back to article Microsoft's Windows 10 nagware goes FULL SCREEN in final push

As the Windows 10 free upgrade period draws to a close, Microsoft is stepping up its operating system's nagware to full-screen takeovers. The Redmond software giant confirmed today it will start showing dark blue screens urging people to install the latest version of Windows. The full-screen ads will pop up on Windows 7 and 8. …

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  1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    A final throw of the dice before

    going full Subscription

    https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/06/30/226257/upgradesubscriptionexe-file-in-preview-build-hints-at-windows-10-subscriptions

    This is what I was predicting a year ago. Stop paying and lose access to your data (One of many options)

    The move in this direction was obvious then so this should not be a surprise.

    The MS Shills be soon be out in force to downvote this.

    All I say, is come back in another year and see what is the reality of the situation then.

    There are plenty of totally free alternatives you know. Ones that come with no strings like this.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A final throw of the dice before

      Pretty obvious they would be turning to a subscription model, probably why there's so many holdouts..

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Mushroom

        Re: A final throw of the dice before

        "Pretty obvious they would be turning to a subscription model, probably why there's so many holdouts.."

        ONE reason (and maybe a big one). OTHERS include, ( /me clears throat )

        • The Adware
        • The Spyware
        • 2D FLUGLY (lack of 3D skeumorphic like 7)
        • Removal of customization options
        • "The Metro" in general
        • FORCED updates
        • Frequent 'High bandwidth' upgrade/update downloads
        • Windows Logon and its anti-privacy EULA
        • No clear performance improvements over 7
        • Feature Removal (from those built into earlier versions of windows)
        • The 'Start Thing' vs the 'Start Menu'
        • Using customers for Q.A. testing (i.e. releasing UNSTABLE CRAP via 'updates')

        A longer list is, of course, possible, but these are *MY* reasons, NOT including the subscription thing, which has yet to manifest itself.

      2. ABQ Sun

        Re: A final throw of the dice before

        It would be suicide to retroactively go back and charge a subscription being Apple and Google do not charge for the base OS. The fact that Google is unifying Chrome OS with Android will put more pressure on MS then Apple IMO. So I think MS may want to charge a subscription but its won't likely happen for the OS. Rather they will continue to charge for their other services and continue to inject all the telemetry into the OS.

        However, IMO W10 is a very nice OS once you rip out all the privacy junk, cortana, one drive etc.. and install with a local account.

    2. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      Windows

      Re: A final throw of the dice before

      I dont think you were the only one predicting win10 as a subscription service

      But who knows... IF win10 goes subscription, maybe then m$ could be hammered with a class action, especially since the free upgrade to win10 made no mention of this.....

      1. Captain DaFt

        Re: A final throw of the dice before

        "But who knows... IF win10 goes subscription, maybe then m$ could be hammered with a class action"

        Nah, nah, Win 10 is touted as "The lasted Windows you'll ever buy", buy MS's own marketeers.

        As soon as the kerfuffle settles down, there'll be new popups on Win 10 and Win 7 machines;

        "Sign up now for NEW Win Cloud*!"

        "The perpetually up to date Windows!"

        "Only $19.99 a month!"

        "[]Yes, at once!"

        "[]Ask me again in 10 seconds."

        *Or whatever dorky name Windows Marketing comes up with.

        1. TheOtherHobbes

          Re: A final throw of the dice before

          >*Or whatever dorky name Windows Marketing comes up with.

          Windows Coffin Edition Pro?

          1. Mpeler
            Black Helicopters

            Re: A final throw of the dice before

            It's not the cough that carries you off - it's the coffin they carry you off in...

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: A final throw of the dice before

          Nah, nah, Win 10 is touted as "The lasted Windows you'll ever buy", by MS's own marketeers.

          From the way they're going about it I'd say that is actually a surprisingly accurate statement, just not quite in the way intended..

          I've never seen better advertising for OSX and Linux - even Windows Vista didn't do as much damage.

          1. Vince

            "Win 10 is touted as "The last Windows you'll ever buy"

            "buy" being the operative word.

            "Rent" however...

            "Windows 10 is touted as the first windows you'll ultimately end up renting to keep using"

            I'm sure they've watched how successful Adobe et al have been in getting people to pay every month for software they rarely get benefit of the updates of, and often don't use often enough to make the price worth it but still pay for...

            That and it is working rather nicely for them already with Office 365... mugs.

      2. Richard Plinston

        Re: A final throw of the dice before

        > especially since the free upgrade to win10 made no mention of this.....

        What they actually said was:

        """This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no additional charge."""

        What was not explained was what the "supported lifetime of the device" meant. The device hardware is supported by the warranty. Once your warranty expires then it is no longer "at no additional charge".

        Note that they did _not_ say: 'for the supported lifetime of the OS'.

        1. Rod 6

          Re: A final throw of the dice before

          Years ago, I put linux only farther's PC for a quiet life. I got fed up of questions about virus killers and subscriptions and him clicking on things he should not under windows (not to mention him phoning 'technical support' lines ). I did not really want to do it at the time because I thought it would be more hassle. Now, the only time I touch the box, is to upgrade it to the next release.

      3. aqk
        Paris Hilton

        Re: A final throw of the M$ dice before?

        Wow! M$ ! I haven't seen this cute little acronym since about 1994, when our company got rid of the last of our Macintosh weenies!

        Golly, Dude - do you still refer to Bill Gates as the Antichrist? I bet you even have a ponytail!

        1. Suricou Raven

          Re: A final throw of the M$ dice before?

          Microsoft worked hard to earn their insulting abbreviation. It's a reference to their long history of aggressive business methods.

          1. oldcoder

            Re: A final throw of the M$ dice before?

            You shouldn't leave out the over-pricing, bate-and-switch software, cost of security failures, cost of propping it up with anti-virus software ...

          2. Preston Munchensonton
            Mushroom

            Re: A final throw of the M$ dice before?

            Microsoft worked hard to earn their insulting abbreviation. It's a reference to their long history of aggressive business methods.

            If you weren't aware, Microsoft is a for-profit business, i.e. they intended to sell goods and services to earn profits from their customers. If this offends you, do the most important thing to force them out of business by stop buying their products. MS is still in business because people continue to buy their wares.

            Personally, I'm in the "fuck off, thanks, I don't need Windows and Office" camp. But that doesn't mean that others can't and shouldn't find value in what MS sells. Good for them. You don't like it? Don't buy it and be happy. But don't criticize MS for trying to make money. Or do you live off the government teat so that you can just donate all your time for free to worthy causes? Pfft.

            /endrant

            1. Zakhar

              Re: A final throw of the M$ dice before?

              I both agree and disagree with you!

              Agree about the "for-profit", and the only way to make them understand that you are displeased: stop buying their products at once! So the ones complaining and still buying: you had it coming.

              Disagree: they fully deserve M$ with their aggressive and illegal methods. Yes illegal! You might not know, but in France "bundled sales" is illegal if you do NOT sell the parts of the bundles separately. And do you think M$ cares to respect this law, do you think the hardware vendors care too, and do you even thing governments care to have their laws abided... those latter are corrupted and paid, so you guess the answer.

              So, as long as I cannot buy a PC without having to buy the "bundled" slurpware I don't want, I'll call them M$

              That is plain and simple extortion, so they fully deserve it.

              ... but maybe I'll stop... maybe now it is going to be "free"... obviously only "free to buy" but you have to pay the monthly subscription! What I fear and even with that, they'll probably still extort you something like 1 year of subscription, even if you don't intend to use the crap.

              1. Pompous Git Silver badge

                Re: A final throw of the M$ dice before?

                So, as long as I cannot buy a PC without having to buy the "bundled" slurpware I don't want, I'll call them M$

                That is plain and simple extortion, so they fully deserve it.

                So you'd rather piss and moan, and tell lies than pick up the 'phone and ask the Dell sales rep (for example) and ask "How much for a model XYZ without Windows?". Some people are just too fucking stupid or lazy to wonder how MS manages to sell volume licenses if the purchaser has already been "forced" to purchase a Windows licence with every computer. FFS!

                1. tiggity Silver badge

                  Re: A final throw of the M$ dice before?

                  The issue teh poster was making about windows bundled on hardware is that your average home consumer (not vaguely tech El Reg reader), will just randomly order new PC (be it online, or more likely at some big name store e.g. PC World in UK).

                  In a UK PC World buying experience punter will not even be aware of different operating systems (unless sales person tried to sell them a mac & even then it will only be in terms of it's different but it still runs office OK), certainly on mention of Linux made to your average punter (and as an added bonus PC World will try & claim their warranties do not apply if you replace windows with Linux on PCs they sell)

                  So, for most non tech savvy punters, there is no easy way to get a new computer without it having Windows or Mac OS pre-installed.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              @Preston

              "But don't criticize MS for trying to make money."

              For me the problem here is that they're trying to make money by ripping me off. My PC came pre-installed with Vista Home Premium and I upgraded it myself to Windows 7 Professional. Ergo: I bought a Windows version which was said to be supported until around 2018. And here we are, I got 2 more years worth of support to go yet Microsoft seems more busy trying to get me to upgrade to Windows 10 than providing me what I paid for.

              I don't mind Microsoft trying to make money, but I do expect them to live up to what they promised me: Windows 7 support until 2018/2019. And a hidden, forced, upgrade to Windows 10 does not fall into this category.

              This is basically Microsoft telling me: "Well, you paid for support until 2018 but we're not going to give that to you, because we think you should now use Windows 10 instead!".

              Like I said: that's not simply trying to make money, that's basically ripping people off by not providing them the services they paid you for. And I specifically use the term "ripping off" because unless you know what the heck you're doing then there's no way to stop the Windows 10 monstrosity from taking over your computer. Unintended, unwanted, so basically a rip off.

              So personally I think people have every right to be upset here.

            3. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

              Re: A final throw of the M$ dice before?

              M$ screwed over many competitors with questionable if not downright illegal business practices.

              So let's keep the pretty accurate M$ moniker.

              M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$

          3. el_oscuro

            Re: A final throw of the M$ dice before?

            M$ dose seem a bit dated now. Some bloke came up with a clever new one:

            Micros~1

        2. This post has been deleted by its author

        3. cd / && rm -rf *
          FAIL

          Re: A final throw of the M$ dice before?

          @aqk:

          Oh, hello there "Good Guy". When did you escape from news://alt.windows7.general?

          Anonymous troll is not anonymous.

        4. wayne 8

          Re: A final throw of the M$ dice before?

          Is this your first ever visit to El Reg?

        5. Mpeler
          Mushroom

          Re: A final throw of the M$ dice before?

          And there's Paris - looking for your brain. No trace.

          Looks in one ear, sees out the other.

          Nice try (not) M$ troll.

          Here's another one for you: Micro$haft. And Micro$ucks. And "The Borg" of Redmond.

          Granted, M$ used to be OK, with TechNet, and MSDN, and (somewhat) listening to their users and developers. The Home Servers were nice, but then they borked those too, as they did SBS.

          One company's motto is "Do no evil". It appears that M$'s is: "If greed is all you need".

          Sorry, troll/fanbot, your "company" used to be OK. Until and unless it changes, it's M$. Tough nuggies.

      4. Wade Burchette

        Re: A final throw of the dice before

        "IF win10 goes subscription, maybe then m$ could be hammered with a class action, especially since the free upgrade to win10 made no mention of this....."

        Two things. First, the terms of service that you agree to when you install Win10 specifically say you cannot sue Microsoft in countries that allow binding "neutral" arbitration. The US is one such country. So you cannot sue Microsoft over Win10 in the United States. You can sue if you do not agree to the terms.

        Second, the terms also clearly state the product is licensed, not owned. What this means is that they can take away your license as they please. What will most likely happen is there will be an updated terms-of-service. Agree, or you will stop receiving all Windows updates. I doubt Microsoft would be so bold as to force you to agree or else you cannot use your computer. Since the product is licensed and not owned, they can change the terms anytime they want.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: A final throw of the dice before

          Two things. First, the terms of service that you agree to when you install Win10 specifically say you cannot sue Microsoft in countries that allow binding "neutral" arbitration. The US is one such country. So you cannot sue Microsoft over Win10 in the United States. You can sue if you do not agree to the terms.

          Second, the terms also clearly state the product is licensed, not owned. What this means is that they can take away your license as they please. What will most likely happen is there will be an updated terms-of-service. Agree, or you will stop receiving all Windows updates. I doubt Microsoft would be so bold as to force you to agree or else you cannot use your computer. Since the product is licensed and not owned, they can change the terms anytime they want.

          Glad I'm not in the US then, those terms would get bounced in the UK. As a matter of fact, I reckon there's enough margin in UK consumer laws to screw over Microsoft something solid, provided enough people file properly documented complaints. They may not be eligible for £10k, but consumer rights enforcement could become a rather interesting political play given Microsoft's remaining influence in Whitehall.

          I'd pay to watch that..

    3. Mark 85

      Re: A final throw of the dice before

      You're not alone in believing this nor for getting downvoted. I'm waiting to see if Win7 gets a retroactive EULA requiring subscription.. or maybe limiting it's usefulness unless the "service fee" is paid.

      I'm already rocking Mint with Wine and VM for Win7 on the main PC at the house. The rest are in the wings. First sign of any thing like this, and poof... Linux magically appears.

      1. aqk
        Linux

        Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

        Great! I personally use Ubuntu myself.

        As well as Win-10 (both standard and the "fast" insider preview).

        But at the present, I would NEVER install Linux - either Ubuntu or Mint on my Aunt Lucy's PC. Her old desktop could just not take the excitement of those interminable problem fixes via a list of arcane and lengthy commands.

        YOU love Linux and so do your 3 or 4 geeky friends. And so do I.

        But about your mom and pop? Or your uncle Ebenezer?

        Do you plan to upgrade their XP (or is it finally Win7?) with your all-powerful sweetheart version of Linux?

        Ah, as a retired techie, how I miss those 3AM phone calls!

        Now, you too can expect them too!

        Good luck.

        1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

          Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

          But at the present, I would NEVER install Linux - either Ubuntu or Mint on my Aunt Lucy's PC. Her old desktop could just not take the excitement of those interminable problem fixes via a list of arcane and lengthy commands.

          Quite the opposite, I have put Ubuntu on father's laptop and friends' home PCs and it gives me FAR less support trouble than Windows and the inevitable AV that still fails to stop infestations. Oh yes, and none of this in-your-face nagware or the privacy violations MS are now pushing having conveniently forgotten all about the "Scroogled" campaign.

        2. david bates

          Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

          I moved my uncle and my dad from Win XP to Mint Mate. I don't get support calls any more. It's an LTS version, and i use team viewer every now and again to run updates.

          In the time Mint has been installed if have had to do at least one rebuild.

          The one time there was a hardware failure i took the HD out of a Pentium 4 with an ATi card and put it into an Athlon machine with an nVidea card and it. Just. Worked.

          So don't tell me about support calls coming off XP onto Linux.

          1. Number6

            Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

            I moved my uncle and my dad from Win XP to Mint Mate. I don't get support calls any more. It's an LTS version, and i use team viewer every now and again to run updates.

            What's wrong with ssh? That's how I update my father's machine. The only time I need something more is if I have to troubleshoot a GUI program, but now he's learned the three or four things he needs his computer for, they're mostly well-behaved.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

            I moved my uncle and my dad from Win XP to Mint Mate. I don't get support calls any more.

            Sorry to be the devil's advocate here, but that may possibly not be for the reason you think :).

        3. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
          Stop

          Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

          > interminable problem fixes via a list of arcane and lengthy commands.

          2001 called and wants its Linux FUD back.

          1. Adam 52 Silver badge

            Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

            "2001 called and wants its Linux FUD back."

            It's not all FUD though. I upgraded to the latest Ubuntu LTS last week. After the big mess I got into last time attemping to do two upgrades in one go I thought I'd go earlier this time.

            Big mistake. I now have a PC that'll only do 640x480 and 800x600 (the gui offers more but they all give 800x600). I really was hoping all the driver and having to boot into low runlevels to fix X had died a death years ago but they're still there.

            It's still not fixed. The various out-of-date and "try this, it worked for me" support sterotypes are still there.

            Don't get me wrong, I like Linux but dismissing valid criticism as FUD means it won't get better.

            1. MonkeyCee

              Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

              I've gone off Ubuntu as the standard XP alternate, since it's seemed less "plug and play" in the last couple of years.

              Give Mint a try, see if it's getting the same issues.

              You'll never escape GFX driver crap, unless you're either running integrated GFX, or your vendor has been making an effort. ATI do better linux drivers than NVidia these days. Never thought I'd say that....

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

              "2001 called and wants its Linux FUD back."

              It's not all FUD though. I upgraded to the latest Ubuntu LTS last week. After the big mess I got into last time attemping to do two upgrades in one go I thought I'd go earlier this time.

              Big mistake. I now have a PC that'll only do 640x480 and 800x600 (the gui offers more but they all give 800x600). I really was hoping all the driver and having to boot into low runlevels to fix X had died a death years ago but they're still there.

              Try anything but Ubuntu. Sometimes I get the impression that Ubuntu wants to be the Windows Me of the packagers when even others that base themselves on Ubuntu seem to do better, like Mint.

            3. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

              Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before @Adam 52

              The question we need to know is whether you have some esoteric or maybe cutting edge graphics card, or are maybe trying to use the proprietary binary graphics driver from AMD or Nvidia on an older graphics card..

              For new high end cards from both Nvidia and AMD, the proprietary Linux drivers often lag the availability of the cards by some months, and the open drivers may not support the newer hardware until some bright spark works out how the API has changed.

              There are also some obscure cards that there may not be drivers for in the Linux repositories, but this is rare.

              What is more annoying is that the proprietary drivers are dropping support for older cards. I was caught out when I upgraded an LTS release on a system with an Nvidia fx7800 onboard that had the proprietary Nividia drivers loaded. After upgrading, I suddenly was down to un-accelerated 800x600 256 colour (i.e. basic VESA) rather than the 32 bit colour 1280x1024 that I was expecting. This sounds similar to your situation. I've had similar problems with older AMD/ATI cards as well.

              The new release of the proprietary Nvidia binary had silently dropped support for the older chipset, leading to the lowest-common denominator driver being used. Unfortunately, the main way of removing the binary driver, which is required to get the open source drivers configured correctly, is normally written using dpkg from the command line. It is also possible from Synaptic (which is no longer installed by default), but is rather more difficult from the Ubuntu Software Centre (which seems to decide that removing software is something that users should be dissuaded from doing).

              Unless you actually desperately need them, I would nowadays always suggest that you use the open drivers, and if you do use the proprietary drivers, switch back to the open drivers before doing a dist-upgrade.

              Of course, this is not Linux's fault (if Linux can actually have fault attributed to it). It actually shows up a fundamental support issue with the companies that produce PC hardware without a full commitment to Linux. This should even extend to the obsolete chipsets IMHO, because Linux is very often deployed on old kit. Companies should either fork their proprietary drivers and leave the old ones in the repositories so you can keep using the old drivers without having to hold them back (and don't get me started on this, it has huge problems), or open-source the drivers, or even just the full API for the cards they deem obsolete to allow the community to support the cards without having to reverse-engineer the chipsets.

        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

          Give them Chrome. System problem? Just reboot and "powerwash". Persistent data? That's what Drive is for.

          But seriously, I can't wait until M$ starts requiring a subscription fee for "extended" (beyond the mfr warranty expiration) update service. At that point I'll have an out when family and friends ask for computer help: "Oh no, you wouldn't want me to void your (paid) support, would you?" It's almost like Nadella is giving all us techies a free gift. We should be more thankful.

        5. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

          @agk - it's obvious to anyone that's actually a Linux user t (note I said 'user', not 'expert' as I'm certainly not an expert) that you're either trolling or are hoplessly inept at following simple install instructions. Or you're trying to sell the moon on a stick when you install Linux (yes, of course I can get iTunes to work under Linux for you!') and setting both yourself and them up for disappointment.

          I've not merely installed Linux on several friends PCs over the years, some of then have gone on to do installations themselves, not one of them being even as half-arsed tecchy as myself. And the number of support calls I've had in all those years for Linux can be counted on the fingers on one hand with fingers to spare. None of them involved me going to the command line - it was just a case of explaining how to find things (IIRC, how to use what was back then a somewhat user-unfriendly package manager to find a particular type of application; how to reconnect to the internet after a stray mouse-click had accidentally disconnected them, and how to get certain media types to play in Ubuntu waaay back).

          Personally, if asked to set someone up with Linux, I first explain to them that it isn't the case that all software will run on all operating systems, and that if there is anything that they really really don't want to lose use of, they need to tell me about it first so I can see whether there's a suitable alternative or workaround. Either way I explain the options before doing anything else whatsoever.

          I've installed Linux in a VM on Windows and Windows in a VM on Linux, to meet user needs. I;ve also advised at least one user than in the light of what they wanted, sorry, but they eitehr needed to stay Windows, buy another machine and put Linux on that, or consult an expert who might be able to give them what they'd like - for a fee (my services came free aside from the cost of a cuppa).

          Whilst I CAN use the command line (as in, I'm not scared to do so) I hate doing so and it's been many years since I used it to do anything other than invoke get-iplayer or perform a timed shutdown because I've left my PC downloading something overnight and want it to close down afterward.

          I have to use Windows at work. It's far less user-friendly and far more troublesome than the Linux I use at home. Your milage may vary. But it's blatantly untrue to claim that you have to use arcane command-line stuff to make Linux work, If you think that, then you're doing SOMEthing wrong, friend. (Unless you actually are a troll, of course (ooh, I see an earlier poster has spotted that you probably are!), in which case, there's the door)

          1. a_yank_lurker

            Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

            @Esme - Users who I have switched to Linux do not harass me constantly with problems. Most of the issues I have see are set up issues that once solved stay solved. The only other major item I do is to update the distro periodically.

          2. Hans 1

            Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

            @Esme

            Same here, get my upvote, with one minor change:

            >Personally, if asked to set someone up with Linux, I first explain to them that it isn't the case that all software will run on all operating systems, and that if there is anything that they really really don't want to lose use of, they need to tell me about it first so I can see whether there's a suitable alternative or workaround. Either way I explain the options before doing anything else whatsoever.

            ... at first, users would forget this or that app that they were not using often and call the odd week ... so now I look in Programs and Features to see what is installed ... mom and pop do not want to play GTA V ... Usually, VLC, LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, gimp, darktable with a nice little Debian (over the time lenny, squeeze, wheezy, now jessie), icedove and iceweasel I remove, too confusing, since they were already using Thunderbird and Firefox on Windows XP or 7 ...

            My kids enjoy Minecraft on Linux, still waiting on EA to port The Sims to Linux ... the worst thing is, they use a wine-like runtime to port it to Mac OS X, so it is a matter of little changes here and there - BASTARDS!!! Yes, it works fine in wine, so I use that.

        6. MonkeyCee

          Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

          You've been retired too long then mate :)

          I've always got several thumb drives with either ubuntu or mint on them (mild preference for mint these days, but whatever). When a friend/relative/neighbor/classmate is having issues with a machine I'll get them to give it a trial, booting from the thumb drive.

          Usually after a week of hearing nothing, I'll get hold of them, to be told that the computer is working fine thanks, and no need to do anything. So I'll install it (in a suitably impressive speedy fashion), take my drive back, and then it's even slightly faster.

          Most don't even know there is a command line, they don't care. It opens email, it access the web pages they want, it's got something that opens most of the standard files they come across.

          The main issues are printing and drivers, but in each of these cases (YMMV) the issue is not confined to Windows or Linux, and is often easiest to solve by spending a tenner on a new card, finding a work around, or in the case of printers, just binning it and helping them buy the right printer, rather than whatever bullshit inkjet is being pushed out this week. Most people DO NOT need an inkjet, a ~30 quid laser, essentially a HP LJ 4 with more modern guts, is fine for most things, and can be left turned off for weeks, fired up and print.

          The last few printers I sourced have been Brother HL2130. Store had ~50 inkjets on display and two lasers, lasers practically hidden from view in the corner.

          For myself, and my geeky friends, we run VMWare and whatever is needed for the job at hand. Single and dual booting is so 20th century dude :)

        7. David McCoy

          Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

          I've built 12 Linux Mint systems for clients since Windows 10 reared its head, I've moved another 20 from win 7/8/8.1/10 to it, including my father's win 7 system. I have had 2 hardware issues in that time, both printer related. Everything else just works. They keep on going like the energiser bunny.

        8. fijired2

          Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

          I put Ubuntu on my parents PC three years ago. Only call I've had since its for a faulty mouse.

        9. FuzzyWuzzys
          Facepalm

          Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

          "Great! I personally use Ubuntu myself.

          But at the present, I would NEVER install Linux - either Ubuntu or Mint on my Aunt Lucy's PC. Her old desktop could just not take the excitement of those interminable problem fixes via a list of arcane and lengthy commands.

          YOU love Linux and so do your 3 or 4 geeky friends. And so do I."

          HELLO?! HELLO?! Are there you are! I'm sorry to ask but I think 1995 wants its Linux references back!

        10. Colin Critch

          Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

          I have two old codgers on Linux and both have less issues than my windows users. You see, if you have never used a M$ OS there is nothing to relearn ( or to forget).

        11. Robert Moore

          Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

          > But about your mom and pop? Or your uncle Ebenezer?

          I put my 67 year old, VERY VERY nontechnical, mother on a Mint laptop.

          My support calls fell from at least one a month to none after the first month.

          There were a few calls the first month, asking "How do I do X?"

          If all you are doing is browsing the web, some spreadsheets, and a little light word processing. Linux is SO much better than windows.

          1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

            Re: A final throw of the Minty dice before

            My wife wanted to stay with WinXP. I told her she couldn't, and built a Win7 machine for her, which she hates (she's such a techno-luddite, she wouldn't learn the XP->7 UI change). If she needed to use a PC, she reluctantly asked to borrow my Thinkpad (Ubuntu LTS), and asked me to start "Google" for her (Google is the Internet, as far as she is concerned).

            When I replaced my Thinkpad (with another one, of course), she asked whether she could have my old one. As a final piece of maintenance work on that system, I put in an SSD and one of the XP skins on Gnome.

            She is now happily using this Linux laptop daily for genealogy research, Whilst she knows it's not Windows XP, it works and looks pretty much as she expects. She even uses LibreOffice on occasion, and does not appear to miss MS software at all.

            I check it on occasion (I now borrow it if I just need to look up something quickly), and install any updates, but she admits that even she could manage this if I didn't.

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