Windows 10 passes 700 million, Office Mobile in a coma and Intune, er, cracks time travel

Re: Older Devices

>One reason for the slow Win 10 growth is that it tends to kill older devices when it gets installed.

I've got a not-so-old system that I unwisely 'upgraded' to Win10 when it first came out. I lost some capability and a fair bit of performance (although the startup screens are pretty). I dug out an old Linux system for some support work recently but found it so much faster than the Win10 box that I keep it on standby -- typically by the time I've lost patience with Windows's slow booting and interminable disk waits I've got the Linux system up, opened the browser and found out what's wrong with Win10 *this* time.

Workplaces use Windows because of institutional inertia. Personally, I've given up on it. Its got a better graphics interface than the old Linux box but when it comes to performance Linux wipes the floor with Windows, even when its running on a 15 year old processor with half the memory. Needless to say I won't be buying any more Win10 kit, anything new is likely to be Linux or a Chromebook.

Re: Numbers

I always got the sense that Microsoft was not so much championing browser based solutions

For browser, read Internet Explorer, but it was an early attempt at a single code-base for desktop or browser applications. Yes, it was an attack on Sun's model, but there was a bit more to it and it led to the XML-HTTP-Request that via AJAX led to the JSON that feeds so many "SPA" websites and their webview-based app siblings.

Re: Win 10 win by attrition

Same here but with CentOS.

Windows 10 is a POS and should be consigned to the history books with a note that says, this is how not to make a decent OS.

Nanturally, YMMV

Re: Win 10 win by attrition

@Charlie Clark - For most, even in business, you can work very well with older kit. So if the ye-olde box is now occasionally used why replace it. Computers have become in many cases like an appliance; if it still works it does not need replacing. This is will stretch out the refresh cycle. Plus competition from others will be nibbling at the Bloat's market and usage.

How is it underhanded?

Are you really asking how it is underhanded for Microsoft to use the Windows Update system to distribute a Trojan horse that slips into your PC under the guise of being an update that "resolves problems in Windows," but that really sabotages that Windows installation so that it can never get any more updates ever again? MS is intentionally exposing their own users to malware infections because they're not following the Microsoft marketing plan that says that new CPUs must only run Windows 10, and it's not underhanded?

If you think my use of the term Trojan horse is a little hyperbolic, it's not. It's dead accurate... a Trojan horse is a bit of malware that slips into the system pretending to be something positive or harmless, but whose real purpose is to do something malicious without the consent of the owner of the PC. That's exactly what the Windows Updates that break Windows update do. Microsoft is using the update system, which is supposed to be about protecting from malware, to distribute malware that makes the PC vulnerable to even more malware.

There's a difference between "not supported" and "we will go out of our way to fsck your system up if you try it." The first one means you are on your own, while the second one indicates malicious intent. It's underhanded that MS would not provide the necessary drivers for the various newer CPU functions to work, particularly in 8.1, which shares most of the kernel architecture with 10 and was still under mainstream support when 10 came out. That MS would try to use that as a stick to flog people into 10 is already unethical and repulsive (as is the company itself). I ran my Core 2 Duo and Phenom II PCs on Windows XP for years, and these CPUs were officially supported in XP, even though they were Vista era architectures. MS did not block their use on XP to get me to use Vista... there are some things that are too much even for "Micro$oft."

Well, not anymore, evidently. When it comes to abusing your own customers, the sky's the limit now. Oh, I sure do love that "new" Microsoft that everyone talks about as being so much nicer than the old Microsoft (the one that backported DirectX11 from 7 to Vista, since Vista was a close cousin to 7 and it was still under mainstream support at the time. Hey, that sounds a lot like the relationship between 10 and 8.1... still waiting for that DirectX12 backport on 8.1, Microsoft!).

People aren't "moving on" to 10 because it's crap. It will be time to move on when people who feel trapped in the Windows platform see an option better than Windows 7. So far, there isn't one. Windows 10 is not a serious operating system, and as far as I am concerned, it's not even worthy of the slightest consideration, as it fails in the most basic, fundamental role of an OS: To enable the user to use the hardware to perform the tasks of his choosing, and to serve the owner of the PC in the manner chosen by himself. Windows 10 doesn't even approach that standard... it clearly serves only its real master, which of course is Microsoft. That renders it unfit for (any) purpose, from an end-user perspective.

Of course, it's very fit for the purpose that MS made it for, which is taking control of your PC and monetizing it and its user mercilessly, pressing them into servitude to Microsoft in whatever manner they see fit. And this abomination is something that people are supposed to pay for? I wouldn't even take that crap for free. At least if it were free (including to OEMs), they could almost justify the level of monetization and the lack of control over one's own computer, as long as the paid (but affordable) version restored all of the control and single-minded service toward the PC owner (and no one else, not even its maker) that marks every decent OS. Sadly, that version doesn't exist... not even the enterprise versions meet that basic standard (a rather low bar, really). They come closer than consumer editions, but they're still unfit.