I wonder if it's called SP1 or SP2?

I came here to tell you that the Sunday Times Driving magazine says today that a "more advanced version" of Windows 10 is coming in six months, "with, one would hope, no driver problems".

What do I see but Banger's post an hour ago saying "Windows 10 service release 1 is coming next week with lots of fixes".

It seems my caution and cynicism are well-founded.

I usually wait for SP2 before I buy any Microsoft product. Maybe this time I'll wait for SP4.

It also said that the "free upgrade" was available for 12 months for Windows 7 and indefinitely for Windows 8
That last one is new to me

I saw that, and wondered if it meant for those who have already upgraded to W10 before it is released.

Note, it didn't give any source for the information. But they are rarely wrong.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I came here to tell you that the Sunday Times Driving magazine says today that a "more advanced version" of Windows 10 is coming in six months, "with, one would hope, no driver problems".

What do I see but Banger's post an hour ago saying "Windows 10 service release 1 is coming next week with lots of fixes".

It seems my caution and cynicism are well-founded.

Windows 10 was just pushed onto people incomplete, it is not ready by a long way, but Ms wanted it pushed out, ready or not and will sort out the problems as they go.
So now they want everyone to test their OS.

You can tell it is not complete, look at Edge for instance, you think IE is awful, Edge is worse. The start menu still have problems, It just becomes unresponsive now and again.

The heading of the article is "Windows 10 wants you as a guinea pig". Sums things up really.

Another thing that might come in my lifetime is Microsoft's next OS. They just won't call it Windows.

I'd say five years at the most before the leaks start. A couple more before it gets more official. At some point the kernel or a layer close to it will not be up to the game. Maybe that's why they say no more Windows versions.

You can still use windows feedback to report problems and they do read the reports.

I don't think that most understand the development of an operating system from inception to release. Obviously there is an Alpha version which is usually pretty buggy. Then along comes the Beta versions. There can be 1000's of these. Often a new Beta every day. Every reported problem is investigated and is determined to be either requiring investigation and a fix, or not worth bothering with. Even those that are fixed may of course cause more problems as a knock on effect. Eventually a Beta version is deemed to stable enough to be chosen as the "Gold" version or RTM (released To Manufacturing). This will still have multiple issues, but there is no way that an operating system will ever be perfect when it contains millions of lines of code. It would take years to perfect if even then. Add to this the 10's of thousands of companies producing software and hardware to be compatible with the OS, it's a wonder that it works as well as it does. The version of Windows 10 just released may be a beta from 2/3 months ago and new problems have since been found and worked on. That's why Service Packs an bug fixes are almost a daily occurrence. Anyone who expects a Operating System to run perfectly from day one is seriously misguided.
The only way that an operating system could be more stable is to use the Apple approach and only release 3rd party software through Microsoft after having been thoroughly tested for compatibility. But this would be an impossible task, even if it was deemed acceptable for Microsoft to have such overall control, which of course, would quite rightly, never be agreed to.

Edited by deleted (Sun 09-Aug-15 22:24:37)

In reply to a post by rogerfp:

Even those that are fixed may of course cause more problems as a knock on effect.

Which is not the right way to develop any critical system, particularly an OS.

That approach is why so many major commercial IT systems fail after a few hundred million quid have been spent on them.

That is why any system built using OOP with inheritance, whether or not used in Windows 10 itself, has always been a disaster waiting to happen. The people using or inheriting OOP code become wholly unaware of how it works, and so wholly unaware of how their adaptation can screw thing a few levels of inheritance up the tree.

"Punched cards in and line printer out" is the way to go.







... and never let programmers anywhere near the computer.

Nah. The skill is when you can hold eight-track paper tape up to the light and read out what it says! A vital skill when you want to splice a section into a few hundred feet!

Swapping a card in a deck is kid's stuff.

I wouldn't disagree Robert, but when you have got 50+ million lines of code in Windows 10, some 44 million in Office 2013, 10 million in Firefox 4.5 million in Photoshop etc, etc, etc, the potential for things to go wrong is enormous. Most is produced by different companies, all hoping it will be compatible with the OS together with other 3rd party software and hardware, its a wonder that it works as well as it does.

Edited by deleted (Mon 10-Aug-15 00:11:32)

... but you didn't disagree about my second point.

Ah, I started as a trainee programmer, and that was pretty much the case.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The people using or inheriting OOP code become wholly unaware of how it works, and so wholly unaware of how their adaptation can screw thing a few levels of inheritance up the tree

I think that is mostly when someone uses an object based on how it actually works rather than how it is supposed to work then gets caught out when the object behaviour is "corrected". Default behaviours are a popular sources of disasters in waiting.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:
The people using or inheriting OOP code become wholly unaware of how it works, and so wholly unaware of how their adaptation can screw thing a few levels of inheritance up the tree

True, and why interoperability testing is so important. So important that MS named it the Insider Program rather than do it themselves.

Personally I find W10 underwhelming but then all I ask of an OS is that it efficiently runs the programs I want and not those that MS forces upon me.

With MS forcing updates on W10 with no option to exclude them - unless you have the Pro version - it will be a case of 'If it ain't broke, it don't have enough features'. Constant gratuitous updates to the OS and Apps that were working perfectly well and now have to be re-learned because someone thought change is necessary is annoying. Often there is a loss of functionality.

BTW: I can recall programming old military mobile systems by setting switches to the appropriate binary pattern and pushing the load button.

We sometimes needed to patch running code in a banking system on the fly with no chance to test it but lots of separate eyeballs to check it. Invariably when the "Go" button was pressed someone would shout BANG!.

In reply to a post by Banger:

You can still use windows feedback to report problems and they do read the reports.

they may read, but how much notice do they take?

anyway, I do not have 10 installed anymore.

In reply to a post by rogerfp:

I don't think that most understand the development of an operating system from inception to release. Obviously there is an Alpha version which is usually pretty buggy. Then along comes the Beta versions. There can be 1000's of these. Often a new Beta every day. Every reported problem is investigated and is determined to be either requiring investigation and a fix, or not worth bothering with. Even those that are fixed may of course cause more problems as a knock on effect. Eventually a Beta version is deemed to stable enough to be chosen as the "Gold" version or RTM (released To Manufacturing). This will still have multiple issues, but there is no way that an operating system will ever be perfect when it contains millions of lines of code. It would take years to perfect if even then. Add to this the 10's of thousands of companies producing software and hardware to be compatible with the OS, it's a wonder that it works as well as it does. The version of Windows 10 just released may be a beta from 2/3 months ago and new problems have since been found and worked on. That's why Service Packs an bug fixes are almost a daily occurrence. Anyone who expects a Operating System to run perfectly from day one is seriously misguided.
The only way that an operating system could be more stable is to use the Apple approach and only release 3rd party software through Microsoft after having been thoroughly tested for compatibility. But this would be an impossible task, even if it was deemed acceptable for Microsoft to have such overall control, which of course, would quite rightly, never be agreed to.

i remember someone saying a few years back in XP days, that Windows was a good OS as long as you do not install anything on it.

Linux seems to do things right and I doubt the programmers get paid anywhere near the amount MS pays theirs and it is open source.

In reply to a post by Spuriousfish:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:
The people using or inheriting OOP code become wholly unaware of how it works, and so wholly unaware of how their adaptation can screw thing a few levels of inheritance up the tree

True, and why interoperability testing is so important. So important that MS named it the Insider Program rather than do it themselves.

Personally I find W10 underwhelming but then all I ask of an OS is that it efficiently runs the programs I want and not those that MS forces upon me.

With MS forcing updates on W10 with no option to exclude them - unless you have the Pro version - it will be a case of 'If it ain't broke, it don't have enough features'. Constant gratuitous updates to the OS and Apps that were working perfectly well and now have to be re-learned because someone thought change is necessary is annoying. Often there is a loss of functionality.

BTW: I can recall programming old military mobile systems by setting switches to the appropriate binary pattern and pushing the load button.

you can't stop updates on the pro version either, you can defer non-security ones for a while, but that is it.

In reply to a post by gomezz:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The people using or inheriting OOP code become wholly unaware of how it works, and so wholly unaware of how their adaptation can screw thing a few levels of inheritance up the tree

I think that is mostly when someone uses an object based on how it actually works rather than how it is supposed to work then gets caught out when the object behaviour is "corrected". Default behaviours are a popular sources of disasters in waiting.

Not sure why object inheritance is being singled out. But truly the biggest source of upgrade problems for any software component are dependencies on undefined behaviour in client applications.

For example an API call formally takes a value between 1 and 10 with all other values producing undefined results. Now some broken app comes along and passes 11 to the API. In v1.0 this might work just fine because the implementation of the API call caps values that are too large. Then v2.0 comes along, the defined API does not change, but an optimisation has been implemented to make the function faster. Now passing 11 to it causes a crash. The bug is in the app not the upgraded component. But naturally users are going to blame the component vendor, e.g. Microsoft, for breaking their apps.

Microsoft do go out of their way to minimise these kind of problems. It's in their financial interest to ensure upgrades go as smooth as possible. If a popular apps stop working it's a big problem for them not just the app vendor. There are literally thousands of workarounds built into Windows to enable broken apps to continue to function but they can't catch them all.

Why, if the defined range is 1-10, does any other value produce "undefined results"?

It should issue an error message and drop the call. It's up to the app if it doesn't cater for an error return.

There are literally thousands of workarounds built into Windows to enable broken apps to continue to function but they can't catch them all.

If an app breaks the standard, stuff it!

This sort of approach is idiotic, and inevitably gives rise to hassle all round. The app writers need to learn that they need to code correctly as well. You cannot program sloppily and expect your app to work.

You don't fudge an OS to process incorrectly formatted calls. You validate it and kick it out if it fails.

The only time that should give a problem is if in a later OS or version is if in the case here you reduce the range to 1-9. Even that isn't insurmountable at the design and specification stage.

Why, if the defined range is 1-10, does any other value produce "undefined results"? It should issue an error message and drop the call.

The principal reason for skipping input validation is performance. If validation is cheap then it will usually be done and documented. For example a function accepting a pointer to a complex data structure will normally return an error (or fake success) if the pointer is 0. But it will not validate the entire data structure before processing it. And so a pointer to an invalid data structure will usually crash the process (but might not by fluke -- that is, until Windows n+1 is released!).

This is reasonable behaviour for an OS level API, IMO. If certain applications need expensive data validation its up to them to provide it. It's not reasonable to degrade the performance of the operating system generally. Of course the OS can also provide helper functions and API validation tools to the application developers.

You don't fudge an OS to process incorrectly formatted calls. You validate it and kick it out if it fails.

In an ideal world maybe. But Microsoft have to sell Windows upgrades to people who depend on these apps. If the new Windows won't run their apps then Microsoft lose a sale.

The only time that should give a problem is if in a later OS or version is if in the case here you reduce the range to 1-9.

Microsoft will never make breaking changes to stable public APIs. It just doesn't happen. (Cue: some example where they did it.. OK they will rarely do it and even more rarely do it deliberately.)

Can you provide a list of software you have had any involvement in, so I can avoid it?

If you think something I wrote is incorrect then you should avoid all software.

There are literally thousands of workarounds built into Windows to enable broken apps to continue to function ....

If certain applications need expensive data validation its up to them to provide it. It's not reasonable to degrade the performance of the operating system generally.

Degradation of the performance of the OS generally is what the first quote causes.

Any data in the passed structure that is processed by the OS should be vetted by the OS. In this day and age, nothing an app does should in any way be able to damage the smooth running of an OS.

As for affecting performance by adding validation code, ye gods! With the power of even the lowest powered PC-level of processor for many years that is seriously not a factor.

As for your reliance on poorly written historic OS from Microsoft accepting grot, so by extrapolation the newer one must, where on earth does that end except in chaos? It becomes completely infeasible and produces low-performance code. Which brings us back to OOP. A flawed concept from day one for professional use in major systems.

Have you ever examined, (I expect you have, it's a rhetorical question), the object code produced from MS C++ and C# compilers? There can be dozens of instructions to set a single indicator, simply because of the levels of inheritance involved.

Oh! Wait! ....

Of course, it's Windows we are talking about . Chaos.

In reply to a post by Sark:

If you think something I wrote is incorrect then you should avoid all software.

No, I just need to avoid the stuff you wrote (or tested, designed, specified, managed, etc).

In this day and age, nothing an app does should in any way be able to damage the smooth running of an OS.

Indeed. Process isolation is one of the prime guarantees of the OS. If an app giving bad data to the OS does anything worse than crash the process it is a bug in the OS.

As for affecting performance by adding validation code, ye gods! With the power of even the lowest powered PC-level of processor for many years that is seriously not a factor.

Depends on the complexity of the data to be validated. If it's cheap it'll be done. Microsoft will make the trade off on a case by case basis.

As for your reliance on poorly written historic OS from Microsoft accepting grot

Well.. it's not just Microsoft that makes these trade offs. Try passing bad data to Linux system calls and see how far you get before your app crashes. Heck even easier try passing bad data to C standard library functions; they do almost zero validation.

Which brings us back to OOP. A flawed concept from day one for professional use in major systems.

I would take issue with that!

Have you ever examined, (I expect you have, it's a rhetorical question), the object code produced from MS C++ and C# compilers? There can be dozens of instructions to set a single indicator, simply because of the levels of inheritance involved.

Well it's what you make of it. C# is a much higher level language than C++. It'll do a lot more for you behind the scenes. It has its pros and cons.

Good luck!

Agree with BatBoy. Bad code is written by bad programmers.

In reply to a post by Sark:

As for your reliance on poorly written historic OS from Microsoft accepting grot

Well.. it's not just Microsoft that makes these trade offs. Try passing bad data to Linux system calls and see how far you get before your app crashes.

Whereupon you invalidate your own argument throughout the thread. You almost seem to be defending the indefensible.

You say "There are literally thousands of workarounds built into Windows to enable broken apps to continue to function ....". If an app crashes due to invalid submission to the OS, that is entirely and utterly the app-writer's problem.

My position is that the OS should provide a graceful end to the app by providing an error response. If Linux doesn't do that, that's a shame. But MS doesn't. According to you, it tries to accommodate the bad data. That is the wrong thing to do. The Linux approach is the more valid.

Heck even easier try passing bad data to C standard library functions; they do almost zero validation.

Quite.

I started on C with absolutely unadulterated K & R from Digital Research. Then used my C programming on MSDOS by converting all of my background libraries including a self-written B-Tree indexed database system to use MSDOS system calls instead of CP/M ones.

That's quite apart from my mainstream interest in business application systems for which my libraries were simply tools. Systems which worked, didn't crash whichever OS they ran on, and didn't crash when unforeseen data combinations or invalid user data was input.

Well it's what you make of it. C# is a much higher level language than C++. It'll do a lot more for you behind the scenes. It has its pros and cons.

That I agree. But both are highly inefficient languages, where the raison d'etre of C is efficiency. I still believe in code-efficiency. If you have to inherit something that is already more than a couple of levels deep, you should copy the original code and make changes to it reflecting the intermediate changes and your own requirements. Preferably cutting out anything that is redundant.

My position is that the OS should provide a graceful end to the app by providing an error response. If Linux doesn't do that, that's a shame. But MS doesn't. According to you, it tries to accommodate the bad data. That is the wrong thing to do. The Linux approach is the more valid.

My position is that validating every input to an API function to ensure compliance is not always possible (either at all or in a reasonable amount of time) and therefore an error response can't always be provided. Unless you count a crash box as a graceful error. This should not be a controversial point of view. It's how (almost) every important OS or low-level library works in the real world. (I add almost as some specialist systems can't tolerate any errors whatsoever. Medical equipment e.g.)

Linux, Windows, OSX all behave the same way for any random app. But Microsoft make a big effort to ensure important apps continue to work following a major upgrade. I strongly suspect Apple do the same. The technical merits/demerits of doing so are pretty much irrelevant. It's a business requirement for Microsoft; they simply can't sell their product if the apps don't work. So the technical people have to lump it and make it work.

(Linux distributions generally don't have to deal with users installing random binary apps as everything comes from their repos. They can fix any problem apps at source.)

That's quite apart from my mainstream interest in business application systems for which my libraries were simply tools. Systems which worked, didn't crash whichever OS they ran on, and didn't crash when unforeseen data combinations or invalid user data was input.

I'm sure your libraries never did crash but I wouldn't be so confident that they would deal with all invalid inputs. Still, higher level libraries don't necessarily have the same performance constraints as those at a lower level. If the validation is affordable - go for it. Your users will let you know if it turns out to be too expensive.

If you have to inherit something that is already more than a couple of levels deep, you should copy the original code and make changes to it reflecting the intermediate changes and your own requirements. Preferably cutting out anything that is redundant.

We could get into an extended discussion on object oriented design. But on this, yes I agree, if the hierarchy is getting to be more than 2 levels deep then there are likely better patterns worth considering. Depends on how much of the existing code base you have control over, I guess.

In reply to a post by Sark:

I'm sure your libraries never did crash but I wouldn't be so confident that they would deal with all invalid inputs.

There's a process called testing which you need exposure to.

So the RC stage is removed

beta -> RTM

instead of

beta -> RC - RTM

That is not good - seems like they want to get patches/updates out faster, and want to remove the extra testing to do so.

And we all know what that means...

They've introduced Agile development?

You mean they've introduced what bad programmers think agile development is?

Rather than what agile development really is.

This begins to sound like a complete cockup, running alongside the newer thread about an update breaking the computers.

I have updated 2 devices to Win 10 so far. One of them is a decent laptop that generally is working fine except that Edge keeps hanging. The other is a tablet that was working ok until I installed an update on Sunday and now the touchscreen is mis-reading taps and so it is now impossible to enter the password (I have had to buy a cable to convert micro usb to standard usb so I can plug in a keyboard/mouse to be able to log in and hopefully fix it).

So far Win 10 is looking significantly worse than Win 7 was when it was released.

[joke]
My thinking over the last few days was why didn't they just update Win 7 a bit and call it Win 9. Then start on a complete replacement rather than this apparent mess.
[/joke]

More seriously, it could very quickly get the worst reputation for a new version for Home/SOHO use since Windows ME, and for business since Vista.

My PC was updated with Windows 10 on the first day and has behaved very well since. The desktop looks the same as it did under Windows 7 except for the addition of Search and Task icons, with Edge replacing IE11 on the taskbar. The PC now starts up quicker and Apps seem to respond faster.

My wife has poor eyesight and also arthritis in her hands so finds most PCs difficult to use. We've bought her a brand new Windows 10 PC with a 27" touchscreen and upped the text size to 150%. She loves it! There have been no problems at all in the first week of ownership. The touchscreen is very easy to use.

(There are a few idiosyncrasies in the new Apps such as Edge and Mail but as we use Chrome and Thunderbird they have not caused any bother. Win 10 gets a thumbs-up from us.)

PS. The latest update has worked perfectly.

Edited by ffox (Wed 12-Aug-15 11:57:06)

I guess with so many users experiences will vary but I ran Vista very happily, including my business with far less problems than I currently experience with W7. For me Win7 is the worst I had since W95 - skipped ME.

W8 is better still but W10 is so underwhelming that from a users point of view I wonder why they spent the millions they did.

More importantly, how are they going to recoup the millions ?

More importantly, how are they going to recoup the millions ?

By selling and using information about you. At least they're not quite so bad as Google.

Then they will have to make sure they get enough information, and that it is for the relevant region...

I decided to to enquire more about the keylogger (is it only used with Cortana or all windows applications ? Does it work with DirectX/OpenGL games ? etc etc). The reply I got back was amazingly clear, concise and not what you would expect from such a cumbersome company as Microsoft :

Hi,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Community.

The �keylogger� is gathering usage data that will help Microsoft determine what�s working and what isn�t in the Windows 10. It�ll help fix bugs in Windows Search or anywhere else a text input box pops up. It�ll help improve features.

Hope this helps. Please reply if you need further assistance.

Thank you.

So, it looks like its active for any windows text input box (I need to find out if its just for single line entry ones, combo boxes, custom ones or combinations thereof). It will also be interested to know if the data sent is encrypted or not.

In reply to a post by MrTAToad2:

More importantly, how are they going to recoup the millions ?

By keeping a large number of people on their OS. And then selling services to developers and businesses because they are the default OS for most users. MS isn't just an OS company - they make money from the rest of the eco system around the platform.

Isn't Windows 10 also an annual subscription, even on new equipment after the first year? Barring those who can currently get it free by upgrading from 7/8/8.1.

I didn't think it was at the moment - believe it is currently a perpetual license.

EDIT: The licenses I can see for sale separately are perpetual.

Edited by ian72 (Thu 13-Aug-15 13:52:29)

This is How-To Geek's take on it.

That's a very useful article. Thanks .

Basically the Gold version is the Release Candidate version. Just a play on words. That was the process when I was involved some 15 years ago. Can't see why it would have changed that much.

things have changed a lot in 15 years, generally there is a lot less patience in terms of development to release.

Insiders were not testing RC because RC = feature and design frozen yet microsoft were still making feature changes.

RC is now what we have on the market.

Edited by Chrysalis (Fri 14-Aug-15 05:45:27)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

RC is now what we have on the market.

Which is why the upgrade is free (for 1 year).

Software is getting more complex, selling software is more complex+harder, selling software is more complex+harder+comes with greater degree of responsibility, selling software is more complex+harder+comes with greater degree of responsibility+sanctions. Everybody+his/her dog will be criticising it for everything including, lack of freedom+intrusion of freedom+everything.

Some of these things will have their basis in justice and others will be un-justified, Live with it Microsoft! If you can prove yourself to be justifiably morally and socially orientated you will succeed and if not you will become a dinosaur.

Edited by Nervous (Sat 15-Aug-15 12:24:58)

the upgrade is free because the user is now the product.

if windows 10 is going to be getting continuous feature changes, it may effectively never become stable, but end up like android.

New features will become in-store purchases. See my post here.

Android has releases - the latest is called Lollipop. It just happens to be free. The monetisation come from in-store purchases (apps).

Microsoft's update strategy is extremely aggressive, much more so than Apple's or Google's. You are right, though. They must either be more flexible or wither away. Corporate customers won't mind, though. They can pick and choose which updates are rolled out to their employees.

Edited by micksharpe (Sat 15-Aug-15 14:21:34)

If upgrades get too costly, perhaps we might see people migrating to other operating systems like Linux or RISC OS

In reply to a post by MrTAToad2:

If upgrades get too costly, perhaps we might see 0.0001% - 0.0003% of people migrating to other operating systems like Linux or RISC OS

Fixed that for you .

My thoughts exactly.

If upgrades get too costly, perhaps we might see 1% - 3% of people migrating to other operating systems like Linux or RISC OS

Fixed that for you

According to this 2011 report there must be over 500,000,000 Win 7/8/8.1 machines by now, plus a large number of XP ones. Out of a total of 125 billion still in use.

1%-3% of 500 million is 5,000,000 to 15,000,000.

That's a huge number of user machines. Even if there were that many disgruntled owners who were capable of a switch away from Windows and its pervasive application software, we have to consider how many would feel it worth it, and how many wouldn't have at least one and possibly several other people breathing down their neck and saying "No way!"

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

...Out of a total of 125 billion still in use.

That's 17 or so for every man, woman and child on the planet. Seems rather a large number, perhaps there's a decimal point-less error

I'm using one that has to count. Frequently I have its predecessor on most of the day. Sitting behind it on the desk is the Vista machine that I stopped using only a couple of weeks ago as it was getting messed up by some HTML5 stuff.

Lying on the second bedroom floor is the one preceding the one that is currently on most of the day. I use it occasionally as it has some data and programs that I don't want to transfer to this one, (which has a 256GB SSD and nothing else), and that never got transferred to the intervening one.

Four active here, with just lil' old me!

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 16-Aug-15 23:46:09)

As I said before, a lot of it depends on the Steam Box and Valve - if they can aggressively promote it and get Linux known as a gaming system, then a fair few may change.

Hopefully Valve will make it easier/easy to install on a PC as well, which will all help.

Unfortunately, though it looks like Valve dont seem to have much interest in anything at the moment...

The only OS that could knock out Windows on home computers would come from google. Which isn't to say it couldn't have a unix/linux base.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 17-Aug-15 12:50:44)

Apple could do it if they offered more cost effective devices. But then OS X is a Unix off shoot as well.

It needs to be on more powerful machines - or allow installation on PC's. At the moment ChromeOS is... underpowered and too online orientated to be of much use.

In reply to a post by MrTAToad2:

It needs to be on more powerful machines - or allow installation on PC's. At the moment ChromeOS is... underpowered and too online orientated to be of much use.

Yep, certainly is, i know you can use it offline and as soon as you get back online it will sync the files, but for me that is too much relying on a service that could be cut or charged for at any time.

Like what is stopping Google from charging per GB?
I prefer to have my storage off line to be honest, but then I never really have got into this cloudy stuff.

Or at least you can use the google services off line - that is assuming google apps provides everything you could want on your OS. I'm sure google thinks they do but...

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Four active here, with just lil' old me!

But the report you quote says 1.25 Billion, not 125 Billion

LOL, so true. But that was just a typo.

My calculation is on the 500 million in the second bullet-point, not the billions figure. I've upped it from the 2011 400 million active Win 7s to the 500m licences sold as I explained in the post.

for windows to be killed it probably would need microsoft to kill it, a competitor would need all the following in my view.

cost advantage (probably have to be free)
compatibility with win32 binaries
directx integration of some sort
hardware vendor support

apple with its closed shop on hardware, doesnt need to worry in the same way about hardware support. The problem is apple hardware is overpriced for that reason as well hence their low market share.