Posted on 07/17/2014 9:17:00 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Not content to blow both feet off with a shotgun, Microsoft is going for the kneecaps now by blackmailing its customers. If you are still dumb enough to use Windows, you are about have your wallet shaken down by Microsoft in a familiar yet still unwelcome way.We dont feel the need to sugarcoat this much because the companys behavior is so blatant and uncaring it is almost staggering. Worse yet the victims, that would be almost all Windows users, have only themselves to blame because the pattern has been well laid out for years now. Microsoft has been unapologetically blackmailing users for years, anyone who bought one of their products in the last few years should have known better.
(Excerpt) Read more at semiaccurate.com ...
Yeah, for some situations only the century-old tech that almost never breaks is the only thing that will do. I live in the middle of a city where I can fail my VOIP over to my mobile and can also connect to my VOIP line from about a hundred coffee shops within walking distance. If I lived where you do, I would keep at least one landline regardless of whatever else I use.
I’ve noticed that they do occasionally patch XP but they don’t make any promises. Managing expectations and all that.
There’s a registry hack that allegedly does that, but I won’t post it here because I haven’t tried it myself.
8.1 is very similar to 7 for everyday use; only difference is lack of Start Menu. Biggest 8.1 changes are the UI for the settings.
The thread's linked article says:
Yes you see that right, if you are on Windows 7 you have six months from yesterday before Microsoft unilaterally cuts off your access to security patches. You know, those holes that they are responsible for, the ones you pay them to not put in products in the first place, the ones they promised wouldnt happen in this version, or the last, or the one before that. On January 13, 2015 you cant get patches anymore unless you pay Microsoft a lot of money. Once again they will be making the patches until January 14, 2020 but they wont let you have access to these vital security patches.This is wrong, but it is easy to see how the author was mislead. In the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy FAQ, are found these lines:
* Extended Support is not offered for Consumer, Consumer Hardware, Multimedia products or Microsoft Online Services.
and
Consumer and Multimedia productsSo the question is, does Microsoft consider some versions of Windows 7 to be consumer products or not? The answer seems to be no.Security updates will be available through the end of the Mainstream Support phase.
This page shows the extended support status for specific Microsoft products. There is no extended support for the program "Microsoft Money" or "Microsoft Math 4.0." Microsoft apparently considers those to be consumer products. For all versions of Windows 7 including Home Basic, extended support is provided. Therefore, however ridiculous it may sound, Microsoft does not consider Windows 7 to be a consumer product.
Next question: Since extended support is provided for Windows 7, will security updates will be free during that support period? Microsoft answers this in the FAQ:
Extended Support includes paid support (support that is charged on an hourly basis or per incident), security update support at no additional cost, and paid hotfix support.In other words, security updates for Windows 7 will be available for free until 1/14/2020.
Microsoft should edit the Support Lifecycle Policy FAQ to make this clear. At the very least the FAQ should link to a list of what Microsoft considers to be its consumer products.
What surprises me about this new Win 7 machine is that it has crashed quite a few times. I can’t recall my old XP machine ever crashing.
That is a surprise. The only Win7 machines I’ve encountered with crash problems were the Atom-Powered netbooks, which also don’t play nice with XP. My biggest professional mistake in recent years was recommending an Atom machine to a Mac user who needed a cheap Windows machine to run software for a class she was taking.
It has an Intel core i5 4430 processor. An OriginPC desktop gaming box- I’m not a gamer but I figured that the hardware might stay current for a longer time than the off the shelf computers I’ve purchased before. They’re always gasping and wheezing by the time I retire them. My old HP machine had no graphics card and websites with a lot of flash were killing it.
The Win7 crashes aren’t that big of a problem but it does surprise me that I have them at all.
Pretty happy with Korora ( Fedora -- Red Hat based ) out of Australia..
Has been relative painless,..run Firefox 99% of the time.
When an update comes out ,,,a few times per week.....I get a notification and when convenient I let it do a restart ...then the update is applied and a reboot by the system is automatic and I am able to get back with some clicks to what I was doing.
So,e peripherals can be a big problem ...but I don't worry about malware....at ALL!
But Hardware wise I am frequebtky changing things....
I have an IOGEAR KVN switch 4x1 shared keyboard and mouse and audio system across 4 possible systems.
I have am HP Photosmart printer,...,maybe I haven't worked hard enough to find a solution.,...will take another look at getting it going.
Got a number of things ahead of doing that.,,,,I do have a Windows laptop,...hasn't been on for a few month's however.
I have impaired vision,,keyboard is a problem and small TeX a HUGE problem...and long threads.
But Kprora has an accessibility option with magnification.,...ZOOM>>>>I have not found the upper limit om it yet/.
And the ENTIRE Screen is enlarged.
The icon is difficult to find.but I gind it easily mow.
o I download the distro...b
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