows 10 when it's not in their interests, I invite you to look up the current market share of Windows 7 vs. Windows 10, and to consider that this is about 10 months into the 12 month free update period already.
  - serge2k 10y ago
    > I invite you to look up the current market share of Windows 7 vs. Windows 10 This type of thing is probably why they want to drag people kicking and screaming onto 10. Otherwise people refuse to get off a decade old OS.
    - Silhouette 10y ago
      Businesses are still buying new PCs with that "decade old OS" today. People will get off it when there's a better choice, but so far in the intervening decade, those have been lacking.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    >If you really believe Microsoft are strong enough to coerce most or all of their entire market to move to Windows 10 when it's not in their interests, I invite you to look up the current market share of Windows 7 vs. Windows 10, and to consider that this is about 10 months into the 12 month free update period already. A huge number of people have upgraded to Win10. Many of those are because of the underhanded tricks, but it doesn't matter; they've switched now. Now MS just has to squeeze them some more by cutting support for Win7 early, or maybe they could be like Apple and start pushing Win7 updates which massively slow down the OS, in effect forcing people to upgrade. What are people going to do, stop getting security updates? Or switch to a different OS? Face it, people and businesses are locked into Windows, and aren't going to stop using it no matter what. MS can do whatever they want at this point; it's not going to hurt them, and will only help them. The more people they can push to Win10, the more money they'll make from advertising. I can't wait to see them pushing mandatory advertising and spyware in Win10 Enterprise.
    - Silhouette 10y ago
      Now MS just has to squeeze them some more by cutting support for Win7 early, That would surely result in lawsuits on such a scale that even Microsoft would be lucky to survive the results. or maybe they could be like Apple and start pushing Win7 updates which massively slow down the OS, in effect forcing people to upgrade. They already do seem to be crippling Windows 7 updates; there have been numerous reports of problems since earlier this year where Windows Update will sit there taking literally hours to do the most simple tasks, apparently including several controlled experiments using new machines to prove that it really is Windows Update at fault. This doesn't bode well for anyone remaining on Windows 7, but of course it bodes even less well for anyone committed to whatever update mechanism Microsoft wants on Windows 10. What are people going to do, stop getting security updates? Probably. Or switch to a different OS? Possibly. Face it, people and businesses are locked into Windows, and aren't going to stop using it no matter what. There is rarely true lock-in within this industry. Usually there is only the relative cost of migrating to new systems vs. staying put. The thing is, migrating to a new OS is already an extremely expensive, time-consuming and risky proposition for large organisations. Entire teams of IT staff spend months planning the switch, testing hardware and software on the new platform, and so on. That is going to be true even if organisations decide to upgrade to Windows 10 from whatever they're on already. That is the inertia Microsoft really has to overcome if it wants to establish Windows 10, and it's the same inertia that meant some organisations were willing to pay millions for support beyond the official cut-off date with Windows XP because that was still better for them than risking a migration even to Windows 7, which had relatively few areas of risk in that scenario. If they fail to do that, either by not making 10 an attractive proposition or by trying to degrade 7 until people give up, then those big corporate migration exercises do have alternatives they could consider, and sooner or later some big names will actually make the jump. And if a few of them do that and it becomes clear that they've done well out of it, that's very, very bad for Microsoft. That's why I don't think they'll let it come to that.

by 83457 10y ago

Grishnakh 10y ago

>It is sad that they would stoop this low. I just don't understand it. There's nothing "sad" about it. If this increases their corporate profits, then it's the correct course of action. I'm only surprised they didn't resort to tactics like this earlier; they were much too nice with their customers before. They're doing a lot better now, by showing their customers who's boss. What's sad is that customers actually think they deserve to be treated nicely. I just don't understand that mentality. If you're willing to allow a vendor to abuse you, over and over and over again, and you absolutely refuse to ditch that vendor, then why shouldn't the vendor treat you poorly if they can make more money doing so?

Silhouette 10y ago
They're doing a lot better now, by showing their customers who's boss. Microsoft might indeed be about to learn who's boss. Spoiler: Absent legal or regulatory shenanigans, in the long run it's going to be the people spending the money. If you really believe Microsoft are strong enough to coerce most or all of their entire market to move to Windows 10 when it's not in their interests, I invite you to look up the current market share of Windows 7 vs. Windows 10, and to consider that this is about 10 months into the 12 month free update period already.
- serge2k 10y ago
  > I invite you to look up the current market share of Windows 7 vs. Windows 10 This type of thing is probably why they want to drag people kicking and screaming onto 10. Otherwise people refuse to get off a decade old OS.
  - Silhouette 10y ago
    Businesses are still buying new PCs with that "decade old OS" today. People will get off it when there's a better choice, but so far in the intervening decade, those have been lacking.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  >If you really believe Microsoft are strong enough to coerce most or all of their entire market to move to Windows 10 when it's not in their interests, I invite you to look up the current market share of Windows 7 vs. Windows 10, and to consider that this is about 10 months into the 12 month free update period already. A huge number of people have upgraded to Win10. Many of those are because of the underhanded tricks, but it doesn't matter; they've switched now. Now MS just has to squeeze them some more by cutting support for Win7 early, or maybe they could be like Apple and start pushing Win7 updates which massively slow down the OS, in effect forcing people to upgrade. What are people going to do, stop getting security updates? Or switch to a different OS? Face it, people and businesses are locked into Windows, and aren't going to stop using it no matter what. MS can do whatever they want at this point; it's not going to hurt them, and will only help them. The more people they can push to Win10, the more money they'll make from advertising. I can't wait to see them pushing mandatory advertising and spyware in Win10 Enterprise.
  - Silhouette 10y ago
    Now MS just has to squeeze them some more by cutting support for Win7 early, That would surely result in lawsuits on such a scale that even Microsoft would be lucky to survive the results. or maybe they could be like Apple and start pushing Win7 updates which massively slow down the OS, in effect forcing people to upgrade. They already do seem to be crippling Windows 7 updates; there have been numerous reports of problems since earlier this year where Windows Update will sit there taking literally hours to do the most simple tasks, apparently including several controlled experiments using new machines to prove that it really is Windows Update at fault. This doesn't bode well for anyone remaining on Windows 7, but of course it bodes even less well for anyone committed to whatever update mechanism Microsoft wants on Windows 10. What are people going to do, stop getting security updates? Probably. Or switch to a different OS? Possibly. Face it, people and businesses are locked into Windows, and aren't going to stop using it no matter what. There is rarely true lock-in within this industry. Usually there is only the relative cost of migrating to new systems vs. staying put. The thing is, migrating to a new OS is already an extremely expensive, time-consuming and risky proposition for large organisations. Entire teams of IT staff spend months planning the switch, testing hardware and software on the new platform, and so on. That is going to be true even if organisations decide to upgrade to Windows 10 from whatever they're on already. That is the inertia Microsoft really has to overcome if it wants to establish Windows 10, and it's the same inertia that meant some organisations were willing to pay millions for support beyond the official cut-off date with Windows XP because that was still better for them than risking a migration even to Windows 7, which had relatively few areas of risk in that scenario. If they fail to do that, either by not making 10 an attractive proposition or by trying to degrade 7 until people give up, then those big corporate migration exercises do have alternatives they could consider, and sooner or later some big names will actually make the jump. And if a few of them do that and it becomes clear that they've done well out of it, that's very, very bad for Microsoft. That's why I don't think they'll let it come to that.