Sign in / up

back to article Windows 8 or nowt: Consumer Win 7 fans are out of luck

It’s Windows 8.x or nothing for PC shoppers, says Microsoft, which has announced that it's no longer offering Windows 7. Friday 31 October was officially the last day when Microsoft made Windows 7 available for sale through retail outlets, meaning consumers can no longer buy discs of download versions of Windows 7 Home Basic, …

COMMENTS

Post your comment
House rules Send corrections
Add to 'My topics' unstar *

Page:

  1. cambsukguy

    A year?

    > Final release is likely to be either spring 2015, or roughly a year from now

    Are you saying that it will be in about six months or about a year or implying that Spring 2015 is a year from now.

    Even the last day of Spring (June 20th) is far from a year from now (it is November today).

    3 0 Reply
    1. StephenD
      Reply Icon

      Re: A year?

      In the temperate southern hemisphere, spring 2015 is about a year from now.

      8 0 Reply
      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: A year?

        "In the temperate southern hemisphere, spring 2015 is about a year from now."

        All the more reason for lazy jouros to not reference seasons when writing for a world-wide audience. The same applies to lazy press offices for multi-national corps such as Apple or MS who make similar pronouncments.

        Anyway, it's almost Guy Fawkes night so I'm sure everyone reading has more important plans on their minds at the moment. It is Guy Fawkes night on Nov 5th all over the world, isn't it? And we do all celebrate it by burning some bloke on a big fire, don't we?

        11 0 Reply
        1. Michael Habel
          Reply Icon

          Dat Fawks cat was on to something...

          I'd rather see Parliament blown up... Myself..

          6 4 Reply
        2. Fluffy Bunny
          Reply Icon
          Facepalm

          Re: A year?

          "It is Guy Fawkes night on Nov 5th all over the world, isn't it?" - um, no. Most of Australia has banned fireworks, so we don't celebrate anything.

          1 0 Reply
        3. Anonymous IV
          Reply Icon

          Re: A year?

          > Final release is likely to be either spring 2015, or roughly a year from now

          I think that what we have here is an example of irony, where the author is rather sceptical of the claimed delivery dates provided by software manufacturers. (If you need to look up "irony", you are not British!)

          1 0 Reply
        4. Tannin
          Reply Icon

          Re: A year?

          In the Southern Hemisphere, we have to deal with writers thoughtlessly using those weird back-to-front northern seasons all the time. It's routine to have to translate into the real seasons here down under - but rather annoying because you have to do it all the bloody time and you get a bit tired of it.

          Now we have ONE instance back the other way and it's a capital crime. Time for you to HTFU, princess.

          0 0 Reply
  2. Phil_Evans

    Bezo's Bozos,

    Matters not a jot really, fewer and fewer people buy PCs for home use now anyway. If they do, they're familiar with the fact that a climbdown from the latest WinVer only lasts a while. Win8 now has a start menu option/skin, drama over, move along.

    For biz, it's entirely different and that's why Win7 Pro continues as an option to ship. Like my gaff, many BIG orgs are (in the good cases) in the middle of rolling Win7 from XP owing to the delays over the last (Vista) debacle. I would expect that when Win10 addresses the challenges (ie, looks and feels like what people wanted in the first place), we will be in the same position all over again.

    And so the party goes on...

    6 20 Reply
    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Bezo's Bozos,

      There's a hell o fa lot more wrong with Windows 8 than "just a missing start menu". Not that 8.1U1.MicrosoftNamingSchemesAreAlmostWorseThanMicrosoftLicensing actually fixes that issue either.

      But hey, pretend it was all no big deal. Very "on message". Next you'll dig up the whole "Vista was actually amazing, bu the users were too stupid to love it" line.

      29 6 Reply
      1. Teiwaz
        Reply Icon

        Re: Bezo's Bozos,

        I get the impression the Wiindows 8 disaster, despite it occuring at the end of life for XP will still not be enough to break the dependance of biz customers for Windows.

        For the consumer, mobile phones seem to be perfectly ok for most things, and a tablet for the rest.

        3 2 Reply
        1. Narg
          Reply Icon

          Re: Bezo's Bozos,

          Windows 8 is far from a disaster. It's just the Apple zealots and Linux zealots that took an opportunity to bash Windows and have done it with a lot of loud B.S. Windows 8 is very good, and you don't have to get stuck on the new Modern UI if you don't want to. Free software adds back a Start Menu, and you can live in the Desktop 100% and never see the Modern UI. Then you'll get an OS that much faster, much easier and much more security than past versions.

          3 37 Reply
          1. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Bezo's Bozos,

            The problem with 8.x is that the new UI sidelined all the improvements, and the UI is what most customer evaluate but the most techincal ones. Screw the UI, and everybody notice. Screw the thread scheduler, and only a few will notice.

            Using third party utilities to make it alike 7 is not what most customers like - and it especially what companies don't like.

            If MS was not so stubborn and incapable of admintting it made an UI mess, and had got back to a more deskop user friendly UI with 8.1 for non-tablet users, it would have regained a far better position.

            27 1 Reply
            1. Oninoshiko
              Reply Icon

              @LDS

              In fairness, they have admitted 8's UI was a mistake by making it vary similar to 7 in 10.

              2 0 Reply
          2. SVV
            Reply Icon

            Re: Bezo's Bozos,

            My goodness, the grammar capabilities of their paid trolls are as good these days as the user interface design skills of their user interface designers.

            "Well, you can pay for something extra that makes it suck less" is just the most deluded argument in favour of a product I've ever heard.

            Even if that product is "much more security".

            12 1 Reply
        2. Mark 85
          Reply Icon

          Re: Bezo's Bozos,

          For the consumer, mobile phones seem to be perfectly ok for most things, and a tablet for the rest.

          Uh..no. Myself and many of my friends an acquaintances prefer a desktop. Maybe a laptop at worst with an external monitor and keyboard. You hit a point where you don't care about being "hip" if the eyes can't read it and the fingers can't type it. And many of us do more with our PC than hang out with the Twitterati and FB crowd.

          13 0 Reply
  3. TRT Silver badge

    When I get phone calls...

    from colleagues for whom I am IT support telling me they have bought a new computer and then asking me "How do I shut it down?" there's a problem. These are not stupid people. We're talking professors of brain science here.

    30 1 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: When I get phone calls...

      You click on the bloody great power Icon on the Metro screen, or right click on the "Start" button and choose shutdown.

      Really it's not that hard. It's just people don't like change.

      5 46 Reply
      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: When I get phone calls...

        "You click on the bloody great power Icon on the Metro screen, or right click on the "Start" button and choose shutdown."

        Umm, neither of those were in the original 8.0 release. Their inclusion in 8.1 rather proves the point that normal end-users had to wait a year or so for MS to climb down from Mt Sinofsky and offer a more acceptable UI.

        27 0 Reply
      2. DocJD
        Reply Icon

        Re: When I get phone calls...

        Some years ago, when my company forced me to switch from a Mac to Windows, I had no idea how to shut the computer down. It never occurred to me to click on something that said "Start" to shut down the computer. So I never logged out or shut down. The computer periodically crashed all on its own, so that was when it got rebooted. Eventually, someone showed me where to find the shut down command, but I found the computer took so long to start up the next morning that I continued to just leave it running.

        It also never occurred to me that the right mouse button would do anything different than the left button. I just always clicked with my index finger and that happened to be on top of the left button.

        4 1 Reply
        1. Fluffy Bunny
          Reply Icon
          Facepalm

          Re: When I get phone calls...

          "It also never occurred to me that the right mouse button would do anything different than the left button" - when Apple was copying their windowing system from Xerox PARC, the discussion turned to how many buttons there should be on the mouse. The experts at Xerox suggested that three buttons was about right, to which the Apple people said something to the effect of "we want to keep it simple, so we will make them do everything with one button". - Apple, treating their customers like idiots for, like, eva.

          3 3 Reply
        2. shovelDriver
          Reply Icon

          Re: When I get phone calls...

          "It never occurred to me to click on something that said "Start" to shut down the computer."

          I understand, but had a thought . . .

          The ignition switch is where you turn the car off, isn't it?

          0 0 Reply
      3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: When I get phone calls...

        "It's just people don't like change."

        Right. That's what MS forgot. Either that or the fact that people are less likely to buy something they don't like.

        Can I have my Economics Nobel now, please?

        6 0 Reply
    2. Malcolm 1
      Reply Icon

      Re: When I get phone calls...

      Push the same power button you used to turn it on in the first place.

      10 11 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: When I get phone calls...

        "Push the same power button you used to turn it on in the first place."

        Does that do a Power Off in W8?

        It was a surprise to see that W7 defaulted that action to "Sleep". That was probably a "Hybrid Sleep" too - which is a "Sleep" eventually followed by a "Hibernate".

        A four second power button hold is rather more brutal - and that is what users tend do if nothing appears to happen after a momentary push.

        24 1 Reply
  4. J. R. Hartley

    So my upgrade path is gonna be...

    AmigaOS 3.9 > Windows XP > Windows 7 > Windows 14?

    7 2 Reply
    1. Dz
      Reply Icon

      Re: So my upgrade path is gonna be...

      AmigaOS features in every step of my upgrade process. My 4 trusty Amiga 1200's of various flavours and configurations all run it happily! :)

      2 1 Reply
      1. eJ2095
        Reply Icon

        Re: So my upgrade path is gonna be...

        Ahh yes mines AmigaOS3.1,AmigaOS3.9,Win XP, Win vista (for 1 hour), Win 7, now Win 8.1

        0 0 Reply
        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: So my upgrade path is gonna be...

          LDOS 5.1, AmigaOS3./3.1, Win95/98/XP, FreeBSD with mucho overlap

          1 1 Reply
          1. TRT Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: So my upgrade path is gonna be...

            I'm planning to upgrade to VMS!

            2 0 Reply
    2. Gray
      Reply Icon
      Angel

      Re: So my upgrade path is gonna be...

      AmigaOS 3.9 > Windows XP > Windows 7 > Windows 14? Linux

      6 0 Reply
  5. Elmer Phud

    Easy enough . . .

    All the retailers need to do is offer a service asking customers what they are happier seeing in front of them.

    Then they can give customers a 'Windows' they are more familiar with.

    Big drawback is assuming the retail staff can do this without insisting that a re-install is needed or something equally daft -- or that they can do it without buggering up the lot.

    3 1 Reply
  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    nowt

    n/t

    2 1 Reply
  7. nematoad
    Windows

    Hmmm

    ... there’s no cut-off for date for PC makers on Windows 7 Professional — yet.

    I wonder why that could be.

    Surely not because business is giving TIFKAM the cold shoulder?

    5 2 Reply
    1. Roland6 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Hmmm

      I expect MS will give a year's notice for Win7 Pro when they finally release Win10 next year. This will be consistent with their practise with previous versions of Windows.

      Interestingly Windows 8.0 also ended retail sales on 31-Oct-2014, so 8.1 is officially the only version you can now purchase over the counter without a system attached.

      Given the status of 8.0 ie. move to 8.1 before Nov-2015 to remain supported, I suspect OEMs are simply clearing stock; which is probably fine if all you want to do is downgrade to Win7 Pro. but is irritating if you want a new system and wish to also avoid doing the 8.0 to 8.1 update yourself...

      2 0 Reply
  8. Test Man

    Actually shouldn't the headline read: "It's Windows 8.1 or nowt: Consumer Windows 7 fans are OUT OF LUCK", because I heard they're also removing the right for OEMs to install Windows 8 as well.

    6 0 Reply
  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You have to wonder about Microsoft of late...they've had a number of clear "fuck off"s from their buying public on a variety of fronts and they still keep pulling the same old shit.

    WIndows 7 was windows done right (after a bit of fiddling to get a proper program launcher and fast start back); windows 8 isn't. A brief glimpse at the market share would tell a retarded gibbon that.

    24 1 Reply
    1. BoldMan
      Reply Icon

      Hence why they are now FORCING it down consumer's throats rather than give them a choice and have to admit they fucked it up big time.

      8 4 Reply
    2. DropBear
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Microsoft's problem is being in clear denial of having lost the ability to dictate people what they can and cannot do - from merely sticking with what they have to moving to other OSes or simply, erm, "installing whatever they want without asking MS for permission", people have a range of possible ways to refuse to comply. Redmond just flat-out pretends none of those are viable options when in fact they clearly are - and apparently preferred to W8 too.

      9 2 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        The thing is with OSs; is that MS are no longer in the unassailable position that they once were and they just don't seem to realise that. Apple have "walled garden where users don't have to worry about the nuts and bolts" pretty well covered and Linux no longer starts with "write your own device drivers" as the first instruction.

        People who choose windows want some control; but mostly want to get on with things. That and the group who grew up with it and don't want to learn a different system. Windows 8 fucks things up mightily on both counts...why should I learn a new interface for hardware that doesn't even have a touchscreen? SImple answer...I'm not going to. Package a touchscreen interface as an ***OPTION*** by all means; but don't foist it on me as the only path.

        An operating system should launch quickly, be secure and stable, launch the apps that I want right now and get the fuck out of the way. Any extra clicks and designer bollocks in the way of that is....well...in the way.

        I'm waiting to see if the next Windows shapes up or whether it's Linux time. If I'm forced to learn a new way of doing things, it ain't going to be yours, matey.

        34 2 Reply
        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          "Package a touchscreen interface as an ***OPTION*** by all means; but don't foist it on me as the only path."

          Upvoted for your comment in general but for that sentence in particular.

          Most users/businesses do NOT upgrade all their users screens when installing a new PC. Even during the change over from CRTs for LCDs, it was gradual in many places and the last CRTs took years to finally disappear (I still see the odd one or two in use on my travels).

          In general, if a user has a 17" LCD, it may get upgraded with a PC refresh (I rarely see less than 17" screens in use). If it's a 19" or bigger, it won't. Screens get replaced when they break. Whether the budget will include the touch screen premium on a screen replace is another question. I suspect not.

          6 1 Reply
    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      They've pulled two of their most popular (by far) operating systems in order to push people onto their most "controversial" ones.

      This is either cockiness, or it's to purposely push everyone something so shite they'd take whatever crap Win10 is.

      Oh well, who cares? Win7 was the last Windows I used, I'm not getting dictated to any more. It's my computer. I've moved on to better - wish I wasn't such a fan-boy and did it sooner.

      11 2 Reply
    4. cray74
      Reply Icon

      "WIndows 7 was windows done right (after a bit of fiddling to get a proper program launcher and fast start back); windows 8 isn't."

      Agreed, Windows 8.1's default isn't. But it only takes a few clicks on taskbar settings to get the UI back more-or-less to Windows 7, no third-party software required.

      Once you've got Win 8.1 (mostly) back to Win 7 UI, there are some useful features. For example, MS finally listened to all the multi-monitor users and provided native, multi-monitor taskbar support. The file transfer "detail" view gives more information on transfer rate, and multiple file transfers/copies consolidate under one window. And cold boot-ups - wow. My Win 8.1 machine takes about 15-20 seconds to get to a useful state.

      There are some remaining irritations. The standard program launch screen ("App Screen") is much less compact and efficient than any Windows Explorer view under previous versions - it's a colorful, screen-filling, widely-spaced display of your major programs and I have to scroll sideways to see more than a couple of dozen items. Programs running in "Tiles" are pains because they fill the screen and the desktop isn't visible under them (though maybe I haven't found the correct setting to run them as a desktop window). I uninstalled the Win 8 version of Nook and went back to the Win XP/7 version, despite a performance hit. An ereader causing a performance hit on an i7 machine ain't right.

      Point being: a lot of the Windows 8.1 miseries needn't linger if you make a few setting changes.

      1 0 Reply
      1. Daniel B.
        Reply Icon

        Agreed, Windows 8.1's default isn't. But it only takes a few clicks on taskbar settings to get the UI back more-or-less to Windows 7, no third-party software required.

        But it still saddles you with the awful "Start Screen", which is one of the main complaints with Windows 8.x. That requires buying Start8, which will actually fix your problem but I'd rather punish MS by not buying Windows 8.x at all unless they fix their UI mess.

        But that ain't going to happen, the real fix has been pushed to Win10 and the only reason I can think for them doing that is because it'll make people run to upgrade up to Windows 10.

        MS killing Win7 basically guarantees that everyone will get saddled with the ugly OS and theoretically will need to upgrade to Win10. In reality, it'll just keep punishing OEMs which will have their Win8-hobbled PCs and laptops gathering dust along with the heaps of unsold Xbox 180's...

        0 0 Reply
  10. Yugguy

    Windows 8 will not go corporate mainstream

    Given that most of us in the real world of IT are just now moving from XP to 7, how likely is it we will rush to implement the horrendous shower of shite that is Windows 8?

    The vast majority of companies will not be ready for another upgrade til about Windows 10 or 11.

    9 2 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Windows 8 will not go corporate mainstream

      Deloitte are upgrading to Win 8.1 En Masse in the very near future.........

      Good luck to them....

      4 0 Reply
    2. Narg
      Reply Icon

      Re: Windows 8 will not go corporate mainstream

      Yes they are. Windows 8 is quite a bit better in administration from a domain standpoint. Enterprise actually wants Windows 8 quite a lot. But as usually costs of transition slow things down.

      1 11 Reply
      1. Yugguy
        Reply Icon

        Re: Windows 8 will not go corporate mainstream

        Not our enterprise me old son. We don't have an issue with OS administration thanks.

        Hang on, I'll take a straw poll.

        "Does anyone want a new OS that was designed for a touchscreen which you haven't got?"

        "Anyone?"

        "Anyone??"

        It doesn't look good.

        23 1 Reply
      2. Daniel B.
        Reply Icon
        Boffin

        Re: Windows 8 will not go corporate mainstream

        Enterprise actually wants Windows 8 quite a lot. But as usually costs of transition slow things down.

        None of our clients are touching Windows 8 at all. They don't want it, they don't like it, and now that Windows 10 has been announced that fixes up the UI, there's no way they're moving upwards from 7 until that comes out.

        Oh, another of our clients also decided to stop adding up Windows Server instances when MS released Server 2012, the one that inherited the stupid blocky UI as well.

        0 0 Reply
  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Are we going to see an upsurge in the use of torrented win 7 now as people vote with their mouse?

    7 2 Reply
  12. John Tserkezis

    "With no option but Windows 8.x for consumers, it’ll now be interesting to see whether the operating system sees a forced uptick in market growth or whether people and PC makers hold out for Windows 10."

    Um, tough question, let me guess: Hold off?

    There's only a million reasons to do so.

    3 1 Reply

Page:

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

Forgotten password ?

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like