'Free' Windows 10 Has 3 Massive Unanswered Questions

[SecularMotion]

13 days. That’s all we have left before Windows 10 goes on sale and Microsoft has taken millions of pre-orders because it is ‘free’. The trouble with this is customers don’t really know what they have signed up for because Microsoft refuses to answer crucial questions.

This is a great shame because in itself Windows 10 is ace. I’ve been using it since the first beta release. It’s fast, stable, perfectly blends new features with the familiar and can reinvigorate the platform’s public image.

But you shouldn’t upgrade.

Right now Windows 10 is akin to a beautiful car in a showroom with a too-good-to-be-true sticker price and owners will drive away in something over which they have no control, no warranty information and no idea of the long term costs.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/07/14/windows-10-unanswered-questions/

[PoliticAverse]

1. Isn't '3' the answer to '2'? This is supposed to be "the last windows",

"lifecycle support" in that context means getting the "forced upgrades" described in '3'.

[Mnpaul]

2. Microsoft just reinstalled their nagware again on my machine

I finally found a way to remove their nagware icon. I had it gone for 3 weeks. This morning it was back again so I promptly removed their autorun spam. What a PITA.

[hobbit709]

3. Set Automatic Update to "Notify me of updates but don't download them"

Solves the problem right there.

[Mnpaul]

4. It is easier and quicker to remove them

sorting through the ones you need and the ones you don't takes time. You now have look online to find out what each one does. Running autoruns and deleting the nagware took less than a minute.

[hobbit709]

5. I don't use about 90% of their updates.

I don't want my system cluttered with things like Silverlight, Bing Bar, Bing Desktop, and other resource hogs. I refuse to use Internet ExploDer.

As you said it took less than a minute to remove but what else did they put in there you don't know about?

The main problem with Windows has always been the gaping security hole caused by IE being part of the OS. All their patches only put bandaids around the edges of that hole.

My media PC I got connected to the TV still runs XP. It doesn't connect to the internet and it works just fine. I used about a dozen of all the patches and fixes for XP on my systems and never had a problem.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. What the heck is Silver Light for, anyway ?

I was under the impression that a few Web sites won't behave properly if SilverLight isn't installed.

(Not a Windows guy, so I don't keep up with MS)

[hobbit709]

7. some of the streaming services demand it.

[Go Vols]

8. +1

[-none]

9. If Microsoft gets too dictatorial, there is always some flavor of Linux that would work for most

people.
Most people only use their computer for E-mail, surfing the internet and maybe some word processing. And many versions of Linux are easier and faster to install also. To say nothing about it being free, with no surprise future cost obligations either.

[jrandom421]

10. Get Real!

It's been "The year of the Linux Desktop" since 1999! And Linux desktop share has done nada since then! They had their chance when Millennium came out and everyone said it was a dog. What happened? Win 2000 followed up and pretty much killed that buzz. When Vista came out, they said this was the perfect chance to snatch desktop users from Microsoft. What happened? Win 7 came out and killed that chance. When everyone panned Win 8, this was to be the killer moment when everyone abandoned Windows and turned to Linux. Nothing happened, and now that Win 10 is here, and the Penguinistas are screaming that everyone should protect themselves from forced updates and alleged privacy snooping and switch to Linux, I don't see it happening.

Linux's desktop user share has never been over 1% and I don't see that changing in the foreseeable future.

[-none]

11. The only thing saving Microsoft is the 3rd party software.

If the software developers would get over their paranoia of MS and start writing software for Linux, MS would be toast.
Linus is faster and more secure right our of the box. The problem is actually two-fold. One is the lack of the various 3rd party software available to MS users. Software that is too hard to set up or doesn't work well under WINE. Fix that and watch Linux take off. And the other is the stranglehold MS has on the computer manufactures that all but makes it all but impossible to buy laptops and desktops with some flavor of Linux installed. The MS tax. Fix that and watch Microsoft fade away.
I for one am tired of being jerked around with each "new" version of Windows. MS doesn't give their users what they want but mainly change for change sake. The Ribbon, different names for common functions, moving stuff around, crappy default settings, the fragile Registry... Nobody is satisfied with or uses Windows as it comes out of the box. Nobody. And it gets worse with each new version. The Windows end user is told what they will use, instead being ask what they want.

I have a Linux machine. It is only the lack of a couple of pieces specialized software that prevents me from dropping Windows altogether.

[jrandom421]

12. And where are the developers?

They go where the money is. You think Autodesk would get any return on a Linux version of AutoCAD, especially when the usage is less than 2% of all users? Get real. WINE's been around for at least a decade, and there's been ample opportunity to get 3rd party developers to create the needed software you're talking about.

But isn't that the freedom of Linux? That if you don't find something you like or need, you can create your own. Of course, if you spend like 4 years creating it, how are you going to get other people to pay for it? In the mean time, who's paying your expenses? Or do you do it for the love of the technology and say the heck with eating and sleeping indoors?

This is why much of the software for Linux is created in house at large corporations for internal use. It's specialized enough that most Linux users will never use it. It will never be released as open source, because it will contain enough intellectual property of the company releasing it to keep a cadre of lawyers happy for years.

At this point, if you don't like Microsoft and Windows, that's fine. Just don't grumble about the lack of software on an alternative platform that will never pay development costs to create what you want, don't have, and can't create yourself or get others to create for you.

Let's face it. Software costs time and money to create. People and companies that create software expect to get paid at some point. Until you either get billionaires subsidizing software development (Mark Shuttleworth is only one that I see at this time) or get thousands of talented software engineers working for just the love of the technology to create that software, I don't see this changing any time in the foreseeable future.