[deanhills]

That may be the case from vendors, but Microsoft themselves are not providing service, support or updates for Windows 7. The company I was with made the transition to Windows 10 due to the EOL of Windows 7 and 3 of my clients all made the transition precovid due to this same thing. Windows 7 was a great platform, but from the horses mouth they are no longer supporting it.

I'm in the same boat as @sagher.  I did try an upgrade to Windows 10 with an old laptop Thinkpad with decent specs (4GB RAM), but soon learned that Windows 10 can only work optimally on a computer of which the motherboard has been designed for Windows 10.  The initial upgrade was awesome, but when those updates started to rain down it completely froze my laptop.  There were all kinds of strange things happening too - i.e. hardware issues because of incompatibility with Windows 10. Kudos to Microsoft for the really efficient upgrade system from earlier versions of Windows, but if they could have fixed it so that the updates could be managed more optimally for an older computer system, then it could have worked much better. That part killed it for me as the packages were just too large, and the sad thing is too that not all of those updates are really necessary.  If Microsoft could have created a "lite" version of updates intended for Windows 7 upgrades it could have made all of the difference.

But then maybe I'm also a bit cynical as Microsoft has been in cahoots with hardware manufacturers from the very start of Microsoft from the 1980s.  So possibly the intention is to get us to throw out our old and perfectly working hardware and replace it with a new more compatible system to fit Windows 10.  I'm not ready to do that yet.  So am keeping fingers crossed for a little longer life on my Windows 7 computer.

So far I haven't had any issues yet, but I do anticipate that as time marches on that there will be new applications created with no support for Windows 7.  I haven't felt that pinch yet, but if it does affect me, then I'll have to think of doing something different.  Who knows, maybe Arch Linux?

In the meanwhile I agree with you.  Businesses obviously don't have any choice but to upgrade to Windows 10 and what a lovely lucrative business has been created for the hardware companies as I guess the upgrade to Windows 10 would also include upgrades to more up to date hardware that is completely compatible with Windows 10.

[tbelldesignco]

I'm in the same boat as @sagher.  I did try an upgrade to Windows 10 with an old laptop Thinkpad with decent specs (4GB RAM), but soon learned that Windows 10 can only work optimally on a computer of which the motherboard has been designed for Windows 10.  The initial upgrade was awesome, but when those updates started to rain down it completely froze my computer.  Kudos to Microsoft for the really efficient upgrade system, but if they could have fixed it so that the updates could be managed more optimally for an older computer system, then it could have worked much better. That part killed it for me as the packages were just too large, and the sad thing is too that not all of those updates are really necessary.  If Microsoft could have created a "lite" version of updates it could have made all of the difference.

But then maybe I'm also a bit cynical as Microsoft has been in cahoots with hardware manufacturers from the very start of Microsoft from the 1980s.  So possibly the intention is to get us to throw out our old and perfectly working hardware and replace it with a new more compatible system.  I'm not ready to do that yet.  So am keeping fingers crossed for a little longer life on my Windows 7 computer.

So far I haven't had any issues yet, but I do anticipate that as time marches on that there will be new applications created with no support for Windows 7.  I haven't felt that pinch yet, but if it does affect me, then I'll have to think of doing something different.  Who knows, maybe Linux - maybe Arch Linux?

In the meanwhile I agree with you.  Businesses obviously don't have any choice but to upgrade to Windows 10 and what a lovely lucrative business is created for the hardware companies as I guess the upgrade to Windows 10 would also include upgrade to more up to date hardware.

Microsoft and Apple are very similar in that regard, they tend to work with their hardware manufactures (HP, Dell, Lenovo and the likes) that way more people flock to the new OS and the latest hardware is compatible with it. When hardware begins to depreciate, they build that into their plans and start to drop support for machines or throttle hardware in the code so users will have to buy new machines. Apple did this from the transition of PowerPC to Intel and will begin this from Intel to Apple Silicone (M1/M1X).

Arch Linux does look very promising, I think it is a high contender with Ubuntu and some of the more renown GUI Based Distros. I've also had an eye on ElementaryOS, but for Windows users it may be too much of a depart from what they are use too, as it is heavily modified and designed to look like macOS.

[tiwil]

In the meanwhile I agree with you.  Businesses obviously don't have any choice but to upgrade to Windows 10 and what a lovely lucrative business has been created for the hardware companies as I guess the upgrade to Windows 10 would also include upgrades to more up to date hardware that is completely compatible with Windows 10.

Agree about this. Business will spend their money to keep their software up to date, especially for security (which is an "issue" for Windows 7). They don't want to lose their data because of viruses. Some workers that may not be to fluent to use computer can harm the computer itself if the security inside is not high enough to protect them. Losing data means losing more money too.

Alternative is using Linux but I believe this is hard to do since we need to teach them how to do in Linux. Also if one are using Microsoft Office, one should relearn Libre Office which is a lot different from Ms Office. It is possible to use Google's service like Docs and Spreadsheet but since it's web-based then we will need to learn new shortcut for each function.

[fChk]

This has all been super insightful as I try to rebuild the distro I was working on, from what I’ve collected is that folks value an easy to use package manager, stability and security. Does everyone like yum, apt or dnf for their package manager better?

Okay!... Back to the Basics..

A GNU/Linux system is the union of two open-source projects:
> Richard Stallman's GNU project
> Linus Torvald's Linux kernel

To make an operational OS out of those two projects, you need to build it from them; this task needs some serious competence in OS engineering and the labor of a large team of qualified system engineers. This is what Linux distributions contribute to the mix.

Originally there was 5 distros; RedHat and Debian were among them. To build and manage the thousands of the GNU project's software source code, each distribution had to build their own package manager; for RedHat it was RPM, then YUM, then DNF.

All the RedHat forks will inevitably inherit the same semantics and artifacts that the original distro use. Hence their familiarity for anyone who will use them coming from the original distro.

The problem of switching between those 5 original distros is that you're disrupting the expectations that you've come to expect of your system, having internalized the way your original distribution works.. Thus you'll be wasting a lot of time tracking down the way the new distro. is doing things (SELinux vs. AppArmor for example ...)

Each distribution of the original 5 (the rest are just forks.. meaning sugar-coating) have a well-thought-through way of approaching an Operating System from the various ways of functionality, security, performance, package management etc.. even though they are all using the same ingredients, ie. the Linux kernel and teh GNU-project's software... This is my way of saying that comparing the APT package manager versus DNF is irrelevant across distributions. People will use whatever package manager the distribution they are using HAS!

[tbelldesignco]

Okay!... Back to the Basics..

A GNU/Linux system is the union of two open-source projects:
> Richard Stallman's GNU project
> Linus Torvald's Linux kernel

To make an operational OS out of those two projects, you need to build it from them; this task needs some serious competence in OS engineering and the labor of a large team of qualified system engineers. This is what Linux distributions contribute to the mix.

Originally there was 5 distros; RedHat and Debian were among them. To build and manage the thousands of the GNU project's software source code, each distribution had to build their own package manager; for RedHat it was RPM, then YUM, then DNF.

All the RedHat forks will inevitably inherit the same semantics and artifacts that the original distro use. Hence their familiarity for anyone who will use them coming from the original distro.

The problem of switching between those 5 original distros is that you're disrupting the expectations that you've come to expect of your system, having internalized the way your original distribution works.. Thus you'll be wasting a lot of time tracking down the way the new distro. is doing things (SELinux vs. AppArmor for example ...)

Each distribution of the original 5 (the rest are just forks.. meaning sugar-coating) have a well-thought-through way of approaching an Operating System from the various ways of functionality, security, performance, package management etc.. even though they are all using the same ingredients, ie. the Linux kernel and teh GNU-project's software... This is my way of saying that comparing the APT package manager versus DNF is irrelevant across distributions. People will use whatever package manager the distribution they are using HAS!

Noted and thank you for the helpful information. I actually watched a few YouTube videos over this topic not too long ago and they spelled out everything you did and went into the Darwin derived operating systems as well, which is so interesting to think that all of these operating systems we know today including macOS and Windows all have a common ancestor and then forked out into what we know today. For what I’m doing I am leaning more towards APT, but that’s because I have more experience with it.

[sagher]

So my Key discussion is that the Microsoft Corp is not so good in updates. if you like to get maximum output from your old Hardware even new upcoming running market places machines then don't make offence updates. Microsoft is one of those Corp who manufacture or built and forget. so as @deanhills described to my point of view. I hats off on him. more then 60% users are happy after turns off there auto update features. even me too. and i instantly got specific update or program from internet and solution is awesome without make full system update and push burden on low end machines.
i have many USB to RS232 cables which not works on windows 8,10. also PCMCIA cards. some old android recovery software's. old USB drivers, MIDI drivers, old HP printers. and many many more unique things which hot has support in new windows 8 and 10.

same as Ubuntu and Debian has fast updates but still you need kali Linux for cracking patching.

[tbelldesignco]

So my Key discussion is that the Microsoft Corp is not so good in updates. if you like to get maximum output from your old Hardware even new upcoming running market places machines then don't make offence updates. Microsoft is one of those Corp who manufacture or built and forget. so as @deanhills described to my point of view. I hats off on him. more then 60% users are happy after turns off there auto update features. even me too. and i instantly got specific update or program from internet and solution is awesome without make full system update and push burden on low end machines.
i have many USB to RS232 cables which not works on windows 8,10. also PCMCIA cards. some old android recovery software's. old USB drivers, MIDI drivers, old HP printers. and many many more unique things which hot has support in new windows 8 and 10.

same as Ubuntu and Debian has fast updates but still you need kali Linux for cracking patching.

One thing that I learned is that you may be able to download those drivers and emulate them in compatibility mode. When I was running Windows full time on my work machine, I could not stand Windows updates, I always had an issue where my system cache file would corrupt and subsequently all my updates for Windows (drivers were typically fine) would fail to install. That started happening with the 1809 feature release and never really sorted itself out and that's why I went back to Mac.

[deanhills]

That started happening with the 1809 feature release and never really sorted itself out and that's why I went back to Mac.

What a coincidence @tbelldesignco  That was the exact point where I changed back to Windows 7.  One of the updates caused my Thinkpad Laptop screen to go black.  When I Googled it I found that this issue was all over.  So Microsoft must know there is an issue as it was even documented at their support discussion forum.  I then accepted that I'll never get away with hardware that isn't compatible with Windows 10.

@sagher has given me a good pointer though.  To just turn Windows 10 updates off.  That is also something I found, like hundreds of quality tutorials how to turn off updates permanently.  I don't think we're the exception here. There are many MANY users who are very frustrated with Windows 10 updates.

The fact one can do it though - fiddle with the Windows 10 settings, probably is a testimony to how leaky and inferior Windows 10 updates are from a technical point of view.  Marketing wise Windows 10 has the whole world at its feet.  And probably keeping every one at its feet with having a leaky OS that requires an infinite number of updates all of the time.  And not really caring that so many systems can't work with all of the updates.  Like probably looking at failed instances of the updates as collateral damage only.

[tbelldesignco]

What a coincidence @tbelldesignco  That was the exact point where I changed back to Windows 7.  One of the updates caused my Thinkpad Laptop screen to go black.  When I Googled it I found that this issue was all over.  So Microsoft must know there is an issue as it was even documented at their support discussion forum.  I then accepted that I'll never get away with hardware that isn't compatible with Windows 10.

@sagher has given me a good pointer though.  To just turn Windows 10 updates off.  That is also something I found, like hundreds of quality tutorials how to turn off updates permanently.  I don't think we're the exception here.  There are many MANY users who are very frustrated with Windows 10 updates.

The fact one can do it though - fiddle with the Windows 10 settings, probably is a testimony to how leaky and inferior Windows 10 updates are from a technical point of view.  Marketing wise Windows 10 has the whole world at its feet.  And probably keeping every one at its feet with having a leaky OS that requires an infinite number of updates all of the time.  And not really caring that so many systems can't work with all of the updates.  Like probably looking at failed instances of the updates as collateral damage only.

Yes, that is part of the reason that I went back to Mac too is that I know my updates will work, often times, with out an issue as Apple is constantly curating their updates to work with 1) its hardware or hardware it has hand selected to be in its products and 2) out moded machines will still get supplemental updates that are guaranteed to work with their machines. I see why people choose to opt for windows, but for me and what I do macOS was always the best product especially with the ecosystem integration they are working so hard for that I could see M1/M1X Macs in the future having more integration with my iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad and AppleTVs now that the silicone and software are designed by Apple with the only limitations being what their Silicone Engineers and Development teams can think of.

[sagher]

The Big ever reason is almost 70% costume updates are useless. and Microsoft bitterly impose each and everything on user who make auto update turns on. with that kind of load which automatically started when you turn on your machine and all internet speed sucks by updates. and suddenly PC goes to restart option. and you know what the hate %age blue screen is come out to roasting you. and user said. all my work go F**kOff ok just do update for an hour. i do my work on any other time.... !!!
Even google page not open when updates running on background.