Windows 7's market share dropped sharply in July

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Migration to Windows 10 accelerates as Windows 7 end-of-support looms (January 2020).

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Read more.

Hardly surprising.

My Win 7 machines, and even XP machines, are staying as 7 and XP though.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

Hardly surprising.

My Win 7 machines, and even XP machines, are staying as 7 and XP though.

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There are plenty of good arguments to do this. I know someone who has a 2011 MacBook air similar to mine and he does not update it at all. His runs significantly better than mine and lacks no features of note... just has a lot of security holes which is the only reason I update mine.

My only fear is the day they turn off the activation servers

I will say I am one of the ones to convert last month. Everything was on 10 expect my HTPC happily running windows 7 media center. After extensive testing/tweaking it is now running windows 10 with media portal 2.

Was always something I thought about doing and the end of support give me that final kick.

Still running W7, and will continue to do so for another year or so. After that it's Linux for me.
I'm done with Microsoft.

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Originally Posted by AGTDenton

My only fear is the day they turn off the activation servers

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I would hope that on that day they would send out a final patch to permanently activate all copies and sever the server connection rather than disabling any copies already out. I'd expect that would be seen by certain organisations (say the EU courts) as being a bit of a dick move even if the T&C means they can do it.

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Originally Posted by AGTDenton

My only fear is the day they turn off the activation servers

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I assume they are a cloud service, using less resource every year. They shouldn't need to turn off really.

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

I assume they are a cloud service, using less resource every year. They shouldn't need to turn off really.

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What if it rains?

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Originally Posted by AGTDenton

My only fear is the day they turn off the activation servers

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I hope they do, once it stops getting supported it's antisocial to leave a W7 system connected to the net. Of course, an air-gapped system won't know or care about the servers anyway

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Originally Posted by Xlucine

I hope they do, once it stops getting supported it's antisocial to leave a W7 system connected to the net. Of course, an air-gapped system won't know or care about the servers anyway

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It might if a component fails and you have to repair the system using a replacement.

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

It might if a component fails and you have to repair the system using a replacement.

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But, people with aur-gapped systems can always re-install from backups or, in case of absolute necessity, re-instll the way they installed in the first pkace, which didn't involve activation servers. What that might be would deoend on OS version, and the required validation process.

"Windows 7's market share dropped sharply in July"

Not in my house it didn't! :)

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

But, people with aur-gapped systems can always re-install from backups or, in case of absolute necessity, re-instll the way they installed in the first pkace, which didn't involve activation servers. What that might be would deoend on OS version, and the required validation process.

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That might work if re-installing onto a Dell with the built in licence key. I thought 7 usually wanted an initial dial out though. Dunno, it's been a while.

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

That might work if re-installing onto a Dell with the built in licence key. I thought 7 usually wanted an initial dial out though. Dunno, it's been a while.

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Usually, yes. But not always.

I was trying to avoid being too specific, but there are at least two ways of avoiding that. One is on a VL licence with an available key server, and the other, designed when a KMS isn't available, even allows for unattended script installation. This, as far as I remember, doesn't apply to retail versions, though. Hence .... "usually".

As I understand it, this is one of the ways some .... erm ... less than legitimate ways work, but it also applies in Volume Licensing situations. My W7 licences came direct from MS Press Office because I had several test systems which were being installed, used to test 'whatever' in a known, "clean" environment, then formatted, re-install and .... repeat as necessary. So I had it scripted to be installing, unattended with a MAK code, so I could be concentrating on another job.

That is, clearly, not a 'normal' situation, hence why I said it depended on the "required activation process" for, in our example, someone using an air-gapped setup. If you are doing so, and have the relevant keys, you don't need to connect to the net to activate at all.

There's also something nagging at the back of my memory about a process where, when that activation process would normally "dial out" you could ring MS, quote yoyr product code and they'd give you an activation code which you typed in. It was to avoid this hassle that I asked for the volume keys.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

There's also something nagging at the back of my memory about a process where, when that activation process would normally "dial out" you could ring MS, quote yoyr product code and they'd give you an activation code which you typed in. It was to avoid this hassle that I asked for the volume keys.

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Yeah, I've had to do that and the last time the person was replaced with an automated system. It even noticed I was on a mobile and sent a link to some web app to make it easier.

I do have to wonder how much piracy all that stuff actually stopped, vs just getting in the way of us paying customers (he typed from the comfort of a Linux box ;) )