If Microsoft weren't a bloated corporate culture divorced from reality they would have followed John C. Dvorak's brilliant advice ... keep XP forever.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2454844,00.asp
But no, they want to try the Apple style "new OS down your throat every year" model.
And I say let Apple and Microsoft do precisely that. It's just yet another reason to use Linux.
I haven't used Windows on any of my machines since 2002. And some of the mainstays you have to put up with on both OS X and Windows I find to be simply unacceptable now. A few of the bigger ones:
- Needing anti-virus. Either a crappy free anti-virus that doesn't do a good job ... or a mega-corporate anti-virus which is cheapish but sodomizes your computer's resources .... or a good one that is expensive.
- Needing to go through some complicated, time consuming, and risky to your data OS upgrade every 6 months to 18 months if you want the latest OS. In my Linux, I just keep on updating everything. Whenever I want. I can even just update security stuff if I don't want to be bothered.
- Having to update non-OS vital software manually one by one. In my Linux, I update the entire software stack at once. Browsers, photo editors, office suites, video editors. It all updates in one. The only exception is games, and Steam keeps those up to date automatically in the background.
- Not having a powerful and versatile command line. Windows Powershell is like somebody tried to make MS-DOS as good as a Linux shell from 1999 and gave up half way through. Utter ****. OS X's command line is somewhat different but pretty close, and with some hammering you can get a proper Linux CLI in there. People invariably go "omg I don't understand any of that you're typing is this the NSA what is going on LOL IMADUMBASS AND PROUD". When they first understand it is when somebody asks me to fix something on their computer. If it is Windows, I have to, from memory, tell them where to go through menu after menu after screen after button after tab and window after button after tab after menu after menu. It's f'n horrible. God help you if they are visually impaired and the config screen they bring up is busy. In Linux I can just say "here, copy and paste that into a shell." Job done.
- Not having *COMPLETE AND TOTAL* control of what the computer is doing. In every way.
- Do you honestly think the NSA doesn't have its tentacles in OS X and Windows?
People who think the allure of Linux is that is cost nothing miss the bigger point. The power of total platform freedom and a vastly more elegant, versatile, powerful, and efficient design and tool set is a more powerful sell than any price point ever could be.