Windows 7 PC Sales Ended on Friday 31 October 2014

I think that all of us who remember the Windows 7 Beta, and Pre beta program, have probably gone a little soft Beta software has to be expected to have issues, that's the whole purpose of a Beta test

Not all beta software will be ready for prime time, as W7 was :)

I cringe sometimes when I see people using Beta Copies of Security / Anti-Malware packages - That's what VMs were invented for

But from what I've seen of Ten it does seem pretty stable, and polished for what it is :)

Barman58 said:

I think that all of us who remember the Windows 7 Beta, and Pre beta program, have probably gone a little soft Beta software has to be expected to have issues, that's the whole purpose of a Beta test

Not all beta software will be ready for prime time, as W7 was :)

I remember when we were saying 7 was ready to run right out of the box by the time the RC builds were available in May '09! There were a few initial problems encountered mostly with some of the programs like video capturing corrected once we were past the first public beta stage and into the RCs. The RC ran like the finished pre SP1 7 back then.

With the first 8 builds the preview there however was buggy due to the new secure boot where adding 8 into 7's BCD seemed to work out but not the reverse where 7 was added in causing both to stall. Had to isolate both drives at the time to clean up the disk errors.

Fortunately I was able to get people here out of XP a bit before the deadline came up. The second OS drive on my main case will be seeing the 10 preview there shortly where I will be taking notes to see if the next all platform version is upto par. From what I heard so it walks right past 8 and 8.1.

Doing some testing at work for the 2014 (tax year) releases mostly using VM boxes so I agree with barman58. Speaking of, unofficially testing our jazz with 10 in a box on the laptop even though its not covered in the sprint, seems ok.
Then something odd happened, I got a tech call from someone actually using 8.1

Here I built the present desktop case with dual OSing in mind and have both options for VMs or a second HD to try out any OS on keeping the boot loaders, etc separately. VMs are great for the fast looks but for trying out a variety of programs some not being able to run on a VM you end up slapping something new on a spare drive. Plus you get a first hand look at the recovery options when hitting the F8 button. But when only having one drive running a laptop you can at least get the close look with a VM.

What will be sad now will be no longer seeing 7 preinstalled on the newer laptops coming out since the OEMs as well as retailers will be discounting their current inventories especially for Black Friday in order to clear them out. But it comes as no surprise when looking back at seeing the 9x desktops going quickly for ME and then XP that was rushed out and then the long gap before Vista since you only had about 3-5yrs. at the most to buy new with each version except for XP having a longer shelf life.

Well you will be finding yourself even more happy once you get into the next W10 to come since the preview and almost time for second build surpasses 8 or 8.1 where MS finally is realizing their goal of a one for all version of Windows to be. All platforms that is not RT and then Windows with RT gui thrust at you.

What will still hurt however is no longer seeing anything newer with 7 as the option except for Dell and their choice of OS offer that was originally seen when Vista first arrived. Some(blog writers mainly) seem to suggest that 10 could be the last paid for version since all updates to follow would be added on free of charge with a one time life time license. The versions to follow would still be sold retail if just upgrading as each of those came out but not for what came later.