Vocal Voices

Microsoft have announced that they will _only_ update windows systems from Nov 2015 or the Anniversary update rolled out last year. If you upgraded to W10 but did not upgrade to the later versions, then you will stop receiving updates. In fact people on W8.1 will be better off than anyone on the first release of W10 who is trapped there.

I managed to get the Anniversary update on Mrs S' tablet, but it took some of my deeper technical skills and I had to circumvent chunks of Microsoft's own OS to gain enough space. You just can't add space to a 32 gig tablet.

Really this is a heads up for anyone who's system is stuck trying to do updates, because if it's not fixed now, they could wind up being blocked without doing a full update with a download from Microsoft which would be very manual.

That sounds pretty underhand of Microsoft as it is not how the original pestering to upgrade to W10 was presented.

I sense that there could be an opening for a whole new operating system to come to the market. I do not mean the mess that is all the different flavours of Linux, but a whole new out-of-the-box system.

I wonder what the Chinese are up to.....?

Yes I know it is irritating as hell. I'd rather they said "we're going to make you pay for a new one" than this confidence trick.

The problem is this

windows 84%
Mac 12%
Linux 2%

Which about says it all. In the end desktop operating systems live or die by peripheral drivers. Mac's are OK because Apple owns the hardware and 3rd party producers of add in's have to certify with Apple.

But Linux is almost 100% supported for drives by enthusiasts.

There is also Chrome OS but it's not going anywhere fast.

For someone to pull out a new OS which competes, it would have to be compatible with at least 90% of the hardware on the market and have a clearly compelling theme which would draw users. Also it would have to come pretty close to Microsoft's patents to keep users comfortable about using it.

Hard one.