Microsoft hits 450 million sales of Windows 7

And how many of those are OEM licenses that will never be used? :p

Originally posted by hikaricor:

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And how many of those are OEM licenses that will never be used? :p

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Why would they never be used?

Originally posted by Dela:

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Originally posted by hikaricor:

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And how many of those are OEM licenses that will never be used? :p

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Why would they never be used?

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I could make you a short list, but the top 5 reasons should be fairly obvious..

Originally posted by hikaricor:

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Originally posted by Dela:

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Originally posted by hikaricor:

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And how many of those are OEM licenses that will never be used? :p

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Why would they never be used?

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I could make you a short list, but the top 5 reasons should be fairly obvious..

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Please do.

The best OS i ever used.However XP is a close second. I think they are rushing 8,if its not broken,why fix it.

Originally posted by fandr78:

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The best OS i ever used.However XP is a close second. I think they are rushing 8,if its not broken,why fix it.

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Because they are greedy morons. Speaking of morons...

I would also like to hear the top 5 reasons. ;)

Originally posted by fandr78:

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The best OS i ever used.However XP is a close second. I think they are rushing 8,if its not broken,why fix it.

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They aren't really rushing it. Microsoft had committed to a three year refresh cycle. Windows Vista was launched in 2006 (XP on market 5 years), Windows 7 was launched in 2009 and now it would appear Windows 8 in late 2012. But if you look at Vista and 7, while 7 was definitely a major improvement for a lot of reasons over Vista, it was still, kind of "upgraded and fixed Vista" with some new stuff.

With Windows 8, it is really a "new operating system" in comparison. Now they have an operating system that can really span from PC Desktop right down to smartphone, and with new development tools and systems that will make development for the platform much easier again.

One thing I do hope is right is the price though. Upgrading from 7 to 8 has to be stupidly easy and it can't break the bank, because as you know, some people stuck with XP for 10 years now.

A 3-year cycle is a rush by any standards...we are just now seeing the first buggy builds of Win8, and if the final product looks anything like what they have been showing so far, it will only be useful on Tablets that have giant batteries.

They will probably do what they did with Vista...sell it in spite of the fact that it is hardly a beta for three years, then release windows 9 and talk about how much better it is that windows 8...they will never deliver on the promises they make as far as fixing broken features and adding advertised features, and no one will really care once Windows 9 gets released, because everyone will want to get off of Windows 8 for a ton of other reasons.

As for OEM licenses, I know I have a ton of them that I'll probably never use...I wouldn't say it is the majority of the licenses I have, but I do have about 50 OEM licenses for XP left over, another 100 for Vista, and more than I care to count for Windows server 2003-2008R1. These licenses will probably never be used. They sell them in packs...so you can get 70 OEM Windows 7 licenses (including 10 licenses for Ultimate) for less than the cost of Windows 7 Ultimate Retail...it makes windows cheaper than the patent fees of Android.

I love windows 7. I have it installed on 6 computers. 4 being htpc's. I left ubuntu for it after i beta tested it. I think they did just about everything right with 7. So much so I probably won't buy 8. It just doesnt make sense to me.

Originally posted by KillerBug:

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{snip}These licenses will probably never be used. They sell them in packs...so you can get 70 OEM Windows 7 licenses (including 10 licenses for Ultimate) for less than the cost of Windows 7 Ultimate Retail...it makes windows cheaper than the patent fees of Android.

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That's interesting. VERY interesting.

Originally posted by KillerBug:

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A 3-year cycle is a rush by any standards...we are just now seeing the first buggy builds of Win8, and if the final product looks anything like what they have been showing so far, it will only be useful on Tablets that have giant batteries.

They will probably do what they did with Vista...sell it in spite of the fact that it is hardly a beta for three years, then release windows 9 and talk about how much better it is that windows 8...they will never deliver on the promises they make as far as fixing broken features and adding advertised features, and no one will really care once Windows 9 gets released, because everyone will want to get off of Windows 8 for a ton of other reasons.

As for OEM licenses, I know I have a ton of them that I'll probably never use...I wouldn't say it is the majority of the licenses I have, but I do have about 50 OEM licenses for XP left over, another 100 for Vista, and more than I care to count for Windows server 2003-2008R1. These licenses will probably never be used. They sell them in packs...so you can get 70 OEM Windows 7 licenses (including 10 licenses for Ultimate) for less than the cost of Windows 7 Ultimate Retail...it makes windows cheaper than the patent fees of Android.

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It's not a three year life cycle, its a three year refresh cycle, meaning Windows 7 will be supported, updated, improved LONG after Windows 8 comes out. Life cycle is cradle to grave. Just because Vista was released in 2006, it would be inaccurate to say that Windows XP had a 5 year life cycle.. it didn't, it was supported (with extended support for Service Packs) for longer than that, and will be on Extended Support until 2014, 13 years after it was released.

On OEM licenses, I know that you can get an OEM license very cheap if you sell PCs, and Microsoft's Volume Licensing provides millions of licenses to the big PC manufacturers at mega-discounted prices. For the end-user though, this does mean a few things. Firstly, there's no Microsoft tech support, except if the problem is a security problem. You also can't transfer the license to another PC or replace the motherboard. If you buy an OEM edition yourself, it's actually against the license agreement to use it yourself, as its intended to be pre-installed on a PC sold to a third-party (except for XP, where, IIRC, you can install an OEM on your own PC).

The low cost of Windows Volume Licensing for manufacturers comes with the high cost the manufacturer now has to pay to provide all the (non-security) support, even for the operating system. While that might not make much of a difference to people like us, you can be sure that the costs of providing tech support for the large manufacturers is also enormous.

The reason I asked hikaricor why he commented on the OEM licenses never being used was to see if he meant A, Microsoft Volume Licensing Sales, or B, "Windows is shit, so most people will just use something else." The fact that he mentioned "top 5 reasons" indicates to me it was B (or close to it), but the fact is that there is NO massive epidemic (from Microsoft's point of view) of people getting PCs with pre-installed, pre-activated OEM copies of Windows 7, just to uninstall it and install Linux or something else instead, it just doesn't happen in any large or even average numbers.

I do work in repairs (not sales since 2004 or so), and during 2007-2009, I got tons of PCs and Laptops where people asked me to downgrade it to Windows XP from Windows Vista. I have yet to have one person ask me to do the same for Windows 7, not one yet.

Microsoft was selling Win 7 as a family pack at a significant discount several years ago. It was so cheap that a person would be foolish not to have grabbed a copy or two. To date I have used one license and I am not sure when I will use the remaining ones. So I have to agree with whoever said that some licenses will not get used.

As for Windows 8, I think Microsoft may be making a big mistake. An assembly language programmer will tell you that the most powerful and most compact code out there is written in assembly. Any software application that is portable across multiple platforms (PC, phones, tablets, etc) is likely to have problems, not to mention the bloat.

The new Windows 8 platform with it's ribbon like, touch screen interface may or may not be a big hit. It is with tablets and phones, but will it do as well as a desktop operating system. If you revert back to the Windows 7 interface your desktop is happy, but what about the bloat left behind with all of the touch screen code that you will never use. It is good that hard drives are cheap, you are going to need a big one. As stable as Windows 7 is I just can't see a large migration to Windows 8.

I guess it is too soon to tell. I wonder if they are making massive changes to the kernel again. It seems to me killer bug is correct. M$ may believe they only need to make a stable OS every other time. IE will stop using flash. I guess they hope that will force the world to use their also ran version of flash.

Do any of you log in to AD? If you do have you noticed the keylogger at the bottom of the page for the last month or so? It goes away after you log in.

I am surprised AD hasn't done anything about it.