Windows 7 is still used on a quarter of all PCs

[Gezzer]

I really wish that Microsoft would bring out a Windows 7 SE (Second Edition). Windows 7 has a lot of issues that need fixing and improving. Windows 10 has been a "can of worms" from the very start. Windows 7 is reliable and works like an operating system should work.

I wish, but not going to happen I'm afraid. Microsoft desperately want's to create the same walled garden that both Android and iOS enjoy, complete with massively profitable app store. They slipped to a distant third in the mobile market and Windows 8 was a feeble attempt to create a device agnostic OS, a one windows to rule them if you will. The idea was to leverage PC and console users to capture mobile market share.

The problem with Win8 was it was designed for mobile use first and foremost since that was the market they were trying to capture. Many PC users rebelled because the new UI was such a monumental change for them. Personally I found it really only worked with a touch screen and that in a desktop setting just didn't enhance my workflow. Reaching up to do something on a monitor felt wrong some how.

Windows 10 was meant to address the short comings of Win8 and does for the most part. The experience is consistent over all devices and desktop use doesn't feel like a kludge fix any more. The next step in creating the walled garden is to now migrate every user to win10. That's why MS has taken the steps of making Win10 a "service" and the last version they'll ever "release". Hell, while they won't admit it, getting a free upgrade to Win10 is still child's play.

In the end MS can't afford to fragment the user base by releasing an upgrade to Win 7. It would be like building a prefect walled garden and then leaving a massive opening in one wall. Win10 is an all in move and I really doubt MS could reverse course at this point, even if they wanted to.

 

[lazer]

"if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

When my old laptop died, I bought a new one with win8 installed. Pure crap, would not work with my purchased programs that I needed to use. So I had win7 installed. Works great, did not enable updates and it is still working.

Micro$lop screwed up with win8. They wanted to compete with android which has taken over the smartphone and tablets like crazy and works fine. So came win8 and then win10. Such a mess. Windows never did much for smartphones or tablets.....

 

[Burty117]

Good to see I'm part of the 0.0001%* of people who have no issues with Windows 10 and actually find it WAY better than Windows 7.

*Based on this comment section.

 

[bexwhitt]

My work laptop is prone to TOTAL Meltdown since I am using a W7 machine with an Intel CPU.

Window 7 on modern hardware is crash city.

 

[kmo911]

Some pcs cant be upgraded to win 10 ever. they lack some bios functions . so win xp or win 7-8.1 get s limited. microsoft must know some pce newer will and can install win 10. I old time win 95 was even on old xxx-586 and higher pc specs. but win me was blocking install if you didnt have a 150 mhz pc or higer. and then mmx pc games was also a block on low end pcs. so going for higher pc for win 10 are reqmanded.

 

[Freddie159]

The Department I used to work at stull uses Win7 because the software they paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for won't work on Win10!!! That's almost 1600 pc's in one place still on Win7, the rest of the Company, 30k total pc's, I worked at has gone to Win10 though and the users hate it!

 

[kmo911]

Windows 10 only for 10 th gen cpu . dont undegrade US now. since win 10 should support older pc specs it would be strange if a 386 not can install win 1.0-win98 se fat 16 32

now back to the future. win 10 needs 2 gb now for x64 and x32 getting shoved away for more safer x64. win 7 x32 getting unsafe and x64 are safer byt heavyer to run. most games now will only support x64 bit gaming. but still yeah can use win 8 8.1 but some games are limited to win 10 only.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

Or dont blame MS cause you have your server n gaming content on the same machine. We all know MS updates may cause issues from time to time (hardly none in my case) but you still choose to game on your server machine. Thats on you.

I don't game on it - not even close. Try reading better next time. I game on Windows 7. Server is on Windows 10.

Server only hosts plex - holds roughly 5TB of movies/TV shows and pictures that I own and it's an easy way to share things with family outside of my household.

* First failed MS Windows 10 update on my server was when they pushed the Falls Creator update. The update failed miserably, Windows wouldn't boot - just came up to a and saying it couldn't start. I couldn't get Recovery to work and I couldn't even boot into Safe Mode. I had to format and re-install.
* Second failed MS Windows 10 update on my server was the next version 1803 pushed out. Similar issue as Falls Creator update - after the update I was able to log back into Windows, but after a few moments I got a lot of constant errors popping up about missing .dll files and then the system BSOD. I couldn't get into Safe Mode and I couldn't get Recovery to fix the issue - so I had to format and re-install Windows 10.....again.
* Third issue was update 1809 when all my photos were deleted. Thankfully I keep several backups and I was able to copy them back over to the server.

Since then I've disabled all Windows 10 updating.

 

[HalfHuman]

Win10 was the first os I've installed pre-release and it's been fine for me. it's better with memory, it's stable. my programmer work goes fine on windows 10. I also like the updates that I get. there are some exception though as I've gone nuts over the new windows calculator. it loads so slow and lacks functions so I went back to classic calculator. I do not like the mix and match between modern and classic control panel stuff. I've went full on chrome after using Firefox since 0.9 version, yeah dialup era in 2000. Been using Firefox and Chrome in parallel but Firefox just chews cpu and ram more than chrome. Thing is windows 10 runs great for me on my 5 years old laptop.

 

[ShagnWagn]

You can only wonder how much less of a share there would be if it weren't for the underhanded, criminal, and malware from Microsoft that forced upgrades on people without consent. It's cost home and business users billions of labor hours trying to troubleshoot it plus lost data and work. And the number of lost labor hours is not going down...

 

[Jerry in WA]

Not all older PCs can even run windows 10. The driver support just isn't there. Many folks still run perfectly good old machines and are quite content with Windows 7. They know how it works for what they need. Windows 10 is a pretty dramatic change.

Me, I can't do it. Every time I try to use windows 7 nowadays, I am completely lost. There are so many features built into windows 10 that I have become accustomed to, that using windows 7 feels truly archaic by comparison.

I remember how hard it was to give up XP for windows 7.

 

[seeprime]

I went to opatch (Oracle) to see about the security patches, I couldn't find any thing there that looked like a security patch for windows 7 pro, I might need guidence.

It''s 0patch, not opatch. the first character is a zero. 0patch.com

 

[DelJo63]

There are still users on XP;

Google "U.S. Navy use of Win/XP"

 

[loki1944]

I went back to Windows 7 after the mountain of issues and heartache caused by W10 updates breaking stuff.

 

[DaveBG]

I have recently upgraded all of my computers to windows 7 from windows 10 which was so much slower and buggy. All office PCs now run windows 7. And guess what? EVERYTHING WORKS! It is amazing!!!

 

[Deevo324]

I have five computers running Windows 10 and I have never had any problems at all with W10 updates. The computers are quite diverse - a Lenovo Yoga tablet, a Panasonic Toughbook, an Asus VivoBook, a Dell AIO and a PC I built myself. Plenty of diversity that would/should have exposed any problems. Here's the thing - I don't play games. I find them infantile, boring and tedious. I strongly suspect that the update problems are directly related to gaming software, particularly those that replace system dlls. I also don't use any Adobe software for the same reason. IMHO you guys are blaming MS for the liberties that game developers take.

 

[Bullwinkle M]

I have five computers running Windows 10 and I have never had any problems at all with W10 updates. The computers are quite diverse - a Lenovo Yoga tablet, a Panasonic Toughbook, an Asus VivoBook, a Dell AIO and a PC I built myself. Plenty of diversity that would/should have exposed any problems. Here's the thing - I don't play games. I find them infantile, boring and tedious. I strongly suspect that the update problems are directly related to gaming software, particularly those that replace system dlls. I also don't use any Adobe software for the same reason. IMHO you guys are blaming MS for the liberties that game developers take.

That's horrible!

A properly functioning Windows 10 means that you are endlessly being hammered with Microsoft's extortionware, blackmailware, malware and spyware, locking you into a walled garden of garbage

 

[Neutronbeam]

I've used 0patch for security patches in Windows 7 Pro since January. They often patch holes before Microsoft does, using their unique micro-patch system.

Just looked into 0patch and intrigued--thanks for the tip!

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I have five computers running Windows 10 and I have never had any problems at all with W10 updates. The computers are quite diverse - a Lenovo Yoga tablet, a Panasonic Toughbook, an Asus VivoBook, a Dell AIO and a PC I built myself. Plenty of diversity that would/should have exposed any problems. Here's the thing - I don't play games. I find them infantile, boring and tedious. I strongly suspect that the update problems are directly related to gaming software, particularly those that replace system dlls. I also don't use any Adobe software for the same reason. IMHO you guys are blaming MS for the liberties that game developers take.

Cool story bro.

I've had to help countless people re-install audio and video drivers after many different Windows 10 updates. Audio outright fails and constant video crashes - these are on computers that are not utilized for gaming.

Some people don't have issues and others do.

 

[Deevo324]

That's horrible!

A properly functioning Windows 10 means that you are endlessly being hammered with Microsoft's extortionware, blackmailware, malware and spyware, locking you into a walled garden of garbage

In the words of the immortal Shakespeare "The lady doth protest too much methinks."

 

[bexwhitt]

Okay. Let's clear this up once and for all: WINDOWS 10 IS GOD-AWFUL!

It's a flaky bandwidth hogging spam delivery device. It's NOT user-friendly for those of us who like to tweak our desktops/menus/interface. Every time there's a new update, two days later we learn it's a buggy mess that's either damaging/deleting/corrupting files or introducing new security flaws.

And finally, the "flat" GUI is just plain ugly.

25% still using Win7 is a big deal because IT REQUIRED A LOT OF EFFORT to stop MS from pushing that free update on users (even going so far as to use trick wording to make people think saying "No" would NOT "upgrade" them, only to be "upgraded" anyway.)

If 25% are still using Win7, it's NOT simply b/c their hardware is too old. Win10 will run on a potato. It works on my 20 year old AMD Athlon. No. Millions of people haven't upgraded b/c millions of people HATE Windows 10.

flat and ugly is your opinion, I think is looks fresh and modern and W7 looks old fashioned

 

[brucek]

There's clearly a segment of users, as well represented here, that resents the loss of control and/or privacy that comes with Windows 10. Yet I have trouble believing that 25% of PCs are controlled by users who understand and care about these issues.

I'd love to know the relative weights of potential other reasons, such as:
1. Old hardware that can not run Windows 10.
2. Runs applications that are not compatible under Windows 10.
3. User not willing to pay for Windows 10 license (although they are, or were, free.)
4. Managed by an organization that is not willing to invest any time/effort to find out if 1-3 actually apply.
5. Upgrading device has been on user's to do list forever, along with cleaning out the garage and joining a gym.
6. Device is not managed at all - I.e., it was installed for some industrial use long ago and there is no one left who feels any ownership of changing anything about it
7. Measurement issues - I.e., are some of these devices not actually in use but are still present in the researcher's database from the O/S they had the last time they were seen in use, or web crawlers were programmed to falsely report Win 7 for some reason long ago and never changed, etc.

 

[jaffafa]

I will NEVER upgrade to Windows 10. Microsoft forcefully takes control and updates Windows10 whenever they like. I had a lot of data loss so many times I have downgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 7. On top of that Windows10 is a broken OS, if you read the news regularly you will always find Windows 7 is full of bugs.

 

[lazer]

I will NEVER upgrade to Windows 10. Microsoft forcefully takes control and updates Windows10 whenever they like. I had a lot of data loss so many times I have downgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 7. On top of that Windows10 is a broken OS, if you read the news regularly you will always find Windows 7 is full of bugs.

I downgraded from win8 to win7 - besides being to invasive, I find that win8 and win10 can NOT run older programs that I paid for!

 

[kmo911]

You dont have to pay for win 10. when it is enabled on a motherboard that uses win 7 he pro e you just install from img iso and you get legally activated.
just download a win 10 2h20 img youre lanuage burn it on a dvd rw dual 8.5 disk. since its so big you can also make a usb version of it too.
you dont have to get better then win 7 still.

but hackers can missuse youre unsafe info more easly. and future fixes for ff edge chrome are only now for win 10 x64.

you can also dual boot win 7 win 10. and most games are now into dx11.2 12.2 that no other win versions support. but stay on dx11 it not so much new.

its ekspenive to go for top tec hardware. if you dont game you dont need more then 3.1 11 win 95 98 se 3.1 11 nt ME 2000. som older windows xp are x64 bit.

if you stay offline and using exel powepoint 200x it runs best on older versions.
future with onedrive and included 365 are only needed if you need newer formats.

and with nglide you can play 3dfx games. but remember win 10 x64 now requiers 2 gb ram as minium. 4-16 gb wikipedia win 10 x64 system requierment.
x86 wild be outflaged.
if you are oem corporate costumer you stay corporate forever.

downgrading are risky.
you can loose many more tings then documents. the safety in older versions are no more longer supported.
And soon control panel will be gone to settings.
if you dont lik start menu you can get win meny tools.

win 8 8.1 are just pushing crtl shift esc to get to desktop or meny ctrl alt delete and go back to login again.

But gaming on older os are limited to new vc++ updates for new gaming an other support. that would be missed in older versions. dx 1.0-9c only win 98 se 00 ME.
dx10 1-dx 11.2 vista 7 10
the you go for only supported dx12.2 win 10 later version may come falling down.

for text writing even win 1.0 can be used and a old printer. its nostalgica to just use a low speed pc just to see if it can hanndle new pc games. or can it run it can you run it userbenchmark.
and older pc dont support higher then win 7 I know it dont work so good to try getting in win 10 and it ever will be supported. missin bios uefi and so on.
now im on a p60 mhz 128 mb ram gpu vram. 3.11 its not overkill it just that my bios has no more battery in it and you cant LBA to turn it to get acess to win 95 a b c 98 se boot screen from cd floppy 3.5.

so when microsoft gives up a win version they loosing costumers alot. and could we ever get win 95-2000 to run on new harware thet would gon money less loss. new computer motherboards are blocking for downgradin lower then xp vista 7 soon. remakeing a special ed would be some how nice. but then you needding the import of new tings that only supported in future win 10 x64 only.

if you using x64 xp vista you are still good. but no more support. what if they made all versions x64 and gave them support to use on new motherboard. just choosing in a list and it would boot as normal run games as normal. windows must not be forgotten. microsoft can make SE like games and give better driver support. but limitation in how os run we must follow the leader a little while more.

and dont forget unbutu linuix lite live dvd
and bootcamp 1 MAC.
mac can run its own games but im not using I a lot only mac mini ages ago.
upgrading to mac win bootcamp are now big time. and mac blocking older games to run so thats not fun at all.

DOES mac have bsod or do they have a nother word or mor and better cor then ntcrnl that crashes every DARn min.
wikipedia gaming .

bsod gsod must 1 st of all get done in older and newer versions. unstable drivers can make yeah loosing DATa. but a good bacup tool like nero and a bdxl 100 93.1 gb for every writing. and older versions cant run x264 5 in decoding either. vlc winamp and now been future proofed too.
1k-16k screen would needing of enormous core use just to use. so using future codecs would now only be x64 supported. what if win 10 128 bit comes out. then win ????? would getting new support in cad games programs and so on. vr in older could be fine but limited rendering for future games. if dx13 comes out win vista 10 would be old. then you can try a upgrade.

merry xmas with interpose fat16 ms-dos box