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I think there are more than two choices…

How about using Windows 7/8/8.1 until the end of extended support, then buy a new machine with whatever incarnation of Windows exists at that time.

Not unheard of, since everyone did not upgrade to Vista or Windows 8, and lived to tell the tale.

Yes, I should have said “stop using Windows 10”. BTW, I understand Win 8 support ends next summer, but Win 7 until 2020. Of course if you need a new machine now, you would have to purchase a copy of Win 7. Also, it will only be the serious Techies will refuse to use Win 10, I know many people still on Vista, they just lived through the problems and continued with it. Most casual users will continue to use Win 10, as will I, as I have had no problems with it (so far).

Paul Thurrott take on Windows Updates:

“More valid are complaints about Microsoft’s policy requiring all Windows 10 users to let Microsoft keep their devices up-to-date. Don’t get me wrong: Keeping all Windows 10 devices up-to-date is an understandable goal, maybe even a need. But Microsoft’s inability to deliver reliable updates is problematic. Until the software giant can assure a Quality of Service (QoS)-type reliability bar on updates, it has no right to demand that we simply accept every update and upgrade it deems to release.”

Subscribe to this view completely.

But, with the millions of combinations of hardware, hundreds of thousands of possible software combinations, there will always be problems with some updates. They make the product, they support the product, so yes they have the right to demand that people take the updates (to keep the product on a level playing field). That leaves you with two choices, complain vigorously to Microsoft (not on one of the hundreds of forums) or stop using Windows. My way of thinking is the real answer isn’t giving people the choice as to whether they take updates, but rather they should provide real tech support to all update problems by logging and responding within 24 hours with a log number and then getting back to you with some sort of real solution within a reasonable time. They should also give you a code which you could use to “undo” the update immediately until they come up with a solution. Something like this would make Microsoft responsible for their quality of product.

Android is on top, when you consider “devices”, which is a way to count it. Microsoft itself stated that it wanted to become a devices and services company… Apple is 2nd place, simply because of the iPhone and in a much smaller measure via the iPad. MS comes after them.

Some traffic monitoring companies have adopted the same devices perspective and on browser market share, IE has stopped leading for a long while.

You can say that in the business market, Microsoft still leads. That is true. Don’t discount Unix (or Linux), since it has a place. A considerable number of the servers the internet runs on, use a Linux version, with a market share larger than the multiple Windows Server versions…
:).

Yes, I see your points. Yes, Android, from a device standpoint is on top. Even though I don’t consider tablets and phones real computers which I know they are, but when I want to do any thing serious I go to my desk top computer. In my household I have three Android tablets (plus another waiting for me to repair a cracked screen), one Android phone, one laptop, and three desktops. One tablet is dual boot Win 10 and Android. Two desktops and the laptop are on Win 10 and one desktop is still on Win 7 (hooked to my TV), which will probably be upgraded to Win 10 eventually, but it sometimes can be handy to have an older OS around for test purposes. The tablet did have Win 8 and I couldn’t wait to dump it, so I jumped to Win 10 preview until Win 10 was released. So I guess Android holds a strong position in my household, but I only use it for entertainment, e-mail and light web browsing. I am btw, happy with Win 10 on the dual boot tablet, but don’t use it as much as Android, because it’s use is mostly entertainment and Android apps are either free or very reasonable. I won’t touch IOS because it doesn’t do anything that Android can’t do for my use, and it’s horribly overpriced. Of my customer base (300+), about a a third have moved to Win 10, about 50% are on Win 7 and balance XP and Win 8. In my town there are only a hand full of Macs, a couple Unix machines and tablets/phones are about 70% Android. It’s a small town, so I have a good handle on what is happening here. My town has a high percentage of scientific people because our largest employer is a nuclear research lab, followed by a military base. I know that my town isn’t typical and big cities probably have higher percentage of Apple machines. I am fairly certain that Win 10 is going to be a reasonable success, based on the fact that anybody I have moved to Win 10, has had any complaints. Also, anything new will be Win 10. But that’s just my guess, time will tell.

ruirb: I certainly agree with you that Microsoft has made lots of mistakes with past OS, and will continue to do so. I sometimes wonder if some of those huge mistakes were driven by their marketing people who push their opinions downward and expect the people below them to make a success out of a bad plan. Their Windows phone seems to be at an end now, and who knows who’s to fault for that, we can only guess. Yes, it will be the users who decide whether Windows 10 is a success, but not the technically inclined users like yourself, who has to “pull out their hair” to use it, but the general public. I’m not sure about your comment that Windows has slipped to number 3, who is on top?
Anything I have seen shows Windows is still dominant player. Android in sheer numbers is gaining, but it is purely a consumer market provider. Apple is still a minor player overall. Unix even less.
https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0
Anyway, I understand what your complaints are, in a perfect world they wouldn’t exist, but what are the alternatives.

ruirb: “The issues are so relevant, in my opinion, that I may skip 10 entirely.”

I would suggest that if you do that, you should move to a different OS. Based on the trend now, massive numbers of people have switched to Windows 10 already and that will continue at a pretty rapid pace. If you think you can live in the past and still remain relevant in the Windows world, you might be surprised. If you provide product to a very specialized segment of the market, you will get away with it for awhile, but eventually the customer base will press you to deal with it, and stay up to date. If you produce for the general Windows market, you won’t survive long at all, and you will lose that market. You would be better to feed your bad experiences back to Microsoft, and hope they consider your problems to be important enough that they will look at them. I know it’s got to be tough to develop software for a new OS, there are bound to be lots of problems, but it’s up to you whether you want to be part of that world or give up.

gsmith-plm;1037602]It might help to play devils advocate here for a moment……

I couldn’t have said it as well as you have done. I look at Microsoft as an author who has written this book, with huge departments of bright programmers (and they do get to pick and choose out of thousands who would like to work for them) with even more experienced programmers as their bosses. They have been tasked with the job of producing Windows 10, taking the best of what they have done, adding changes from thousands and thousands of testers and their goal of making it an even bigger success. Yes, like any company they will some mistakes, but it is their “book” and I find it hard to believe that there are many people in these forums who are better at the job than the they are, and who can really rewrite this “book” and come up with a better end result. Most people can only look at the end result and wonder why it doesn’t work the way they want it to work, and criticise it as a bad product, but they don’t know the thought processes that went into it, or even begin to understand it. I frequently see people with flakey hardware, older peripherals and questionable practices who get irate because things don’t go the way they think it should, then blame the OS for all their problems. Yes, I’m sure there are people with legitimate problems and my sympathy goes out to them, but I’ll bet they are not the majority of complainers. If things were as bad as they lead you to believe, I would have seen more problems personally.
As far as privacy issues are concerned, that’s a losing battle that I don’t think is unique to Windows. If anybody wants complete privacy, they should avoid using the internet, unplug and live without it because a lack of privacy is the norm in that world, whether we like it or not.

xyloweb: I see your point, yes that would be frustrating. Maybe they will relent and allow control over updates. It sure would make a lot of people happy.

jwoods: I do read the Win 10 forums and yes, I do see people having problems. I do see a lot of negative talk about Windows 10. I really don’t understand why, other than maybe people have problems that ultimately will be something strange they are doing, or something really unique to their situation (like bad hardware). Since Windows 10 was released back in July, I have upgraded somewhere around close to a hundred computers to it. I have had a few driver problems (which I blame on hardware manufacturers not keeping up or not caring whether their older hardware is useable), but usually found an answer. So far I have had zero serious problems to deal with afterwards and all these computers are getting the updates. I can only say that I have to rely on my own experiences, rather than what I have read in the forums. I am not a genius, or even a high level IT guy, just an average service guy. Yes, I have been doing this type of work for about 20 years, so I am reasonably experienced and have a good reputation.

wlamia: I agree 100%. I have always accepted updates because I didn’t want to miss anything important. I know I have been lucky that I haven’t had an update cause a problem, but I haven’t. I have had customers who refused updates and they have had problems. Unless you are really good at IT work, you wouldn’t know what half the updates even do, let alone decide which ones are important.

I know this is an old thread, but that makes my update more relevant. It is Jan 2013 and my copy of TB is up to v17 and still get small updates from time to time. I don’t believe it is being discontinued. BTW, I totally dislike Windows Live Mail because they seem to like changing things just for the sake of changing them, which confuses my customers frequently. When I have a customer who is moving from XP/OE, I install TB first and import everything into TB. I use MozBackup (free as well) and save all data to flash drive. I then install TB and MozBackup on new computer and restore data from flashdrive. I prefer the many features of TB and you can install add-ins like a calendar for appointments. I know that it is a “different strokes for different folks thing”, but I couldn’t imagine recommending Windows Live Mail over Thunderbird, I’ve had to deal with too many problems with WLM. Just my opinions for what it’s worth.