Microsoft is working with some of its biggest partners to kill Windows 7 and 8

Business Insider ^ | 01/18/2016 | Max Slater-Robins

[big'ol_freeper]

Not a Windows fan AT ALL, but damn..I’m forced to use Windows at work and if forced to work with anything after Windows 7 I may take my life.

[tacticalogic]

There are already motherboards that won't run anything but the "permitted" operating systems (guess which ones are permitted).

UEFI motherboards are designed to only load an OS that is signed by a trusted authority. Most motherboard manufacturers will allow you to disable this feature, or install new certs if you have an OS signed with a cert that's not pre-loaded. It's an industry standard feature designed to prevent the installation of rootkits.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Has anbody checked Bill Gates’ head for horns lately?

PING!

[tacticalogic]

Seems like all you’d need is a hypervisor that can emulate the old chipset in it’s HAL to be able to keep running as a VM.

[Montana_Sam]

Microsoft's main revenue stream is Office running on Windows desktops. That is why Win8 jumped the track; who in business was willing to commit to schizophrenic hermaphrodite like Win8? Is it a tablet? a desktop? a phone?

For us Linux users, the problem may be finding boxes in the future that the kernel will run on. But I'm not much of a hardware geek, so I might be off base.

[Secret Agent Man]

The prior o/s’s are not up to the spying levels that fedgov is desiring.

[Secret Agent Man]

If they were the only major player in town, these bullsh1t hardliner strongarm non-refusable tactics might be begrudgingly accepted.

People don’t need microsquish.

[Secret Agent Man]

They will not face any antitrust issues, nsa/dhs has told them they will deal with this stuff and block it.

[Secret Agent Man]

10 can remove programs on its own, valid or not. Whether you want them gone or not.

[Secret Agent Man]

Try Ballmer. Gates is working on killing as many people via “vaccines” as he possibly can.

[publius911]

I would be converting to Linux if SAGE accounting software was available for it.

That's a no-brainer.
As soon as it seems certain, Linux, here I come.

[Biggirl]

Correction: It will simply make Linux all that popular.

[PreciousLiberty]

"Nope, not smiling. Apple uses these processors, too."

There is zero chance of Intel locking Apple out of the x86 processor line.

Intel is a big backer of Linux, and Apple is one of Intel's biggest customers. There is no way Intel will lock either OS out. Aside from the very big money it would lose by doing so, both Intel and Microsoft would be sued into antitrust oblivion.

AMD is doing so poorly these days that Intel has no line of defense that it's not a monopoly, and Microsoft doing such a thing would be struck down as anticompetitive.

So, it's only the hapless Windows users that need to worry... ;-)

[angryoldfatman]

I’ll wait and see how it plays out before I start grinding molars over it. W7 is getting a little long in the tooth now, and W8 needed to die anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Windows 7 is fairly young compared to the run that Windows XP had. It’s got two good things going for it:

1. It’s got most of the old interface that’s been popular and easily understood for 21 years now. It’s like steering wheels and accelerator pedals in cars - it’s an old interface, but it works, and everybody knows how it works.

2. Corporations have only recently replaced all of their XP boxes with Win 7 ones. Clerks & secretaries who have just gotten used to the new look and feel of Win 7 would need to be jettisoned to make way for fresh Win 8-using blood. Bye bye productivity and American jobs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not a Windows fan AT ALL, but damn..I’m forced to use Windows at work and if forced to work with anything after Windows 7 I may take my life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No need to get suicidal; Win 10 isn’t nearly as bad as Win 8 was. MS put the Start button and menu back and made the Desktop interface the default instead of the Metro (tiled) one.
Now if they had not bypassed Windows 8 and continued to force its interface on us, then I’d be right there with you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Microsoft’s main revenue stream is Office running on Windows desktops.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Only if you look at it superficially.

The real money stream comes from computer manufacturers. They are contracted to provide Windows for their machines, even if the end-user doesn’t want it.

A decade or so ago (maybe longer), one of the manufacturers decided to make Lunix available on their boxes, and the customer could choose to have it pre-loaded.

While the OS was free, the machine cost the manufacturer the same amount as a Windows box, because THEY STILL HAD TO PAY MICROSOFT FOR WINDOWS ON EACH BOX!

That was the “genius” of Gates (who was the guy in charge when that happened). He legally locked in the people who had the money and could benefit MS the most.

Hence the sweaty Ballmer screaming “DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS!!”. Developers were the ones who made MS the juggernaut it is today.

[rarestia]

Intel gen 4 and 5 processors are still widely available, and if history is an indicator, they’re not going anywhere. SkyLake is gen 6.

This is much ado about nothing, as usual. Until SkyLake is the only game in town (~10+ years), there’s really nothing to talk about. By then, Windows 7 and 8 will no longer be supported by Microsoft anyway.

The anti-MS crowd loves to get whipped into a froth, and that’s all this article serves to accomplish.

[rarestia]

The prior o/s’s are not up to the spying levels that fedgov is desiring.

Newer technologies make it harder for government to spy, not easier.

Back in the day there was a hue and a cry when Intel started using unique serial numbers to identify computers on the Internet. As soon as the consuming public got wind of it, the mobo manufacturers started putting kill switches in the mobo BIOS to turn off the identifier. That feature was since deprecated.

If you consider, however, that every network interface has a unique MAC address and IPv6 will serve to provide every networked device in the world with a unique IP address for at least the next 500 years, spying is really the least of your concerns. If you think you're going to remain anonymous in the IoT, you're sorely mistaken.

[CyberAnt]

Great ..!!! I have two manuscripts to print out .. mainly because I won’t be able to get to the documents if I just put them on disc (which I will do - just in case).

I’M SO MAD .. first they took the best software XP - just a friendly, easy to use, organized software that I could have used for years and years. I just connect with my family and write my stuff .. and I need a laptop with good software.

I’m just beside myself over this.

And .. what really galls me .. nobody seems to really care what this change of software is doing to people.

[CyberAnt]

I’m so upset about this. I have two manuscripts to worry about.

[discostu]

There’s nothing illegal about it. Eventually companies stop making drivers for their stuff on older OSes. It’s necessary, downward compatibility is a drag on the industry.

[PreciousLiberty]

"IPv6 will serve to provide every networked device in the world with a unique IP address for at least the next 500 years, spying is really the least of your concerns. If you think you're going to remain anonymous in the IoT, you're sorely mistaken. "

IPv6 has anonymizing features designed to exactly address the issue you bring up, which are already accepted and widely implemented:

Privacy Extensions for Stateless Address Autoconfiguration in IPv6