The importance of upgrades has always been overblown by a tech media written by the kind of people who pay attention to new OS releases. For most people, the OS

The importance of upgrades has always been overblown by a tech media written by the kind of people who pay attention to new OS releases. For most people, the OS isn't a product separate from the computer. What's changed is the PC market reached saturation shortly after XP dropped in 2001. Older versions of Windows weren't upgraded voluntarily so much as swept along with the exponential growth of the overall market. If Microsoft didn't drop support and licensing of new copies to force upgrades, plenty of companies would be happy to stick with XP for years to come.