Particularly, why are they so desperately pushy about it? WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE IN IT FOR THEM???
I would understand if I was having to pay for the upgrade. Then, ya know, they would be MOTIVATED by the fucking PROFIT MOTIVE.
But it’s an apparently entirely free upgrade. So please, could someone fill in these blanks for me: “Microsoft wants me to upgrade to Windows 11 (and then 12) because _______. They will directly (or even indirectly) benefit in the following ways: ______________________”
Now, I’m not a complete fucking moron. I realize that they want to close out support for Windows 10. But that doesn’t explain the out-and-out salesmanship that’s going on, every time the fuckers try to get me to upgrade.
A couple other things, before you even start yapping at me:
First off, I will only upgrade to Windows 11 or 12 when I am absolutely forced to do so, on the day that Windows 10 becomes unsupported, and will therefore become a security risk.
NOTHING will convince me to “upgrade” my operating system before that date. Nothing. I don’t care what you have to say. You WILL fail to persuade me. Don’t even make the attempt.
In my opinion, Windows 7 should have been the last version of the OS. It should just have been patched forever, until some kind of major revolution in the whole basis of computing finally made its entire architecture fundamentally obsolete.
Updating an operating system is beyond drudgery, and each “upgrade” adds completely counter-productive, worse-than-useless bloat and nonsense. There is nothing to be excited about, when a new version of any operating system comes out. They should literally stop coming out.
Second, I’m not switching to Linux. I have used Linux in the past, for specific tasks and specific situations, but it will NEVER be my primary operating system, on my primary PC.
Do not bother trying to convince me to switch. Again: you WILL fail to persuade me. Do not waste your time. Linux is always 80-90 percent of the way toward being a true turn-key, user-friendly solution, especially for someone who has a long history of using Windows software, for both work and gaming. And 90 percent good simply isn’t good enough.
The learning curve isn’t worth it. No, I don’t want to hear anything you have to say about that. I’m not interested in how good the current version of whatever Linux branch has gotten. Do not bother. I promise you, I will not be reading it.
EDIT: if you even mention Apple, I will just laugh in your face.
short answer: windows 11 gives them access to more of your data.
Data and push ads on you.
not… me.
(“I use arch, BTW,”)(well, actually, I’ve been running with Manjaro for the last bit. I tend to hop around for the lulz)
So they can put AI in everything and slurp all your data. Well at least, they don’t say they aren’t doing that.
deleted by creator
Honestly I get the reason he said what he did. If he didn’t 80% of the replies would have been, try Linux or try apple. So he just beat those people over the head before they started.
deleted by creator
I hate Microsoft.
However, it’s expensive for them (or anyone) to maintain old software with never-ending security patches.
All software has a lifecycle. When they said Windows 10 would be the last version, we all knew they were full of shit. Never believe promises made by a corporate marketing team.
They also want to brag to shareholders about Windows 11 adoption numbers. So it’s in their interest to coerce more people into upgrading.
That’s fair enough. I suppose it’s cost-effective enough to try and nag people to switching, as soon as possible, as I noted in another comment.
You are the product. If you don’t like it then fix that last 10% in Linux or find alternatives to the few things holding you back.
I asked for an explanation, but I got a lecture. Which I fucking knew that I would.
But at least it was a short lecture. Short enough that I bothered reading it, so I guess you got that much over on me. Congrats, I suppose.
I won’t be switching to Linux, though. I am not interested in fixing that last 10%. That’s always what the Linux (and open-source) crowd always wants: at least a little bit of completely free labor, from everyone.
ngl you come off very toxic. You asked a question that you know 100% the answer to. You made sure with strong words to kill all meaningful solutions to your problem. And responded to this guy pointing out the flaw in your ideology very aggressively.
I honestly didn’t 100 percent know the answer. I was seriously wondering if there was some direct, specific reason that I hadn’t thought of. But it’s just the boring speculation that I could have done. I agree I shouldn’t have bothered.
As for toxicity, sure. I’m toxic. The world is toxic. It’s the new fashion. I believe we are all bearing witness to the Great Filter that keeps all civilizations from achieving high technology and exploring the universe (read up on the concept). The “filter” is simply ourselves. We fucking suck.
In essence, intelligence itself was nature’s greatest mistake. Awareness is a curse. All is vanity. We’re cresting the peak of our achievements, as naked apes, and we will shortly begin the painful process of erasing all our gains, and returning to dust. Good riddance, and I mean that. We are not a good thing for the planet, nor for ourselves.
But I don’t have to be all sweetness and light about any of it.
Instead of responding to whatever this AI esque auto generated thing is, I’m just going to say: rule 14.
This sub merely asks for questions but instead we got a wall of indignant text about how you will pre-ignore any solutions to your complaint.
solutions to your complaint
Read my question again. I was not asking for “solutions.” I was not asking for tech support. I was asking for the REASON behind Microsoft specifically wanting people to agree to a free upgrade of their OS.
Read through my replies. I have been entirely receptive and cordial toward any speculation on that topic.
What I didn’t want was advice. Or lectures. Or solutions. On the one hand, I was so clear about that point that you referred to my post as a “wall of indignant text.” On the other hand, I guess my wall of text wasn’t big enough, because you still didn’t understand the question.
Again: I was asking about the whys and the hows of the situation. Not solutions to it. And plenty of people have provided good answers.
Ask your doctor if Xanax is right for you.
As I mentioned to someone else, look at the world we’re living in. Mood-altering drugs are for situations when nothing is wrong, but you’re sad and numb anyway.
But, ya know, that’s not the case. Look around. Everything is wrong. We all have good reasons to be sad, numb, furious, tired, etc. Therefore, it’s inappropriate to drug ourselves into feeling slap-hap-fuckin’-happy.
That would be like getting into a motorcycle accident, noticing your leg is shattered, with bones sticking out of the skin, and saying “I guess I’ll take morphine forever. As long as I’m feelin’ fine, it’s alllll good.”
No. Not good. Pain and rage are the appropriate and logical responses to our situation. Medicating ourselves into not feeling those perfectly appropriate emotions would just be drug abuse. If I want to abuse drugs, I’ll get them off the street, and pay a way more reasonable price than my health insurance would suck out of my wallet, for their approved happy-feel-good drugs.
As someone else said, you sound super toxic, and frankly, insufferable. I’ve had friends like you. They are exceedingly tiresome people to be around.
:D That was me! Anyways it seems like you two would go on forever. I also said “rule 14” to him. The 14th rule of the internet is: “Do not argue with trolls — it means that they win.”
Calling people “toxic” for telling the truth is the most annoying thing about Gen Z. You guys never would have launched any of the necessary revolutions and societal upheavals of history, because you’d just shoot the messenger.
“That Thomas Paine guy is so toxic. I don’t have enough spoons to deal with his aggro bullshit.”
But it’s true. They (like everyone else) want to sell you their newest product. That is how capitalism works. That’s how they make money. But here it’s the other way around. You are the product. Still, you need to be upgraded to the newest version, so the newest data trickles in, the newest advertising is possible.
You seem a bit agitated. But it is how it is. Pick your poison. Be it Windows 10, 11, MacOS or Linux.
You seem a bit agitated
I have the misfortune to be living in 2024. If you are not agitated, you are not paying attention.
And I suppose I was looking for a more specific answer than really exists, for this situation. From Microsoft’s perspective, they need me to upgrade, so that I can be part of the current version of their money-sucking system. Whatever. I’ll do it. Who even cares.
living in 2024 […] you are not paying attention
On the contrary, I’m paying very good attention. And I’m well prepared. I watch all that mess from far away, and just boot my windows four times a year. That’s annoying enough for me.
I was looking for a more specific answer than really exists
Yeah, you can’t look for the answer that pleases you. At least not if objective reality exists. You either look for an answer that is true, or you don’t need to bother looking if you know what you want to believe beforehand.
Your agitation is largely self-induced, as you stomp your feet and whine like a toddler denied his toy rather than mitigating it like an adult. Microsoft is a business. Their motivation is to deliver as little value to the user as possible while making as much money as possible. This has been this way since they won the IBM DOS contract and no longer had to compete on their product alone. You can whine, or you can use something else that better aligns with your needs and values as a user.
Lots of people care.
It’s surprising that you’d give up so easily considering you were motivated enough to make an insightful post about the whole matter.
What answer would have satisfied you? You started off aggressive and combative in the OP, then acted surprised when you were met in kind.
That’s fine but you asked why it’s free and it’s free to you because you are the product.
If you don’t want to be the product it’s up to you to change the situation. Linux, Unix, Mac, Android are all options even if they are not options that interest you.
It costs money to keep an OS patched and secure. They don’t wanna do it anymore.
It costs money to make a brand-new OS and keep it patched and secure. Why do they want to do that?
I suspect it’s got something to do with selling everyone’s data and/or advertising to them, and/or selling them products and services.
They obviously want their newest/flagship OS to be secure, or people wouldn’t want to use it, and they’d be stuck supporting people on 10+ year old OS:es instead.
I mean yeah, that’s a probably part of it. The latest Outlook and Teams app is a privacy nightmare. Plus there’s ads, but sadly that’s nothing new with Windows. It’s also a continuation of their push for SaaS, pushing their subscription services like One Drive and O365. They also really want you to use their App Store to buy software.
Regardless of user count they have promised support for windows 10 until October 2025. Windows 11 has more ads and data harvesting.
Dunno but I’ve finally gotten sick of windows.
Been spending my time after work the last 2 weeks shifting my software stack from windows to a debian testbench, while learning docker. Once that’s finally mirrored the way I want I’ll wipe the windows machine, install Debian, and move all the containers back over to it.
Microsoft can go fornicate themselves with a chainsaw.
less a question and more of an opinion. is there an opinion community? maybe post there instead
I don’t really know and am not going to take time to look for example articles, but it seems like I’ve seen a lot of stories lately where Microsoft has a lot of ability to track users internally in Windows 11 for better “spyware” for Microsoft’s own financial gain. Largely it seems to be to get people to use more of Microsoft’s paid services that have recurring fees, which will benefit Microsoft financially more in the long run than a one-time upgrade fee.
I guess that’s the boringly probable answer. They need to eventually get everyone to switch, before 10 becomes unsupported anyway, so they might as well also try and get everyone onto the new spy-riffic, service-tastic version, as soon as possible.
Boring dystopia vibes.
My insane thoughts are this, Microsoft wants all your data so they may use it to sell you something, from the advertisers they made money from by sharing your information.
Microsoft is also in bed with OpenAI. It seems OpenAI wants an operating system that will require you, as a user, surrendering to them full access and control of everything. https://gizmodo.com/openai-wants-to-control-your-computer-1851240566
Profit and control are the ultimate goal, imo.
I won’t claim to know for sure, but I’ll place my bet on it still being about motivated by profit and growth. Supposedly Windows 10 was supposed to be the last Windows ever, and move to an eternal patching process, but I guess that didn’t stick. So obviously just keeping you on Windows isn’t enough, they found a need to create a refresh.
I did notice that refresh has new hardware requirements, like TPM modules and such. Deals with the OEMs to get people to buy/build new PCs?
There’s talk of advertisements and sponsored links in the very Start Menu, so partnerships with advertisers to get closer to your daily activities?
I won’t say I know for sure, because I only use Windows for video games. So, I too will be running Windows 10 until the games don’t work anymore. Might I recommend, if you can get a copy, Windows 10 LTSC? It is a bared bones version of Windows made (by Microsoft) for enterprises and governments who would never buy into consumer features like advertising and analytics, so it’s very clean, fast, and not full of spying junk or ads like the Home versions. And it hasn’t bugged me once about upgrading. All my games run fine after some one-time minor command prompt foolery to get the Store and XBOX game pass apps back.
EDIT: Also, LTSC is Long-Term Support Channel, so additionally it will be supported longer than the regular editions, and be safer longer. Unless they change their minds this time around of course, but I doubt it. You don’t rush the government through a PC upgrade if you want them to fund you.
LTSC also doesn’t get incremental updates other than absolutely critical vulnerability fixes. It’s specifically meant for machines that need everything to function exactly the same over a long period of time, e.g. point of sale machines, the accounting/inventory machine that hangs out in the back office, so on. You aren’t going to get any major update or overhaul pushed to an LTSC version of Windows.
LTSC can also be a pain in the tuchus to get your hands on as an individual. If you have an MSDN account however (like through work or school) they often come with a bunch of keys for Microsoft products, including LTSC products. You can check here, just try logging in with your work/school email - even if it’s non-Microsoft - and see what happens.
If you can’t get your hands on an LTSC copy, then at a minimum try getting a copy of Windows 10/11 “N”, which comes without Windows Media Player and Skype pre-installed. It’s nowhere near as clean as LTSC, but every little bit helps.
I wouldn’t say it’s only Critical, LTSC still gets average security fixes. They don’t get Feature updates, but they still get Security updates, is how it’s normally put. And it’s not as bad as it sounds. Even as a gamer stability is a good thing, and there are plenty of third party softwares for any desirable “features” that get delayed or skipped. If LTSC gets any fewer security updates it’s because it has less built in crap to need updating.
I’ve never needed funny graphics in my taskbar search bar or Bing in my start menu or the Edge bar or whatever it was that now clutters my friend’s task bars as of the last Feature update. But I still get my security fixes and Defender definitions every Patch Tuesday.
But the trick is getting a copy, true.
There’s talk of advertisements and sponsored links in the very Start Menu, so partnerships with advertisers to get closer to your daily activities?
That’s probably a big part of it. I’ve become so jaded about that whole thing that I’m almost past objecting to it, on any philosophical level. I just wish new Windows versions wouldn’t always add so much CPU and memory overhead.
I mean, shit, I’ve got an almost-four-year-old Android tablet that I use for watching YouTube (and pornography) from the comfort of my bed, and that thing manages to do whatever behind-the-scenes tracking of my activities it wants to do, without sucking up 28 percent of the whole system’s resources, just to run the OS.
And that fucker wasn’t any kind of top-of-the-line powerhouse, when I got it. And I expect to still be using it for at least another year, if not two.
Mobile OSs tend to be less resource intensive not only because they expect weaker hardware, but because they’re not built around quite as much multitasking. It’s not doing as much in the BG as your desktop…at least not as a computer.
Windows 7 is 15 years old. That’s a long time to go with no new functionality. You may not care, but Microsoft is gonna need a critical mass of people to want that to make it economical to maintain a release for 15 years.
If you don’t want to use something like Linux, which does offer more flexibility to keep UI the same, then I’d probably try adopting software packages that aren’t going to change so that an update has less impact on you. Don’t use the OS’s bundled file manager or text editor or music player or whatever; use a third-party package that’s maintained UI consistency and been around for a long time.
Windows 7 is 15 years old. That’s a long time to go with no new functionality
Did I say they couldn’t add new functionality? They could add whatever the fuck they want. There just wasn’t any reason to change the core system. Nothing about actual computer system architecture has changed over the last 15 years that would warrant that.
New CPUs? They will have drivers. New GPUs? They will have drivers. No problem. Anything else you can possibly think of? Drivers. Drivers will handle it.
There hasn’t been any need to majorly change anything about the core functions of any operating system, for the last 25 years. Conservatively.
Microsoft’s decided that they want to make changes. If what you want to do is vent about it, then you can vent about it, but it isn’t gonna change that. Nobody here is going to change Microsoft’s policy on the matter.
You’ve already looked at changing OSes, decided that you don’t want to do that. Okay, fine.
You’ve decided not to disregard security updates and compatibility with new software. So you are gonna have to upgrade at some point.
So then your options are to suck it up, which it doesn’t sound like you’re happy with, or to try to figure out what UI you can keep consistent across releases. I’m just suggesting that given what you’ve said, I’d probably consider doing the latter if I were you.
I don’t much like UI change myself. On Linux, I used xdm (login manager from the late 1980s) until I recently switched to Wayland and emptty (a terminal-based login manager). I do some work in bash (dates to the 1980s), a bunch in emacs in a terminal (1970s) and use a Web browser for a lot of the rest (which mostly depends on changes in remote websites). It’s not that I don’t agree with wanting to keep muscle memory and expertise intact. It’s just that yelling into the void isn’t gonna get you there. You do have the ability to partly mitigate what you don’t want, if you’re willing to put some effort in.
If you don’t like the touchscreen-oriented Metro stuff in newer Windows releases, I know that you can back much of that out. googles Here’s someone doing that, on a forum dedicated to backing out Microsoft’s UI changes:
https://winclassic.net/thread/328/tools-win10-11-get-classic
I disabled all the touchscreen nonsense the VERY DAY that was forced to install Windows 10. It’s still bloated and inefficient and inferior to Windows 7. And 11 will be even worse, even if I can make it look mostly like the current version.
And yeah, I guess I was venting. I was also genuinely wondering if there was some specific benefit that Microsoft would gain from me upgrading, that I hadn’t thought about. The answer seems to be “nah, they just want to be able to advertise to you more effectively, and suck up your data.”
Whatever.
A lot of the long-term support for OSes are for security updates. I’m sure they haven’t added new features in a decade or more but security patches keep rolling out. These cover not just actual bugs in the code but also addressing evolving standards for encryption, hardware insecurities, etc.
https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-26/product_id-17153/Microsoft-Windows-7.html
I think Windows 8 is the most hated version of Windows ever. Balmer jumped the gun on that one, trying to integrate UI design between Microsoft phones and desktop Windows, was never seen as a benefit by users. I guess many believe Windows 7 was the last really good version of Windows.
Personally I love these Windows upgrades, every single one of them. They are always good opportunities for Linux users to get good hardware dirt cheap.
As to why Microsoft wants you to upgrade IDK, maybe because it helps OEMs sell more machines, each with a paid Windows license?
Microsoft may also have upped the level of advertising and found more ways to monetize it.I think Windows 8 is the most hated version of Windows ever.
You must not have been around for Millenium Edition.
WindowsME was really a bad and traumatic moment. He had a mental block ;)
Yes I was, and that was bad, but people mostly hated it for being bloated. Windows 8 was a whole other level of hate. Millennium was more like Vista.
ME had only partial compatibility with DOS software despite being a DOS based OS, but it also did not support the newer NT kernel that XP was based on. It was very unstable, even worse than 98 was. It was even worse than XP prior to the 2004 Service Pack that fixed XP. It was so bad that it only existed for a single year.
The biggest problem people had with 8 was the Metro UI. And yeah, that thing was hideous. Prioritized touxhscreens over actual desktop productivity.
But 8 was functionally faster than 7. I’d even say that Vista users suffered more than 8 users.
I challenge your claim that Windows 8 is/was the most hated version of Windows.
Let me remind you of the trainwreck that was Windows ME.Windows ME did not have forced upgrades, and was more like Vista.
many believe Windows 7 was the last really good version of Windows
That’s not a belief. It’s a fact.
As to why Microsoft wants you to upgrade IDK, maybe because it helps OEMs sell more machines, each with a paid Windows license?
How does that connect to me being borderline tricked into accepting a free “upgrade” on my desktop PC, in my house, over the top of my existing Windows 10 install. They think I’m going to get “hooked” on the new Windows bells and whistles, and go begging my boss to upgrade our workstations, at the office?
Microsoft may also have upped the level of advertising and found more ways to monetize it.
I think this is the bingo. The new version has more and more ways to make money off of user data, selling you services, whatever.
How does that connect to me being borderline tricked into accepting a free “upgrade”
Maybe it fucks up your computer, especially if it’s an older one, so you give up on it, and buy a new one that just works.
I doubt it. It’ll just be bloated and annoying, for no reason. Even on the new machines.
You sound like my buddies 10yo daughter when she hops online to play games with us. “Everything is not fair, I want it to magically change without my intervention and I don’t want to do anything about it or be told to take action or take advice that is given.”
Advertising. They want to embed advertising to generate more revenue.
Boringly, this seems to be the consensus. I actually don’t give a fuck. Advertising doesn’t bother me on the red-hot-rage level that it bothers some people. I am under no obligation to buy anything, just because I’ve seen an ad.
Also, if ads support Windows being gratis, that’s basically okay with me. Having to drop substantial money on operating systems wasn’t fun.
This is completely off topic but have you ever actually bought an OS? The last one my family paid for with cash was GeoWorks.
My dude, the first operating system I bought was MS-DOS 6.22. I went miles and miles out of my way, because there was a community college in my area that was (possibly crookedly) selling it to people with the student discount, even if they weren’t students. I have forgotten the exact details, because of all the intervening years.
Then I got Windows 3.1 pre-installed on several machines, then bought the Windows 95 upgrade package, then Windows 98, then XP, then a machine that already had ME, then one that already had Vista, then I bought 7, then I bought 10. They were all annoyingly expensive.
