Windows 7 PC Sales Ended on Friday 31 October 2014

kenC · 02 Nov 2014

So, how do we disable Bing? I did it in the first version, can't do it now.

gregrocker · 02 Nov 2014

ThrashZone said:

Nothing more than 8.1 with a start menu stuck with bing search default which means you type anything in the search box and hit the enter key and boom your on a bing search page

8.1 and Start8 is better but I suppose 10 and Start10 will be available

Click on the IE11 gear icon to select Manage Add-Ons, click Search, then the link at bottom to Add another Provider. Select Google Search at top of page, set as Default, allow suggestions. Tick the box to not allow any other Search providers. Then highlight Bing and Remove.

Make sure to hide Bingware via Updates, and to uninstall in Control Panel if it sneaks in.

matts6887 · 02 Nov 2014

I think until they stop supporting windows 7; Im gonna continue using it; as i just do not like the layout of 8.1 and other newer o.s.'s. I think they should have stuck with the windows 7 design and just did some other sort of tweaks of some sort or another.

SIW2 · 02 Nov 2014

What improvements?

It is bloody annoying.

The only way they will get people to buy that thing is to remove the competition ( win 7 ) from the shelves.

It doesn't matter much that is is still possible to get oem copy and install it - the vast majority don't know how. It also doesn't matter that business machines will be available running 7 Pro. That is intended for business users. Consumers won't know where to get them from, and they won't be cheap.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

What I've seen of Win 10 so far has been a great improvement over Win 8.x and a slight improvement over Win 7. However, the improvement isn't enough to convince me to switch from Win 7...yet; it's still in the testing stages and a lot can change between now and when it is RTM.

groze · 02 Nov 2014

matts6887 said:

I think until they stop supporting windows 7; Im gonna continue using it; as i just do not like the layout of 8.1 and other newer o.s.'s. I think they should have stuck with the windows 7 design and just did some other sort of tweaks of some sort or another.

I did find something comparable to windows 7, it is called ubuntu. It been accused of spyware. It can be disabled in Privacy section. It now inform you of the Amazon search when installing. I didn't really care for it, looks to my like windows 10 start menu (who copied who). What I did is installed Lubuntu, then I install the xfce4 desktop using apt-get. I could never get Xubuntu which include xfce desktop to work on my system. If you need to use wireless on Lubuntu with Xfce4 installed you need to use sudo apt-get install xfce4-indicator-plugin

My current boot system with Grub 2 installed
Lubuntu with Xfce desktop (Application menu looks like Windows 98se)
Windows 7 (I use this the most)
Windows 10 preview. (I use this the least)

Has Microsoft even thought of going LGPL with Desktops, this way people can choose which desktops that want to use from windows 1 to windows 10 and on.

Sorry about my grammar.

whs · 02 Nov 2014

I wonder how much (if any) this will impact PC sales. If there is a significant impact, the PC manufacturers will scream 'murder'.

SIW2 · 02 Nov 2014

Not sure what you mean by pc sales.

MS have probably done enough to prevent the EEEW reaction when punters see it.

Layback Bear · 02 Nov 2014

I know W-10 is in it's infant stage but so far I haven't seen anything that would make me want to leave W-7.
I really hoping W-10 shows me enough to want to buy it.

Anshad Edavana · 02 Nov 2014

I did find something comparable to windows 7, it is called ubuntu. It been accused of spyware. It can be disabled in Privacy section. It now inform you of the Amazon search when installing. I didn't really care for it, looks to my like windows 10 start menu (who copied who). What I did is installed Lubuntu, then I install the xfce4 desktop using apt-get. I could never get Xubuntu which include xfce desktop to work on my system. If you need to use wireless on Lubuntu with Xfce4 installed you need to use sudo apt-get install xfce4-indicator-plugin

With all due respect, i don't think neither OS X nor Ubuntu is a replacement to classic Windows OS. In my country, Apple computers costs two to three times higher than Windows ones so they are far beyond the reach of common users. On the other hand, Linux is powerful and promising but yet it is not a replacement to Windows. Being open source is it's biggest drawback. Anybody can modify the source code and create their own OS. So everyone started to code their own operating systems and now we are stuck with more than 500 distributions instead of a single distro which really works.

Alejandro85 · 02 Nov 2014

Anshad Edavana said:

Being open source is it's biggest drawback. Anybody can modify the source code and create their own OS. So everyone started to code their own operating systems and now we are stuck with more than 500 distributions instead of a single distro which really works.

Really? How can being open source be a drawback? No way. Being open source give enormous benefits for any project, one of them is preciely the chance of forking, as it gives options to create more variants, fix bugs in original projects, creating diverse developments and most important of all it gives freedom from vendor lock-in. Being free software also gives more option to users to collaborate modifications, bug fixes, report security problems and increased chances of them being fixed.

Compare that to proprietary software (like Windows). If you don't like newer versions, so sorry, you can't do anything but stay in the older. If you find a bug you can only report it and pray that the developer cares to fix it, the same as for new feature request or even if newer versions remove working features. And if the developer decides to not further offer the program, the community can't do anything about it but to stay with the latest possible version and hope it works while searching for a replacement.

Of course, something like the explosive development as Linux had, such a number of different distros may scare newcomers into choosing one, making a somewhat uninformed decition. This is a particular case rarely seen in any free software project, and even though it keeping it free is still a great pro for Linux.