Bad News for Microsoft: Windows 10 Loses Market Share Again

Zarathustra[H] said:
I don't blame people.

I'm tempted to roll back to Windows 7 on an almost daily basis.

The most recent reason? Parental controls are gone from Windows 10, unless you want to tie your computer to an online Microsoft account, and create online Microsoft accounts for your kids.

Pisses me off to no end. There is no way a local machine should ever be tied to an online account. I refuse to have any computer in my in my house on my network with anything but local accounts only. The computer should not be interacting with any server or service ever, unless it is explicitly requested by the user (like logging onto a FTP server, or something like that)

I'm looking for some third party alternative software to do what Microsofts parental controls used to do. There has to be something, but my search has come up short. For now I'm resorting to physically controlling it, by maintaining physical control of the power cord, which Kiddo only gets when all homework is done.
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The MS monopoly machine took care of the parental control providers long ago.

This is what happens when a monopoly company like them is allowed to continue adding "features". At some point when the competition is long gone they can do whatever they like... your example is perfect. Tying up control over your childrens online exposure by forcing them to sign up for an online service is a pretty big F U. I know I'm well known for hating MS... really though they make it really hard to support the handful of non douch things they do.
 
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c3k said:
The invasive requirement to use an ms account on a local machine is nonsensical.
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You don't have to use an MS account. When it asks you to set one up, you just click "skip this" and then it lets you make a local account.
 
Windows 10 is dead and has been for a while now, it lost to 7 over the holidays.

Microsoft should have declared the desktop 'done' and just kept re-releasing 7 with the latest hardware support every couple years. Maybe they could have gone the subscription route and offered a free version with ads. Turning Windows into a phablet OS with an app store was never going to work.
 
JRUHg said:
but but DX12
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The only game that I know that actively requires Win 10 (not DX12) are GoW games, every other game that offered DX12 mode also offers a DX11 mode, which Win 10 is not necessary for.

I skipped 8.1 almost completely as 8.1 had games that didn't work for me at all, recent ones too, so I reverted back to 7 and never went near it again. Win 10, ironically, does run more older games than win 7, I just haven't bothered to reinstall 10 because I don't have the need to yet, but will be going back soon.
 
Frankly, I'm surprised it's still losing marketshare. They still haven't turned off the free upgrade from Win7 yet. I've done 5 clean installs of Win10 Pro using Win7 keys and the Media Creation Tool and have had 5 successful activations since they supposedly stopped the offer.

My latest one? Last weekend. I even re-downloaded the media creation tool from their site just in case. LMAO.
 
Until a really compelling game comes out I nuked windows for Fedora 25 and haven't looked back. But I'm a developer so I'm in a different camp.
 
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gigatexal said:
Until a really compelling game comes out I nuked windows for Fedora 25 and haven't looked back. But I'm a developer so I'm in a different camp.
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I've been dual booting forever, first Red Hat (back before Fedora) then Gentoo, later Ubuntu and now Mint. I've never been able to 100% nuke Windows though. I've always needed it for one reason or another. Windows 10 is really pissing me off though, to the point that I could just suck up what I'd be missing and do it.
 
Windows 10, the next 10 years are going to be interesting the way things are going, that's for sure....
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I've been dual booting forever, first Red Hat (back before Fedora) then Gentoo, later Ubuntu and now Mint. I've never been able to 100% nuke Windows though. I've always needed it for one reason or another. Windows 10 is really pissing me off though, to the point that I could just suck up what I'd be missing and do it.
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Exactly the route I went. I have duel booted for a long time, and even though I work installing Linux for companies I was always still the guy that said just run windows to most people. MS started doing far to many things that got on my nerves and at times when I wouldn't log windows for a week or two I would come back to tons of forced updates and changes. It felt like they switched spots with Linux for me. As Linux used to be the OS I would have to tinker with to make work as I wanted all the time. In a fit of rage I killed my Win 10 drive... a few weeks later I installed Win7 on a smaller drive I had to take care of a handful of Windows games that just aren't on Linux or don't run as well as I like under Wine. As I had almost always done whatever work type stuff I needed to do under Linux anyway, it really wasn't that painful. If it wasn't for a few online games I would never boot Windows anymore. For those games though Win 7 is perfectly fine... and when the day comes MS kills support for Win7 if I still care about any windows games I will swollow Win 8.1.
 
chenw said:
The only game that I know that actively requires Win 10 (not DX12) are GoW games, every other game that offered DX12 mode also offers a DX11 mode, which Win 10 is not necessary for.

I skipped 8.1 almost completely as 8.1 had games that didn't work for me at all, recent ones too, so I reverted back to 7 and never went near it again. Win 10, ironically, does run more older games than win 7, I just haven't bothered to reinstall 10 because I don't have the need to yet, but will be going back soon.
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I went back to 8.1, cause Win 10 couldn't play my old RF Online game.
 
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I switched my HTPC back to window 7 and my Desktop back to window 8.1 about 2 weeks ago. I did the old college try and gave Kodi a year long chance to win me over, in the end I hated it just as much after a year as I did in the beginning. Since I put all my bluray and dvd on my home server, I like having window media center to play them whenever I feel like watching a movie. I also record over the air content when I want to see something and I won' t be home.

I don't feel I have went backwards because we have yet to have any really good DX 12 games and we don't have any good media center replacement programs.
 
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dcds1 said:
I switched my HTPC back to window 7 and my Desktop back to window 8.1 about 2 weeks ago. I did the old college try and gave Kodi a year long chance to win me over, in the end I hated it just as much after a year as I did in the beginning. Since I put all my bluray and dvd on my home server, I like having window media center to play them whenever I feel like watching a movie. I also record over the air content when I want to see something and I won' t be home.

I don't feel I have went backwards because we have yet to have any really good DX 12 games and we don't have any good media center replacement programs.
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The issue with Windows Media centre is that Microsoft support has all but been dropped, furthermore the great add-ons that made W7MC great like Media Browser have all but been dropped also.

The best thing about W7MC was FTA TV, with dual tuners the DVR/time shifting capability was downright fantastic, but without add-ons like Media Browser and the fact that DVD playback is hit and miss coupled with the fact that Blu-ray playback is just as unreliable as DVD playback using third party add-ons the usefulness of W7MC fades into obscurity.

Personally I find Kodi to be a great piece of software, far better than W7MC. Now if I could just get my MythTV server up and running with the appropriate front-end add-on I'd be one happy individual.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I've been dual booting forever, first Red Hat (back before Fedora) then Gentoo, later Ubuntu and now Mint. I've never been able to 100% nuke Windows though. I've always needed it for one reason or another. Windows 10 is really pissing me off though, to the point that I could just suck up what I'd be missing and do it.
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Dual booting is damn inconvenient. I don't want to boot another OS when I want to do something else on my computer. For example I want to play a game? Save all work, close all applications, boot another OS. It's a hassle and I don't want that at all. I wouldn't even want to play if it takes minutes of preparation and I Have to tie up all loose ends before I can do it.
 
ManofGod said:
Most folks do not care one way or the other
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yeah, "most folds". Nice fallacy when you're talking about computer tech that MOST FOLKS have NFI about in the first place. Like as if a "majority vote" in that regard means anything!

You are funny.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I've been dual booting forever, first Red Hat (back before Fedora) then Gentoo, later Ubuntu and now Mint. I've never been able to 100% nuke Windows though. I've always needed it for one reason or another. Windows 10 is really pissing me off though, to the point that I could just suck up what I'd be missing and do it.
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As one of the lucky ones that was able to completely rid myself of Windows, it was seriously one of the best things I ever did.

I just love waking my PC up to see such a nice clean uncluttered desktop customised exactly how I like it with no updating issues and I'm able to do everything I need a PC to do and more. Granted it's not for everyone, but neither is Windows 10.
 
T_A said:
No worries , Intel 7th gen and up will effectively kill Win 7 sooner than later.
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Honestly probably more later. The average user doesn't need a cpu that powerful as there hasn't been anything to push it in years now. The software market is largely stagnant. Hell I'm a gamer and because I don't see any value to resolutions above 1080p, I have zero reason to upgrade beyond just wanting to. So sure it will happen, but not particularly fast.
 
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After you buy that $1000 phone and $600+ yearly in network service you have a lot less left over for a Windows device. I bet most of the slide is people just going without altogether.
 
M76 said:
Dual booting is damn inconvenient. I don't want to boot another OS when I want to do something else on my computer. For example I want to play a game? Save all work, close all applications, boot another OS. It's a hassle and I don't want that at all. I wouldn't even want to play if it takes minutes of preparation and I Have to tie up all loose ends before I can do it.
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It's not that bad really.
 
SparkedFire said:
...


This is not a requirement.
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(Above was in response to my post not liking the requirement to have a Microsoft account.)

It IS a requirement for using, as an example, Skype. There are other MS programs which cannot be accessed/used without an MS account. So, no, you don't need an MS account to use W10, but you do need an MS account to use a lot of other software. That was the point I was (inelegantly) trying to make. Once you make an MS account, you cannot change it. At least, I have not been able to, even after talking for hours with different MS "help" people.

I despise anything which takes my local machine and tries to "cloud" it. W10 pushes that way all the time. It's annoying...at best.
 
the_servicer said:
The consensus on this forum one year ago was that Microsoft would extend the free upgrade offer beyond Summer '16. That prediction turned out to be wrong.
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If you put in a 7 or 8 code using Windows 10 installation media it will still activate.
 
tetris42 said:
Don't worry, it will swing back around once they kill support for 7. That's the advantage of having a monopoly.
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Yep resistance is futile.

I mean where else are you going to go to play the latest games.....Linux? Lol.


Wish it wasn't that way. But we kind of did it to ourselves by blindly supporting them for so many years.
 
M76 said:
Dual booting is damn inconvenient. I don't want to boot another OS when I want to do something else on my computer. For example I want to play a game? Save all work, close all applications, boot another OS. It's a hassle and I don't want that at all. I wouldn't even want to play if it takes minutes of preparation and I Have to tie up all loose ends before I can do it.
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Feel the same here. I have a triple boot system now (Win 7, Linux Mint, Win 10). And I know I can get by on Linux Mint, but it's a pain in the rear to reboot just to do something in a windows program that won't work in linux. See it's basically a simple logical problem. If I can do 90% of what I need to do in Linux and have to reboot only when I need to do those 10% of Windows only things, why would I waste my time rebooting when I can do 100% of the things I need to do in Win 7?

As far as Win 10 goes I just don't like it. Between the forced updates, privacy concerns and that horrible flat looking interface from the 80's, I'd rather just not use it. I used it for 2 days when I installed it on the last day of the "official" free upgrade and haven't had any reason or desire to go back. Funny thing is I am sure if I reboot now I'll be forced to the Anniversary upgrade and I am sure it'll most likely fuck up my triple boot setup so I am even less likely to reboot back to it now.
 
Krenum said:
Yep resistance is futile.

I mean where else are you going to go to play the latest games.....Linux? Lol.


Wish it wasn't that way. But we kind of did it to ourselves by blindly supporting them for so many years.
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Just dual boot. Windows for games, Linux for all the real computing you do. Been doing it for over a year now and I'm sorry I didn't go that route sooner. I haven't had a single problem on the Linux side since I started using it. I can't say the same for the Windows side.
 
I've been unable to install the windows anniversary update ever since it came out, but that's not the bad part. The bad part is that everytime time the update fails, windows 10 will download it again and try to install it again and again ... And then force a restart on me when it feels like it. I feel as if I no longer have ownership of my own PC.
 
M76 said:
Dual booting is damn inconvenient. I don't want to boot another OS when I want to do something else on my computer. For example I want to play a game? Save all work, close all applications, boot another OS. It's a hassle and I don't want that at all. I wouldn't even want to play if it takes minutes of preparation and I Have to tie up all loose ends before I can do it.
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It's a tradeoff for sure. On the positive side, I never have to deal with Windows unless I'm playing games. I can mess around with, and tweak whatever I want on the windows side without worrying about hosing the work side of my system. That, and boot times are so fast these days anyway.

Anyway, I'm not saying YOU should do it. I'm saying I do it and I like it. :p

That being said, you leave other applications open while gaming? I would never do that. I kill every last other process running before I launch a game. I want my machine COMPLETELY dedicated to the game when I am running it. Nothing gets to run in the background taking up RAM or CPU cycles.
 
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Isn't GPU pass through a viable option these days? I've been thinking about virtualizing my windows gaming desktop for a while now. Thinking about getting an R7 1700 and keeping my 1070. Would that work?
 
I'm surprised there's enough of us who care such that win 7 numbers are climbing and win 10 is not increasing.
My parents will just use 10 or whatever comes with their computer - they aren't changing back.
Even myself - I still have a dual boot with 10 for games. Even though I've mostly switched to Linux - I didn't roll my 10 installation back to 7 (I just don't use it ;P )

So who are all these people switching back to 7? I don't get it... There are that many nerds here?
 
Kongar said:
I'm surprised there's enough of us who care such that win 7 numbers are climbing and win 10 is not increasing.
My parents will just use 10 or whatever comes with their computer - they aren't changing back.
Even myself - I still have a dual boot with 10 for games. Even though I've mostly switched to Linux - I didn't roll my 10 installation back to 7 (I just don't use it ;P )

So who are all these people switching back to 7? I don't get it... There are that many nerds here?
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I don't think it's people switching back. It's windows 7 getting installed on new computers instead of 10.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
It is absolutely insane, and more of Microsoft's unethical strong arm tactics to force people into an ecosystem they DO NOT WANT.
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It's such a waste for mankind to have to put up with this nonsense. I'm assuming that the folks who make the decisions to behave like sneaky pricks are smart enough to make a great living by doing things the right way, honestly; after all, if they'd just keep their products working, people would gladly buy them. Instead, they go through all kinds of gyrations to insert ways of stealing personal data. Over and over again, we see these bastards inserting what are basically evil things into their products. Why?
Greed is the only answer. That, and hatred for the rest of the people.
Once they had a lock on the OS market, what, almost 20 years ago? They could have just gone ahead and written the OS from scratch, and doing it right. Instead, we get more bells and whistles that no one needs, and a crap load of code that necessitates an installation media the size of a DVD (I'm sure it will soon be a blu ray as they keep adding more junk and can't figure out what they can safely delete) in order to hold all the nonsense code that's in windows.

Come on, Microsoft. Stop with all the nonsense. We don't need bling. We just need something that works. And if you saturate the OS market? Well then, write some new programs. You know, innovate. Or even start making good hardware again. I'm still using my optical trackball from what, 2001? And some love your keyboards. Make them better, we'll buy 'em.

Instead of spending all your time making your operating system a pain in the ass.

Do the right thing. It's funny, we all know when we're doing the wrong things. Why do you keep doing the wrong things? To be assholes? Because that's how the world sees you now, and no commercials are going to change that. You and the cable companies (car companies who release faulty products and ignore the need to recall them, too). Assholes all. (oh yeah, and all the folks that make infomercials that run trying to sell junk to the gullible, they're assholes too).

We grow up being taught to do the right thing, to be honest and not cheat others.

WTF went wrong with all you people?
 
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dgz said:
Isn't GPU pass through a viable option these days? I've been thinking about virtualizing my windows gaming desktop for a while now. Thinking about getting an R7 1700 and keeping my 1070. Would that work?
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raw


I've recently looked over this, and as long as you have IOMMU and set it up correctly it should be possible to get 95%+ performance on pass-through.

Here's one guide, plenty more on the internet: https://bufferoverflow.io/gpu-passthrough/
 
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DeathFromBelow said:
Windows 10 is dead and has been for a while now, it lost to 7 over the holidays.

Microsoft should have declared the desktop 'done' and just kept re-releasing 7 with the latest hardware support every couple years. Maybe they could have gone the subscription route and offered a free version with ads. Turning Windows into a phablet OS with an app store was never going to work.
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You hurd it hear first foks, Windurs 10 be deader. ;) :D
 
HoffY said:
yeah, "most folds". Nice fallacy when you're talking about computer tech that MOST FOLKS have NFI about in the first place. Like as if a "majority vote" in that regard means anything!

You are funny.
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You know that what you just said makes no sense at all. You may want to reread that and type it out again. Most folks is what I said, what you said makes no sense at all.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I don't blame people.

I'm tempted to roll back to Windows 7 on an almost daily basis.

The most recent reason? Parental controls are gone from Windows 10, unless you want to tie your computer to an online Microsoft account, and create online Microsoft accounts for your kids.

Pisses me off to no end. There is no way a local machine should ever be tied to an online account. I refuse to have any computer in my in my house on my network with anything but local accounts only. The computer should not be interacting with any server or service ever, unless it is explicitly requested by the user (like logging onto a FTP server, or something like that)

I'm looking for some third party alternative software to do what Microsofts parental controls used to do. There has to be something, but my search has come up short. For now I'm resorting to physically controlling it, by maintaining physical control of the power cord, which Kiddo only gets when all homework is done.
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Mom? What the hell are you doing on Hardforum!?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Not a strict requirement no, but they do their best to hide the "local account only" option when you install it or create a new account, and they have removed lots of previously standard features that were usable with local accounts, and moved them to the Microsoft webpage requiring a Microsoft account.

Why on earth should I have to go to an external website to manage features of my local machine?

It is absolutely insane, and more of Microsoft's unethical strong arm tactics to force people into an ecosystem they DO NOT WANT.

They may have programmed the operating system, but it is MY computer. Not theirs.
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Since when has it been difficult? I literally just did a few Win10 installs and it asked if I wanted to create an account using an online account or local account. Not sure how that is hard...
 
As for the market share, losing Win10 to Win7 is not really that much a of a loss for MS, they are still winning.


nightfly said:
It's such a waste for mankind to have to put up with this nonsense. I'm assuming that the folks who make the decisions to behave like sneaky pricks are smart enough to make a great living by doing things the right way, honestly; after all, if they'd just keep their products working, people would gladly buy them. Instead, they go through all kinds of gyrations to insert ways of stealing personal data. Over and over again, we see these bastards inserting what are basically evil things into their products. Why?
Greed is the only answer. That, and hatred for the rest of the people.
Click to expand...

I don't agree that all the data collection is "evil" or even greedy. Thousands of computers are doing it and most for very legitimate reasons. Just because you don't like or agree with some of those reasons doesn't make them "evil".

Zarathustra[H] said:
I've been dual booting forever, first Red Hat (back before Fedora) then Gentoo, later Ubuntu and now Mint. I've never been able to 100% nuke Windows though. I've always needed it for one reason or another. Windows 10 is really pissing me off though, to the point that I could just suck up what I'd be missing and do it.
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LurkerLito said:
Feel the same here. I have a triple boot system now...
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sadsteve said:
Just dual boot. Windows for games, Linux for all the real computing you do. Been doing it for over a year now and I'm sorry I didn't go that route sooner. I haven't had a single problem on the Linux side since I started using it. I can't say the same for the Windows side.
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Why the hell are people still dual booting these days? What is it that you can't do through virtualization now?

endalykt said:
I've recently looked over this, and as long as you have IOMMU and set it up correctly it should be possible to get 95%+ performance on pass-through.

Here's one guide, plenty more on the internet: https://bufferoverflow.io/gpu-passthrough/
Click to expand...

Exactly. And what do most people even need the passthrough for? Do everything in a virtual system on a Windows box and use the main box for gaming. Or passthrough on Linux system and do Windows gaming in a virtual machine.

Or do the [H]ard thing and have multiple systems.
 
BulletDust said:
The issue with Windows Media centre is that Microsoft support has all but been dropped, furthermore the great add-ons that made W7MC great like Media Browser have all but been dropped also.

The best thing about W7MC was FTA TV, with dual tuners the DVR/time shifting capability was downright fantastic, but without add-ons like Media Browser and the fact that DVD playback is hit and miss coupled with the fact that Blu-ray playback is just as unreliable as DVD playback using third party add-ons the usefulness of W7MC fades into obscurity.

Personally I find Kodi to be a great piece of software, far better than W7MC. Now if I could just get my MythTV server up and running with the appropriate front-end add-on I'd be one happy individual.
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I understand that the support has stopped, but it still works better than Kodi. I have yet been able to get PowerDVD to integrate into Kodi worth a darn. I have to end up exiting Kodi and starting PowerDVD on its own. I also have problems with my HomeRun HD working properly in Kodi. I personally have not used Media Browser since windows XP and Vista days. I like how media center lists movies.

The other problem I have with Kodi is that it keeps messing with my database. I have turned off look up movie titles and download covers but it still seems to keep doing it and then puts the wrong movie cover on the movies. I have repaired my database about 5 times in a year. So we both just have to agree to disagree on this subject on how good Kodi vs Media Center is.
 
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