Usage share blips — Win7 goes up, Win10 goes down

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The September report from Netmarketshare doesn’t bode well for Win10. It’s easy to get focused on tiny market share changes — but in this case, with
[See the full post at: Usage share blips — Win7 goes up, Win10 goes down]

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Microsoft has changed Windows. It’s not the same as the Windows that put them at the top of the heap. So it makes sense that if people want the Windows that they have become accustomed to, they won’t go with the new OS that happens to have the same name.

Reminds me of the Volkswagen Beetle. The new Beetle looks kinda-sorta like the old Beetle, but it is a totally different car. And the new Beetle has never had the cult following in the US that the old Beetle had.

When VW decided to shut down the last old Beetle plant, people flew in from all over the world to buy up the last of the old Beetles, knowing that there would be no more after that. And Windows 7 users are figuring out ways to keep using Windows 7, even going with the last gasp of the old Windows, Windows 8.1 with Classic Shell, because there will be no more after that.

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This analysis is missing a key component — the overall sales of Windows PCs.

A very high number of brand new Win10 PCs must be running Win7
The stats by market (enterprise Vs. private) must be very different than a few years ago.

I am always involved in my clients’ (all private) new PC purchases. My clients (139 at the moment) have not purchased a new PC in more than a year. During Win7 days, I was involved in 30 new PC purchases a year.

CT

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Could it be possible many in enterprise still order Windows 7 installed PC’s because they know they will pay for the extended support? When you consider how much more flexible Win 10 Enterprise/education is compared to Pro and Home editions. There must be some real push back on installing Win 10. I mean Microsoft was months trying to reach that 700 million mark.

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HiFlyer

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Canadian Tech wrote:

My clients (139 at the moment) have not purchased a new PC in more than a year. During Win7 days, I was involved in 30 new PC purchases a year.

Are they holding off in order to stay with Windows 7 and avoid Windows 10? If so, then for them the price of continuing with “old” computers is worth paying in order to be able to avoid Windows 10. After all, if you have a computer with a Windows 7 OEM license assigned to it, one way to be able to continue with Windows 7 for a while longer is to continue with that same computer, even if it is out of warranty. So if they are still using pre-October 2015 computers, these computers are likely now out of warranty (the standard warranty on business computers being three years), which means that they have to pay for parts and labor when a computer needs repair.

If the above were figured into the Windows 10 vs Windows 7 analysis, you might see an even stronger loyalty to Windows 7 reflected in the numbers.

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HiFlyer

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Jim, they do not want the mess that Win10 brings. This is an outright rejection of Win10. And, there is nothing wrong with their Win7 machines. No reason to “upgrade.” The average age of my clients’ computers is probably 5 or 6 years and some in the 10 to 12 year range. These are well maintained PCs. So far in 2018, I have replaced more than 20 hard drives and in a few cases re-installed over current drives. I replace hard drives as a preventative maintenance action. Laptop drives at 5 years. Desktop drives at 7 years. I try to re-install Windows after 3 or 4 years as a routine maintenance measure.

The really interesting aspect is that since we stopped ALL Microsoft updates of any kind in May 2017, these machines have become extremely stable and reliable. My workload in support has fallen of to well below 50% of what it was. Clearly, the age-old rage for updating is just plain wrong– at least at this point for private owners.

This includes not a single instance of infection since I started using BitDefender Antivirus + exclusively after dumping Norton, 4 years ago.

Most of my clients now use smart phones and tablets much more than their computers. Most of those devices are Apple.

By the way, standard OEM warranties have never been longer than 1 year. That’s completely OK for desktop configurations because they just don’t fail. For laptops, extending warranties beyond one year is very expensive and beyond 3 years so high as to make no sense at all.

CT

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Canadian Tech wrote:

The really interesting aspect is that since we stopped ALL Microsoft updates of any kind in May 2017, these machines have become extremely stable and reliable. My workload in support has fallen of to well below 50% of what it was. Clearly, the age-old rage for updating is just plain wrong– at least at this point for private owners.

This includes not a single instance of infection since I started using BitDefender Antivirus + exclusively after dumping Norton, 4 years ago.

Sounds like someone can get sufficient protection with a good antivirus package, good firewall, and other non-Windows update methods. I know that user behavior plays a huge part in keeping safe. Do you make an effort to train your customers in safe computer practices?

Canadian Tech wrote:

By the way, standard OEM warranties have never been longer than 1 year. That’s completely OK for desktop configurations because they just don’t fail. For laptops, extending warranties beyond one year is very expensive and beyond 3 years so high as to make no sense at all.

I have done Desktop Support at some huge companies (major oil companies); and I recall that the hardware warranties were always for three years. Perhaps that was unique to them — perhaps those huge companies purchased those long warranties because of their very deep pockets. Computers I have purchased for myself have had one year warranties.

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Yes Jim, I spend a lot of effort counselling on safe practices. In fact, if I find a client who refuses to follow safe practices, they will no longer be a client. It is as simple as that.

Safe computing practices are not difficult or complex. The vast majority of people can follow those principals easily. If they simply will click on anything, I want nothing to do with them and certainly do not want to take the responsibility of supporting them by fixing the messes they get themselves into. I guess I am a bit like and auto insurance company.

CT

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Smart plan. That’s why your customers don’t have the computer issues that others are having.

When I first met my wife, I got on her laptop and looked around, to see if I could clean up any spyware or other malware. Her laptop was as clean as a whistle; and she is by no means an IT expert, but just a regular user. But she is very careful about where she goes and what she clicks on, and most importantly, who she lets use her laptop. Specifically, her nieces were never allowed to use it. She took flack for that decision, but she had a clean, very usable computer as a result.

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I had a friend stay with me for a while back in the early 2000s.  She had her own laptop, but it was not as up-to-date as mine, and sometimes she would ask to use mine (with XP at the time).  I created a limited user account for her to use, and would always switch to that before relinquishing control over the laptop.  For the things she was authorized to do on my laptop, she didn’t need any admin privileges, and she never ended up asking me why she was limited or otherwise asking if I could elevate privileges for her, so I am guessing she never actually tried to do anything beyond what she was supposed to be doing.

On top of that, I kept recent backups back then too.  That was probably about the time I was using Norton Ghost and/or Acronis True Image 6.0.  I used Acronis first, but it did not have a graceful failure mode… if one of the CDs I was using to make the backup didn’t burn correctly, or there was some other error of any kind, the entire backup job was cancelled.  After swapping CDs out for an hour or two, I was not happy to have ten new coasters and have wasted all that time.  Ghost did the same thing as True Image 6 (offline backup from a boot CD), but it failed more gracefully.

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The user as the main protector is a must. And having the user as not just the first, but also as middle and last line of defense as a way to keep a PC safe from unwanted intruders is a reasonable bet, for now.

However, now that there are more advanced and well-equipped and funded sinister actors in the malware business, such as whole dedicated teams of state-sponsored crackers, and given the unreassuring past experience where the sophisticated tools used by those to attack some very specific and non mass market targets tend to, eventually, leak out to common cybercriminals that are not all that particular as to whom they choose to target on line, I do see reason to fear that just being very careful with what one does online is not going to be quite enough for very much longer. And that is definitely not a good thing.

I really would like to see someone who has had experience handling past cases of serious attacks, such as with ransomware, commenting on this. Perhaps on a dedicated thread on the “security” section of the Lounge?

 

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

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Myst

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Canadian Tech wrote:

Most of my clients now use smart phones and tablets much more than their computers.

That would explain why they don’t have many computer problems then.

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OscarCP

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b, you are correct. But that is only part of the explanation. Clearly the result of their lower level of usage and their preference for another tool, will extend the lives of their PCs. That also means no one is buying, and no one is selling PCs or OS’s for them. The winners are Apple and Google. The looser is Microsoft.

I clearly recognize that this is a story about end-usres, not enterprises. Enterprises are an entirely different story and future.

CT

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OscarCP

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Canadian Tech wrote:

I replace hard drives as a preventative maintenance action. Laptop drives at 5 years. Desktop drives at 7 years.

@Canadian-Tech:

I would be curious to get your opinion on something called the “Bathtub curve”, which considers three factors when determining how likely a device (e.g. a hard drive) is to fail:
1. “Early” failure rate – devices which fail when new, out-of-the-box.
2. “Constant” failure rate – random failures, regardless of the age of the device.
3. “Wear out” failure rate – devices which fail after wearing out.

When you put these three factors together, you find that the failure rate is high when new, then low over time, then it increases again as the device gets old. In other words, it may not always be prudent to replace an older drive, because newer drives have a relatively high failure rate when brand new.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve

Here is a discussion I had at Windows Secrets forums on this topic:

/showthread//182968-Reformatting-HP-laptop-on-Windows-7-Pro?p=1095945&viewfull=1#post1095945

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Jim, I have been working on my clients’ PCs (100s of them) for going on 17 years now. That includes both soft stuff and hardware. I have a great deal of bench experience solving Windows PC problems. I am also an engineer with decades of experience. My experience tells me that hard drives will fail in fairly predictable time frames. Hence my guidelines of 5 (2.5″) & 8 (3.5″) years. It just makes good sense to replace a drive before it fails.

Add to this, the fact that re-installing Windows freshly will always yield a dramatic performance improvement.

Drive replacement is easy from a physical perspective, and time-consuming, but not difficult to install the OS.

If I am going to do a re-install, replacing a 5 or 8 year old drive just makes common sense. They are not expensive, and if you are doing this yourself, the cost is relatively minor. Also, in the cases where the old drive is a 5400rpm one, replacement with a 7200 also improves performance.

I must also add that I do not install SSDs. I believe they are very much oversold, too expensive, too confining, and I suspect have a shorter life expectancy. This is related to this topic because it has been my experience that when SSDs fail, they fail suddenly and completely. That contrasts with rotating drives, that if you do periodic checks, will give lots of warning and almost always there is a way to rescue the data from them.

In all those 17 years, I have seen ONE case of a drive failing other than from old age, careless handling and wear. In that case the drive manufacturer quickly provided a replacment. For a mechanical device, on the whole, they are a very reliable device.

Again, consider that I am dealing with PCs used by regular folk who use them for the standard stuff most people do. Enterprises are very different matter. Pretty much all of the stuff that is published specifically relates to enterprise situations, and that is very different kettle of fish.

CT

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I don’t have as much experience with clients as you do, CT, and thus far I have not had any SSD failures of which to speak (I own four of them at this moment), but I have definitely experienced sudden, unwarned death of rust spinners on a few occasions (as well as the more stereotypical failure modes where errors start appearing more and more on a previously flawless drive).

Ironically, one of the sudden failures was of a nearly 5 year old 7200 RPM 2.5″ Seagate drive that was in my Core 2 Duo laptop when I decided to dump XP and put 7 on it several years ago.  I checked out the SMART stats on the drive before I proceeded, and I was pleased at how the little thing was still cooking along despite 28,000 or so in-use hours.  I even wrote a glowing review of it on Newegg or one of the tech sites.  It had a lot of hours on it, but the usual suspects in SMART were not showing any signs of trouble.

And then I proceeded to install Windows.   Several times!  First I restored the original Vista it had come with and that I had initially rejected in favor of the XP installation that I was now replacing, since Vista was no longer the disaster it had been when the laptop was new, but then I decided Vista was too close to EOL, so I went with Windows 7 (no key purchased yet… just installed it first to see if it was going to work).  Then I decided that I wanted to add more RAM to the 3GB laptop (bringing it to 8), so I put 7 x64 on it.

Or I tried to.  The drive started the install fine, but just suddenly died right in the middle.  Dead as a doornail, no ability to read anything at all.

I bought the drive at a time that Seagate was selling them with 5 year warranties, so I still had a few months left.  I sent it in to Seagate and got a replacement, a refurbished drive which now forms the boot drive for my backup server.  That laptop now has a SSD in it.

My thought on any storage device is that it is inherently ephemeral.  I’ve had other sudden drive failures that were not warned, enough to think that any data is in imminent danger if it’s only recorded in one place.  I consider all drives to be on the brink of death all the time, and act accordingly.

SSDs have measurably limited service lives, but if they work properly, you can watch them count down through SMART stats (not by the sudden appearance of errors, which of course is a red flag on any drive, but by stats like wear-leveling count that will count the NAND cell service life remaining right down to the manufacturer-rated wearout point), which is something you can’t do on a rust spinner.  The rust spinner has a limited service life too, but it’s indefinite, and that open-endedness means it feels less like a ticking time bomb to some people.  It’s a non-ticking time bomb, one that has no visible counter, but is still gonna blow up someday.

I’ve been heavily using my 128GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD since the day I bought it, including heavy use of the page file when I used to have only 8GB of RAM and I used to do heavy, heavy Firefox sessions that would really flog it (this was probably at the peak of the Firefox memory leak issue).  It’s a small drive, and small drives have fewer NAND cells and shorter service lives, but even with that in mind, at the rate I have gone thus far, I have 13 more years or so of rated life in the drive before it reaches its TBW (total bytes written) wearout limit… which, according to the TechReport series on SSDs tested to failure, really only means it’s hit its halfway mark in terms of real useful life.

If a SSD fails before the wear-leveling count has expired, it was not a media wear-out issue.  It was an electronics failure (which can happen in the NAND cells too, of course), and that failure mode can cause any drive to suddenly fail without any warning.  It’s true that a rust spinner, if it fails in this manner, can more easily have its data recovered by swapping in a new logic board, but needing to do this points to a severe failure in the backup regime (generally, there isn’t one).  YMMV, but I’d rather have a good backup regime and the speed and reduced power consumption in an SSD (my Core 2 Duo laptop’s palmrest used to always be warm over the drive, but now it’s ice cool with its SSD) than the possibility of expensive, time-consuming data recovery on a rust spinner.

 

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Ascaris, as I previously reported, I would not even consider doing an install on a 5 year old 2.5.

Also, I routinely run drive manufacturers’ drive tester tools. Very good predictor of impending failure:

http://www.seagate.com/ca/en/support/downloads/item/seatools-win-master/
http://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?p=3

In my experience, even when rotating drive will not boot, I almost always have been able to remove the drive then attache it to an external usb controller and then to a working PC and get the data off.

CT

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MrJimPhelps wrote:

Are they holding off in order to stay with Windows 7 and avoid Windows 10?

If the above were figured into the Windows 10 vs Windows 7 analysis, you might see an even stronger loyalty to Windows 7 reflected in the numbers.

Er, it is.

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The bottom line for my clients is that almost none of them will ever, I mean ever buy another PC laptop or desktop PC.

CT

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Windows 10 can be annoying for sure, but I don’t use Universal Apps and pretty much ignore Cortana, Edge and everything Microsoft keeps adding to Win 10. I use plenty of third party apps and Firefox, although I understand Chrome’s success. Windows 7 still is popular because its mostly just a good OS, and nothing more. Again, totally understand users sticking with it.

 

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Charlie

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Windows 8.1 (with Stardock or Classic Shell) seems to be the best middle ground for stability of updates and Windows 10 security features.  8.1 does not have to have the Windows 10 6 month feature updates that 99% of the world does not need.  8.1 is also supported until 2023.

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This is the path I have chosen for my Windows usage.

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Maybe, just maybe, these blips are when Win7 users put down their Macs, iPads, and smartphones to turn-on the old Windows 7 PC, check the AskWoody.com DefCon, do a few searches, and do their updating. It goes up in easier patch months and down following the debacles.

Good research project. 😉

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OscarCP, Cybertooth

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Basically the different versions of Windows have been flat-lining for months now, and there’s no particular reason to anticipate any change coming soon. Surely there must be someone at Microsoft for whom this is by now a very real concern?

Whether a significant change will come in January 2020 remains to be seen, but we Windows 7 users are awkward beggars and my hunch is that an awful lot of users will simply carry on regardless of the end of extended support (or, in the case of businesses, because they’d rather pay for future support of a system they know and trust rather than switch to one that changes every 6 months and has a mixed reputation). What exactly does the support give us apart from an increased risk of cardiac arrest once a month (probably more often than that in Woody and Patch Lady Susan’s case)?

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I wonder if Steve Gibson is still using XP?

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Microfix, HiFlyer

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Win7, he built this 2 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GExWJIEjmo&t=97m12s

greynad

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Could it be possible many in enterprise still order Windows 7 installed PC’s because they know they will pay for the extended support?

Many businesses are downgrading to Windows 7 since there are too many problems with Windows 10. Once 2020 comes, they will decided if pay for support or move back to Windows 10. But since several businesses are still paying for Windows Xp support, than will be paying for Windows 7 support as well. Current development of Windows 10 is showning that MS is going down hill very fast. They are losing the concept of what people need rather than what they think people need.

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Those machines that enterprises have delivered with Win7 installed in them, are counted by Microsoft as Win10 machines since they carry that licence.

Microsoft has morphed into something that is not even close to what it was when we all became Windows advocates/experts. Windows 10 is not even close to any Windows most people have learned. Microsoft’s goals are selfish and not even close to what their customers want and need. Microsoft lost touch with customer a long time ago. If you want to see a perfect demonstration, try to call or email Microsoft. No one will answer, other than possibly a contractor in Indonesia or the Philippines.

CT

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Ascaris

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Canadian Tech wrote:

Those machines that enterprises have delivered with Win7 installed in them, are counted by Microsoft as Win10 machines since they carry that licence.

They are cheating if they are doing that. That’s not the way any reasonable person would look at it.

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My two Linux laptops are Windows 10 machines by that measure, even though neither of them is actually capable of booting into 10 anymore.

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They aren’t. Microsoft counts monthly active devices.

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Since many businesses are still pay for Windows XP support, than most likely the answer is yes. There are many programs that do not work in newer OS. Even worse results in Windows 10. In Windows 7, they partial worked. In Windows 10, they do not work at all.

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I used Win XP for mainstream use until 2012 when I built a new computer and decided to put Win 7 in it.  I loved XP and (skipping Vista) I got to really like Win 7.  I mainly just needed a new computer since the one I was using was a 2003 laptop (which I still have and use for other things).

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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HiFlyer

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I do not think we can accuse Windows users of being Luddites at this juncture as there are issues well beyond a user having to navigate and learn how to make best use of the new OS. W10 is now 3 years old and its differences from previous versions are well known and some have been well received and others not. Consumers and the enterprise have some very valid concerns about W10 but it centers more around Microsoft’s strategic business goals more than an OS upgrade itself.

The graph shown actually reflects the current customer response to Microsoft becoming a services company. W10 is the ramp to it all and it has proven to have a very unstable structure. Many have no intention of stepping onto a shaky ramp when they are currently on solid ground. Microsoft knows that they need to shore up the ramp but are reluctant to go with a better design. There is going to be a h**l of a crowd gathered at one end in 2020 – all assessing whether they should risk it or not.

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OscarCP

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No surprise. Windows 7 is creeping back up to 50% user share. About that graph though, those lines are way closer than they should be. It says Windows 7 is at 49.23% and Windows 10 is at 35.57%, yet the line for Windows 7 is not on the 50% line. It’s lower at around 45% while the Windows 10 line is above the 40% line despite being at only 35%. The gap between those lines should be MUCH larger. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but it’s definitely wrong and does not accurately reflect the percentages on that graph.

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HiFlyer

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The graph shows the month-to-month fluctuations, and shows accurately that Windows 7 & 10 have nearly identical market share in September. The numbers you’re quoting are for the total time period of the graph. Since the graph covers a time period going all the way back to last October, when Windows 7 had a higher share and Windows 10 a lower share than currently, the numbers show a greater spread than the latest graph data points. If you customize the graph by selecting an identical start date and end date of September 2018, then the numbers change to show 40.88 market share for Win7 & 37.44 for Win10.

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Hi Guys,  (Steve Gibson here.)

In answer to a question posed earlier, I would likely still be using Windows XP if my trusty (and crusty) old WinXP machine had not died a few months ago.

Admittedly, sticking with XP was becoming increasingly problematical.  Internet Explorer was stuck back at v8 or v9, and both Chrome and Firefox were complaining and had stopped being willing to update themselves on XP.

Nevertheless, the machine, right up until its moment of death, was working perfectly for me.

The biggest impediment to my moving off of WinXP was (0) it was truly working just fine, (1) inertia — I’m very busy and way behind on commitments and didn’t want to spend time setting up a new machine, and (2) Windows 7 (and beyond where I dearly hope I’m never forced to go) had withdrawn support for 16-bit Windows code. I was still using a fabulous DOS box, text mode, 16-bit text editor (BRIEF) and I had established a perfect development environment for authoring code. I just didn’t want to change anything.

But that machine did finally die, and “the web browsers” were pushing me to move into the 21st century. I knew that sooner or later I’d have to bite the bullet. Today, I’m writing this posting on the next machine… a very wonderful and fast Win7 box, where, as I wrote above, I truly hope I can remain forever. (At my present age of 63, I might make it! 🙂

/Steve.

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Thanks Steve.

Have some sympathy for someone who’s even older at 68 and following a path that started with the Sinclair Spectrum now finds the same problem as you have encountered. Can Windows 7 see me out, or do I have to bite the bullet and move further into the 21st Century with Windows 10?

One alternative option for me is to go for a temporary extension of Windows 10 deferment by opting for an upgrade to Windows 8.1 some time between now and January 2020, but is that really a solution given that it only takes us to 2023 at which point will I want to make another leap in the dark at 73 years old? That assumes I’m still here of course! That really doesn’t sound like an attractive option to me. Incidentally, I’ve told my wife that if I’m not here then she should get a Chromebook, she can use that for IMDB, QVC and Amazon!

My current thinking as the user of two home desktop PCs for (1) gaming and (2) Office 2010 mainly for my voluntary work on healthcare strategy (very document based!), plus browsing etc, is to stick with Windows 7 for as long as I have no issues with it but possibly to replace one of the machines next year with a new one running Windows 10 and see how I get on with it. That would then enable me either to upgrade the other one come January 2020 or else roll back the original one to Windows 7 and take my chances.

Meanwhile there’s a small part of me that still thinks it possible that Microsoft will see sense and either make more drastic revisions to Windows 10 to turn it into what people want or else extend the end of life support for Windows 7 – perhaps to the expiry date for Windows 8.1 which would kind of make sense and also buy them time to sort out the mess that is Windows 10.

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Hi Seff,

As we know, old Windows OSes don’t just stop working after an expiration date. But, rather, the “threat” implicit in their use after the continuous flow of security updates is terminated leverages rational fear of the unknowable dangers of remaining. This generally drives people to move onto a newer version of the OS which is still receiving its continuous “IV drip” of patches to fix problems that are continually being discovered in both new and old versions of this OS.

As we know, when confronted by active attackers, complexity is the enemy of security… and Windows is nothing if not complex.

But attacks are not mystical. They are actual. They have a cause. And having a “theoretical vulnerability” is not the same as having that vulnerability successfully attacked. A very wide gap exists between a possible theoretical attack and a successfully deployed attack. Consequently, I believe that it’s entirely possible to use a version of Windows whose IV drip of patches has been terminated with sufficient safety. As I did for many years with WinXP.

Today’s PCs have two primary points of contact with the ever-wild Internet: The web and eMail. And both must be used with care — whether your system is still in the patch-loop or not. The good news is that Chrome’s and Firefox’s motivations for security differ from Microsoft’s. LONG after Windows 7 has stopped receiving updates, the most critical attack surface present in our PCs — its web browsers — will continue to be supported and continuously updated by their publishers. The security of our web browsers matters far more than the security of its underlying OS. The web browser presents our PC’s “attack surface” to the Internet and if badness cannot get past it, it cannot get into our PCs.

It’s also useful for us to “behave ourselves” with where we point our browsers. If our lifestyle requires that we spend time in the Internet’s more sketchy regions, then running those browser sessions within the isolation provided by a virtual machine, or perhaps grabbing a cheap $200 Chromebook, makes sense for that.

eMail is our system’s other point of contact with the clearly dangerous Internet. So there is absolutely no replacement for exercising rigorous and unflinching discipline to absolutely ignore all unsolicited nonsense that we receive in eMail. Just delete it. There are people who stubbornly believe, or hope against all reason, that an African prince really is asking them to help launder his money in return for a hefty percentage. Some people cannot be helped.

My #1 favorite bit of security advice is one of those things that’s obvious once you hear it: “Never download anything from the Internet that you didn’t go seeking for yourself.” Those of us here know the obvious wisdom of that, but it helps to make it explicit. Our web browser or a received eMail may tell us that we need this or that to proceed. Never believe or act upon that. Even if it happens to be well meaning and true it is never worth the risk of it being false.

The point of what has become a too-long-winded posting… is that I firmly believe that the things a user can control about the security of their system through their own volition far exceeds the actual security delivered by remaining harnessed to Microsoft’s continuously moving target, never finished, Operating System As A Service, platform.

/Steve.

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Annonymous ( #220722  ) wrote: ” Today’s PCs have two primary points of contact with the ever-wild Internet: The web and eMail. And both must be used with care — whether your system is still in the patch-loop or not. The good news is that Chrome’s and Firefox’s motivations for security differ from Microsoft’s. LONG after Windows 7 has stopped receiving updates, the most critical attack surface present in our PCs — its web browsers — will continue to be supported and continuously updated by their publishers. The security of our web browsers matters far more than the security of its underlying OS. The web browser presents our PC’s “attack surface” to the Internet and if badness cannot get past it, it cannot get into our PCs.  ”

Unfortunately, it is not enough to use only browsers as those mentioned, that are kept secure by the updates they receive from their makers, and sideline Internet Explorer.

Because IE is integral to the Windows OS and is employed by it whether the user does so or not. So, if not being patched, it keeps the system vulnerable to attacks from those malicious actors that know how to exploit the openings it offers them in order to insert their malware into someone’s PC.

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
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anonymous wrote:

The good news is that Chrome’s and Firefox’s motivations for security differ from Microsoft’s. LONG after Windows 7 has stopped receiving updates, the most critical attack surface present in our PCs — its web browsers — will continue to be supported and continuously updated by their publishers. The security of our web browsers matters far more than the security of its underlying OS. The web browser presents our PC’s “attack surface” to the Internet and if badness cannot get past it, it cannot get into our PCs.

/Steve.

Have Chrome or Firefox committed to supporting Windows 7 beyond the next couple of years?

Neither of them supported XP or Vista for long after Microsoft’s EOL for those versions.

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I beg to differ. Mozilla has just now discontinued Firefox support for XP. I have been running it all along.

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OK. But less than 18 months after Vista EOL. And Chrome support ended 2.5 years earlier.

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If things are going so poorly for Windows 10 as implied by the entries here, one may wonder how long before this fact brings about a change of direction, and maybe also of directors, at MS?

Unless Windows 10 is just a stalking horse for something else believed to be more profitable by those running the company, who might think that by keeping it as one of their main products for now, they might eventually lead their customers to buy that something else. Also that they are also convinced of having very convincing arguments to give in answer to their critics, when the time comes to explain such a course of action to shareholders and stakeholders. And if they actually think all that, how realistic the whole idea might be?

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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That is a good question, what is the strategy or even is there one. If everything is a cloud-based subscription service then the user’s OS is unimportant. What is important is convincing someone to fork over another monthly subscription. For that to happen it had better be something that will be used regularly. Enterprises might go for it but SOHO users are more likely to be cash strapped so subscriptions are out.

If the OS is unimportant then there is no reason to buy a Windows box over any other. This will show up in sales eventually. The original strategy was to have a large software ecosystem to make Windows valuable, which worked.

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Microsoft revenues are way up.  As long as that’s the case, Nadella is not going anywhere.  Windows isn’t the core product at MS anymore, and it’s certainly not the reason for their revenue or their market capitalization.  They’re all about the cloud now.

I’ve been saying for some time that I don’t think Nadella’s Microsoft wants to be in the general-purpose OS market anymore, but that desktop OS dominance is too valuable an asset to simply let it wither away or to give it away (as in open-sourcing their proprietary code, as Netscape did).  How can that dominance be turned into cash?

Well, if I were them, I’d use the monopoly power to push people into monetization schemes that the old Microsoft (when it truly was the Windows company) never would have tolerated.  Back when Windows mattered to them, there was a line that even “Micro$oft” would not cross.  It wasn’t because they liked money less than they do now back then, of course.  They would not have tolerated anything that would cause long-term harm to the Windows platform, even if it resulted in short-term gains.

These monetization efforts we’re seeing now are precisely that kind of thing that MS would never have allowed before.  They annoy the users, but MS spent a lot of time and money on vendor lock-in, and people are locked in.  They may not be satisfied customers, but customers they will remain, for years to come!  Now everything that has the potential to bring in short-term cash flow is on the table, and it doesn’t matter how much it damages the platform in the longer term.

It’s like they are chipping away pebbles from the huge monolith that is their monopoly and selling them for a quick buck.  It’s a really huge monolith, and pebbles are small, so at first it looks like all gain.  That monolith looks just as large as it ever did, and now we have these pebbles to sell too!

The thing is, over time, even chipping a pebble at a time out of a huge rock will add up.  Even when it starts to show signs of being chipped down to a smaller size, it will still be huge.  Its smaller size will be attributed to the world having moved on from the PC, something we’ve been told so many times is inevitable.  That won’t be the real reason, though.

People will move to 10 like they’re supposed to, by and large.  They’re moving slowly, but considering how disliked (and deservingly so) Windows 10 is, 700 million is a lot.  They are moving far more slowly than MS would like, but over time, MS is winning.  Windows 10 is gaining, and Windows 7 is giving way.  They’ll stay the course; what they’re doing is working.

Once they have nearly everyone in the line of fire, they will monetize them like there’s no tomorrow.  For Windows, as far as they are concerned, there may as well not be.  They will eventually destroy Windows with the monetization, and they know this.  Keep your customers unhappy long enough and someone else will step up and topple even the mightiest monopoly (think Internet Explorer!)

That’s the only reason Windows has had such staying power over the years– they’ve never used the full power of their monopoly until now. They’ve had competitors, so to speak, in the form of their older products.  If MS wanted people to move off of XP, they had to offer something better, and when Vista was offered, people rejected it.  Windows 7 was an improved version of Vista, or what Vista should have been, and people accepted it, by and large.  MS had to offer a product to compete with XP, and Vista (in its RTM form) wasn’t it.  Most people never knew Vista got a lot better, since they’d already made up their mind about it and never given it a second chance.

This new player that steps in to lay claim to the desktop market, in whatever shape it’s in by that point, is unknown.  It may be Google that steps in, perhaps with a derivative of ChromeOS.  Maybe that long-awaited year of the Linux desktop will actually arrive.  It may be that with the move to web-based “apps,” the means to actually get to the web becomes irrelevant.  Whatever happens, there will begin a movement away from Windows and toward something else, and soon Windows will be nothing but a desiccated husk of its former glory, which MS can toss into the wind as they become that cloud services company that Nadella wants them to be.  If the Windows name even persists, it may be nothing more than a thin-client style enterprise front-end for MS cloud services.

Maybe I am wrong about Microsoft’s intention to scuttle Windows.  I can’t, though, think of any other explanation that makes sense.  How can Microsoft treat its customers as it has been and expect to keep them?  The only thing that makes any sense is they don’t.  The kinds of things we’re seeing from Microsoft are not the kinds of things a company that wants to stay in a given market does.  We only need look at how MS used to act to have an example of what a company that wants to keep Windows looks like.  Back then, Windows was the center of Microsoft universe.  Now, Windows is lucky to get mentioned at their Ignite dog and pony show.  The Windows guy is out, the Windows department gone.  It’s pretty clear that Windows is not a priority.  It’s a legacy product that they’re stringing along until they can liquidate the value of the 87% market share on the desktop, or whatever it is.

This is why I think that the people who are too locked into Windows to consider Linux or MacOS (which has been sidelined by its maker as much as Windows has) are just putting off the inevitable.  The pain of breaking the lock-in can come now, or later (after much monetization and frustration).  Maybe it won’t be as painful “later,” as whatever alternative the market has chosen could be a lot closer to the functionality people had in Windows than now.

I just don’t see any future in Windows anymore.  If Microsoft doesn’t even think it deserves its own department, I don’t think they do either.

 

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Ascaris, a careful study of the history of IBM will demonstrate the same pattern. If you go back a bit further, you will find Wang, DEC and lots more just like it. Microsoft is following a pattern that will surely lead to loss of significance. It may take some years, but I am confident that it will be sterling clear 5 or 10 years from now.

Bottom line is that Windows 7 was the last Windows OS that any one who cares would buy. There is little possibility of a turnaround or reversal. If I had to bet, I would bet on Google. It is their’s for the taking and they are clearly in a position to do it. For that matter Chrome is really it already.

CT

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Ascaris,

Maybe the success of Google despite heavy monetization of its users explains in part why Microsoft think they can get away with this behavior. Having great products, auto-updated that monetizes you seems acceptable to many customers, unfortunately.

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Perhaps, but Google doesn’t charge full-price (that is, the same price they always have for the product when it wasn’t monetized) and simultaneously use the product in question for monetizing.  There was never a “I’m altering the deal” moment with Google– it was all about free stuff in exchange for being hit with ads from the start.  If there was any vendor lock-in built up, it was done with that very deal in place, so there was never any sense of bait and switch.

Microsoft, though, in a few years, has gone from criticizing Google for this behavior during the “Scroogled” campaign to doing their best to imitate it, while still charging the same as always for Windows.  People who bought into the Windows ecosystem and who played an essential role in elevating Microsoft to the monopoly position in which it now finds itself never agreed to any of this monetization.  Now they’re dependant on a vendor that has done things one way for more than 20 years, and that now has suddenly decided to alter the deal.

If Microsoft was truly willing to adopt Google’s model, I’d be less upset with them.  Google, as you say, “gives away” high quality products in exchange for monetization.   If Microsoft were to elevate Windows 10 to the level of high quality (for all its users, including the cannon-fodder home users, which would mean not using them for beta testing anymore) and make it available for free (as in beer), that would make the monetization more tolerable.  It would be even better still if they chose to follow Google’s lead on YouTube, where the user can go for the “freemium” ad supported model that Google’s always used or the “paid” route with the ad-free YouTube Red, where Google gets its revenue from the direct payment for the service rather than the indirect payment by ad view.

If Microsoft adopted that model, the Home version of Windows 10 would be free to everyone, including PC OEMs.  There would be no need to activate or register it in any way; it would simply be handed out to all comers.  If the user wanted not to be monetized, they could go for Windows 10 Pro, which would be the premium, paid product that contained no monetization.

Microsoft’s trying to do both at once.  They get you going in with the license fee, then they double-dip and get you again on the monetization. Google never did that!

 

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Ascaris, you nailed it! You have precisely described the mess Microsoft has created and is in. The worst part about it is that they do not recognize the mess they made with the clarity of your description. My hat’s off to your understanding of this marketplace.

CT

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Ascaris

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Agreed.

-lehnerus2000

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? says:

thank you for the post, Mr. Gibson. i use your “Shields Up,” all the time!

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Microfix

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Admittedly, sticking with XP was becoming increasingly problematical.  Internet Explorer was stuck back at v8 or v9, and both Chrome and Firefox were complaining and had stopped being willing to update themselves on XP.

I still use Windows Xp. I use firefox and agent switchers with newer OS and browsers. Most sites work when they think you have a new OS and browser. This shows that websites are the ones blocking using older OS. Windows XP is one of the best OS ever. I bought three XP and have them as back up just in case this one goes. Windows 10 has too many issues.

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Meanwhile there’s a small part of me that still thinks it possible that Microsoft will see sense and either make more drastic revisions to Windows 10 to turn it into what people want or else extend the end of life support for Windows 7 – perhaps to the expiry date for Windows 8.1 which would kind of make sense and also buy them time to sort out the mess that is Windows 10.

Sorry to burst your bubble but MS will never sort out the mess. They do not care. They are trying to reinvent the wheel rather than focusing on making things better. MS thinks that maybe a rectangle or oval will be better than a wheel. But a wheel is a circle and nothing will work better than that. MS should focus on tracks or width or size of the wheel to improve speed and operation with less resource rather than think that Moore’s law will hold true that everything will double and double etc. At some point, there will be ceiling and nothing will go up.

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woody wrote:

The September report from Netmarketshare doesn’t bode well for Win10. It’s easy to get focused on tiny market share changes — but in this case, with 14 months to go, Win7 (that’s the line on top) certainly isn’t going away.

And yet Statcounter shows Windows 10 way ahead at 50% with Windows 7 falling to 37.3%:

Desktop Windows Version Market Share Worldwide – September 2018

And Windows 10 is even further ahead in the US and UK.

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You are comparing apples with oranges. The post is quoting statistics for Desktop/Laptop (look at the image) and you are quoting numbers from a different organisation for desktop only. They can both be accurate if a lot more laptop users have chosen to stay with W7, which wouldn’t surprise me.

Windows 10 Home 22H2, Acer Aspire TC-1660 desktop + LibreOffice, non-techie

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You’re wrong:

Are laptops included in the desktop platform?
Yes. Laptops and desktop machines are included in the desktop platform together. We use the browser useragent to determine the platform and there is not enough information contained in the useragent to distinguish between laptops and desktops. That is why we do not have a separate laptop platform.

http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#desktop-laptop

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Anonymous ( #220725 ): ” MS should focus on tracks or width or size of the wheel to improve speed and operation with less resource rather than think that Moore’s law will hold true that everything will double and double etc. At some point, there will be ceiling and nothing will go up. ”

Not a problem: that’s what that super cool quantum computer they are working on is going to take care of.

Nah! Just kidding!

But the metaphor of the (badly) reinvented wheel is one of my favorite ones of all time, and I use it whenever there is occasion to do so.

As to Ascaris describing a slow chipping away of the Windows monolith that, eventually, will break it down: depending on exactly where the chipping is done, whole big chunks of the monolith will one day, quite suddenly and catastrophically collapse.

And I was thinking exactly the same thing about the fates of some old-time blue chip companies that Canadian Tech brought in as examples of what may sooner rather than letter be a fate shared by MS.

As to when there will be a replacement of Windows with something else, I see it as playing out perhaps this way:

People that use PCs to do email, search the Web, blog, exchange photos and be on Facebook, Pinterest and the like, will do just as well with tablets and smartphones, so PCs will be a low priority for them. If there is a friendly enough version of Linux, let us say, some of them might move over to it, but that is not going to be really important.

What is going to be important is what current Enterprise customers: business large enough to afford it and pay the wages of system administrators charged with the dismal task of looking after the ailing Windows, as well as government offices and laboratories, universities and other institutions concerned with science, technology and plain old-style scholarship (think English or History Departments in Humanities’ schools)  will eventually decide that the cost of having Windows as an operating system in both headaches and cash will no longer be acceptable, and ask their main organization IT and SysAdmins  people to look into alternatives to Windows, make recommendations, list and cost all the things that will be necessary to spend on, including retraining of personnel, acquisition of replacement application software for that not available other than for Windows, etc., how much of that could be paid just by saving on a few, likely to increase year after year, Windows support payments to MS, and make recommendations based on that. “Don’t cut corners, but also don’t spend too much money and come back to us with conclusions and recommendations you believe are well-founded, but don’t take too long. If I like it, I’ll push for it to the Board” will say the CEO of the Really Big Corporation, and the CFO and COO and CSA (Chief SysAdmin) will node gravely and careful not to look too keen or to reluctant, just right, pretending they do it mainly as a matter of form. But they’ll be really dying inside to see this potentially big cost and trouble saving thing happen.

What will be the recommended alternatives to the Windows 10e+10 of that day? Some reasonably user friendly version of Linux with a GUI that is close enough to that of Windows, for people used to Windows to find it easy to learn, but different enough for their developers not to have to be weighed down with lawsuits? Apple’s MacOS version Montain Goat? Ubuntu’s Crazy Old Giraffe? Who knows!

The march of Windows to its grave will most likely spur a lot of creative work by people willing to come up with its replacement, which will be one of that day’s Really Big Things. But I’m pretty sure that something like that will be found and recommended, and sooner rather than later.

And as far as Linux goes, most sysadmins, certainly all those I know personally, are familiar enough with Linux that for them installing and taking care of it is not going to be a big problem. And under the hood, macOS is pretty much like Linux, with a few oddities here and there. I have a Mac and never any real problems with it; people who do the regular system upgrades every two years or so, have little to complain about. Maybe Apple is sidelining Macs in favor of iPhones, but I have not seen that happening, and I suspect I would have noticed, by now. And the several Mac users I know would also have.

So that’s what I think.

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Canadian Tech

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Keep in mind that with the Mac platform, you’re talking about the hardware and the OS as a package.  Macs have languished in terms of hardware with models (MacPros as well as the laptops) that are several years behind the less expensive Windows PC offerings, and at the same price point they’d been at when their hardware wasn’t out of date.  Many Mac fanatics have complained about being forgotten as all of the attention goes to phones with “features” like ugly notches and deletion of headphone jacks while they look at a three year old design being sold as new.  The perception that Apple has all but forgotten about the Mac in recent years is quite endemic in many bits of the Mac community, and when I’ve visited sites where Apple fans congregate, I’d have to say that the perception that Apple’s neglecting the Mac is almost as widespread as the perception that Windows 10 stinks among Windows fans (or former fans).

There’s also a perception that there has been a steep drop-off of quality since Tim Cook took the reins, with many dedicated Apple fans echoing a lot of the complaints that people like Louis Rossman on Youtube talk about frequently (he’s certainly no Apple fan, though he makes his living fixing them).  Some of them even saying they are giving up and migrating to Windows 10.  I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence!

I wonder if these Mac users are getting a distorted view of how “good” Windows 10 is in the sites that seem to be Microsoft cheerleaders more than journalists.  After becoming accustomed to a UI that has a level of consistency and coherence that Windows hasn’t even come close to since the release of Windows 8, I don’t see how Windows 10’s half-baked UI wouldn’t grate on them… and that’s hardly the worst of what Windows 10 has to offer.  I don’t imagine they’d be happy with Windows 10 when they would not have been happy with any of the more popular Windows versions that have been offered over the years.

I can’t offer a firsthand opinion myself, since I’ve never actually used a Mac since they had 9 inch black and white monitors built into the case, but that would only be one opinion anyway.  If I were inclined to buy a Mac, though, there would never have been a time where it would have been more likely than right now.

That said, though, there’s definitely unrest in the Mac community, though in many ways it is the reverse of what we see with Windows 10.  Many people wish that Microsoft would pay a little less attention to Windows and neglect it more (since the desired changes seem to be completely out of the question).  Coming from the perspective where the last popular version of Windows is the better part of a decade old, and that is feature complete in terms of the front-end, the level of attention to MacOS seems like the better option, as long as the security updates are coming along on time– and as far as I know, they are.

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Well, Ascaris, I only have my own, rather short experience of some 14 months as the owner of a MacPro laptop — and know of that of several people that have been users of Macs continuously for many years now. And they, as well as I, have no complaints I can hear — or have experienced myself. Yet. Of course, I ask them regularly about any problems they may be having or be aware of, along with any other questions, as they are my go-to people on most matters Mac. So far: nothing much.

Maybe those unhappy Mac users are using their machines for something quite different, although I have no idea of what that could be; perhaps playing games online? That is about the only thing I don’t do (well, being in social media is the other one I don’t) of all that I know one can do with a personal computer.

In fact, now I do, and have been doing for several months now, most of my software development on the Mac, and that is for me a good test of how reliable — and stable — the system is. Nothing bad to report out of my direct and personal experience, at least so far. Not to mention a certain MVP around these parts that now and then tells us how pleased she is with her Mac. (Or is it ‘Macs’?)

So, based on what I know from my own experience, I believe, at this point, the Macs to be good alternatives to switch to when deciding to give up on Windows. As well, of course, as running Linux on bare metal or on virtual machines, maybe alongside with Windows 7 or 8.1.

My only real complaint about Macs in general concerns their hardware design, and is something you have touched upon quite correctly: my machine is a laptop, and Apple’s penchant for “cool looking stuff” is detrimental to the functionality of the machine itself: not enough ports one can connect USB, Ethernet or other types of cables and jacks without the need to use dongles. And, as Noel Carboni recently recalled in one of his entries, these laptops are shut so tight, it is a real big pain to do repairs on them. But I think it is the “cool” factor, not a sidelining in favor of Apple’s biggest money spinner ever, the iPhone, that is behind all this. Other than that, the machine runs very nicely and does all I need it to do without delay or trouble.

As long as mine keeps working as it has so far, that is not something I am too worried about. Those friends and colleagues with Macs have had, and still have, machines similar to mine for a number of years now, and they never have had a hardware breakdown, yet.

But what the future holds, for Macs, myself, or anything else, is not for a mere mortal like me to know, or to say, of course.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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In the county I live in at least one county government division right now is replacing hundreds of 10 year old desktops running Windows 7 with brand new desktops running Windows 7. They want nothing to do with Windows 10.

As a local IT Consultant with small business clients I can say many run Windows 7, it works for them and they have no intention of moving on to Windows 10 anytime soon.

There are a few still running XP, usually because some very expensive (to them) piece of hardware or software like a large format printer used for making blueprints, automated refrigeration control for an ice rink, CAD programs, etc. will not run under a newer OS or they are not willing to shell out thousands of dollars for a new printer, custom software package, etc.

 

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OscarCP, Cybertooth

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There are a few still running XP, usually because some very expensive (to them) piece of hardware or software like a large format printer used for making blueprints, automated refrigeration control for an ice rink, CAD programs, etc. will not run under a newer OS or they are not willing to shell out thousands of dollars for a new printer, custom software package, etc.

n2ubp, my clients are the same. They are using Windows XP for ATM, hospital Xray machine, printer, control center etc. All are still connected to Internet. It will cost millions to replace those machines/equipment so they are keeping the Windows Xp and paying MS for updates. The Windows XP got patch for meltdown and spectre after pay MS their fee which was less than replacing equipment that still has many years of life left.

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A quick, big, THANK YOU! to Mr S. Gibson for all your utilities over at GRC, nice to see you posting here.

Interesting choice of title with ‘sleeps among the fishes’ which immediately reminded me of playing that awesome 3D game Quake by id software, a legendary classic for the PC (on a i486 DX66 overdrive at the time on Win 3.11, the good ol’ times)

If debian is good enough for NASA...

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johnf

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Microfix…

Thanks for your thanks. I love to code and I enjoy providing useful stuff. The Internet makes that so easy that the rest is just natural.

Your reference to Quake by id Software was timely, since I’ve been reading (I’ll finish it tonight) “Masters of Doom” the story of John Carmack and John Romero who co-founded id Software. Amazon recommended the book to me for some reason. I’m a voracious reader so I use their “Kindle Unlimited” subscription service to read for a fixed cost per month. “Masters of Doom” was offered in that program, and I hadn’t yet started in my my next book (which will be Peter F. Hamilton’s latest, “Salvation”).

I mention this book “Masters of Doom” for the benefit of any other “old timers” here, since I have thoroughly enjoyed the reminiscence and the walk back through those early years of the PC industry from the perspective of the development of gaming and the very first 1st-person shooters.

/Steve.

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AlexEiffel, Microfix

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Your coding has been a blessing for many!
For many years, soon as I built/ re-installed or configured PC’s, the first port of call (other than WU) on the internet was your site to check everything was good for clients, friends and family. This still rings true today. Would you consider signing up for AskWoody? We’d be honored, as well as interested in your views on the changing scenes 😉

If debian is good enough for NASA...

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Jan K.

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Microfix,

Thanks again for your note.  I only knew about the initial question because Woody was kind enough to reach out and let me know that someone here had posed the question about whether I was still using WinXP.  I would enjoy hanging out here more.  But my time is SO limited.  I’m working to push several current projects across their finish lines, and then I must return to work on SpinRite to bring it current with today’s hardware.  And I do love solving those problems.  So I must impose self discipline to keep my time and focus aimed at getting these things completed.  Consequently, I must decline the opportunity of becoming more involved here.  I truly believe that those here will obtain something more valuable from me if I do that.  🙂

Thanks!  /Steve.

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With the utmost respect, I totally understand. Nice of you to pop by and drop a line or two at Woody’s invitation. I do hope you enjoyed the rest of “Masters of Doom”  🙂
Best luck on your coding mission to help us all and from all the users of your utility solutions, We salute you!

You know where we are should you wish to pop in 😉

If debian is good enough for NASA...

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This may (or not) start a tidal wave, but…

Anyone remember Ultima?

greynad

[Edit] greynad, please stay on topic or you risk your posts being deleted – we’re pretty strict about that.

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Apologies, nostalgic seeing Quake, Doom.

greynad

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Anonymous / greynard ( #221338 ),

For some mysterious reason, the link in your entry above just now, has been hijacked to the Patch Lady’s “31 days of paranoia – day 3” thread listed in “Recent Replays.” When clicking on supposedly the link to yours here, one ends up there.

Maybe that is a Woody’s inflicted punishment for being “anonymous”? Repent, I say, and sign in as a regular person would!

And then, those cryptic remarks of yours about “Ultima” and what not? Maybe that is why.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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I’m not greynad. But I’m familiar with the navigation glitch you describe. It is an observed effect of comment moderation, and should not be viewed as punitive. Once approved and published, after various items synchronize, anonymous comment links resolve correctly.

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b wrote:

They aren’t. Microsoft counts monthly active devices.

You have verifiable data for that statement?

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Rick Corbett wrote:

b wrote:

They aren’t. Microsoft counts monthly active devices.

You have verifiable data for that statement?

700,000,000.

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… so your verifiable source is…. Microsoft? ROFL

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