adamhm: It benefits them in a number of ways. It helps to reinforce lock-in, keeping users tethered to their ecosystem & making it more difficult to move to competing products (primarily Android and Linux, but also MacOS/iOS). Also they're shifting focus towards "services", which includes Windows as a central component... think about how tightly Microsoft's other services are tied into it; the Windows store, their cloud services etc.

And don't forget all the data mining; Windows 10 is "free" in much the same way that Google's services & Android are. The information they can collect is extremely valuable to advertisers, and Microsoft could even push advertisements to users directly through Windows itself.

I wouldn't be surprised if Windows ends up being made free (or close to free) on a permanent basis and users end up having to pay for extra features & support as time goes on, as opposed to buying a new version of Windows every few years.

Trilarion: Very nice summary. :)

Unfortunately somehow I don't think we will all be using Linux only soon.

Dog_Live: I wonder if some other third party can create processor drivers for window 7 that the intel / AMD refused to create. Who knows they can profit from it like what Stardock profit from Microsoft refusal to bring back the start menu with start8.

Elenarie: This will be the year of Linux!

tinyE: RELAX EVERYONE RELAX!

There has been a slight mistake and everyone at Skylake wishes to apologize.

What the memo was supposed to say was "Skylake users given 18 months to live."

Everyone take a deep breath and calm down; your computer will still work with previous versions of windows 18 months from now. You won't, but it will.

Klumpen0815: Stop complaining about Microsoft already, people. Just use GNU/Linux and you're good.

Tarm: Well I just did accumulated updates for Windows 10 and it literally broke my system. After a lot of restarts I thought I was done. After leaving my computer for a while (Most stuffs seemed to work.) I now have a black screen where I can only see my mouse marker and the COMODO firewall monitor up in the right corner. Bollocks!

Edit: Reboot doesn't help and the only thing that responds are COMODO. Nothing else at all.

Elmofongo: I don't wanna deal with an OS that is clunky and unintuitive.

Elmofongo: I don't wanna deal with an OS that is clunky and unintuitive.
Elmofongo: I have not updated my PC in a awhile and it has

45 updates avaliable

And so far nothing bad happened to my PC.

Tarm: I got tired of the constant nagging. Thought that while it was discussed here, windows 10, I might as well install the updates. I had no idea it could go so bad. I've had programs borked up by updates and other stuff before but never essentially locking me out of my own PC. That was a whole new level of bad update.

Elmofongo: So should I update 1 by 1 or not update at all because I have been told nothing bad happens if you don't update.

Elmofongo: So should I update 1 by 1 or not update at all because I have been told nothing bad happens if you don't update.

OlivawR: Sorry, but if you're afraid of a simple update, why don't you backup the system partition? Update after, and if something bad happens revert.