OT: Windows 10?

I've spent a lifetime building operating systems, compilers, and the software that we use to create and maintain our databases(DBMS's). Tired of living with the effects of the exceptionally poor internal design/structure of Microsoft OS's, I moved my company off of these platforms years ago... it has proven to be a very good decision.

If you expect to kick the bucket in the next few years... then suffer on with a Microsoft OS... if not, go with a unix based OS. Mac OS X or one of the variants of Linux are much much much more reliable, stable, and secure. The trouble with OS X is the cost of Apple products... the problem with Linux platforms revolves around our habit of buying MS products like Word, Excel, and some games... These MS products exist on OS X and these products are easily replaced by products with the same functionality but just with different names on Linux. Nearly every thing that one would wish to do on a personal computer can be done on any of MS, OS X, or Linux. Some games will only work on MS, and there are a few other software developers stick strictly to MS platforms(this is almost always done under contract pressures.

AF

Wait! What? There is a Windows 10? But my company just upgraded to Windows 7 two years ago! Where does the time go???

You're not alone in your distain for all things Apple, but having worked in the software tools industry(this means that I worked in companies like Oracle, Lotus, Progress, Bachman, MS, Apple, etc... before starting my own.) since the 1970's, I've designed and implemented system software: OS's, compilers(computer languages) and DBMS's. In part because of this intimate knowledge of this industry I've never understood why folks would distain Apple and accept Microsoft as they are nearly identical in the way their corporate culture sees you. I can tell you with no uncertainty that both distain your world view. I suppose that in the case of Microsoft I'll have to chalk that up to the notion that PR is effective.

The differences between MS & Apple exists in two areas.  

• The 1st centers upon the quality of the internals of the products which we as consumers see as MS's instability and the looooong time periods needed to come up with a new version or repair solution. Apple's products are very rarely unstable, you can count their mishaps one one hand... you'll need a functional computer to count up MS's blunders.
  
  
• The 2nd is more personal to me as it is something that is not obvious to the consumer that he /she has been harmed but is very very obvious to the developer that he/she has been harmed. It comes in the amount of control each exerts upon other businesses by way of  threat of purely spurious legal action(which even MS acknowledges is spurious but also knows through experience that it is effective as they can tie a targeted company's cash reserves up in legal fees for years which strips the company of the operating capital it needs to develop it's own products thereby destroying the essence of competition. Apple is a puny little dweeb when compared to MS with respect to using their huge pile of cash as a legal dominance weapon). MS also regularly uses the threat of purchase and kill off(which dries up funding sources for the targeted company), and threat of disallowing the use of the most efficient API's by the targeted company's product(yes, they have done that).

The truth is that the Unix platform is well designed, well proven and has been technically refined to a point that the MS platform can only dream of attaining. Unix is a professional high quality OS and the MS OS is more like the product of a drunken weekend in the dorm. When I ran my company on Windows, we had to reboot regularly... once I moved us to OS X, we have never rebooted our servers to 'fix' a troublesome OS. Our servers have only been rebooted when we upgrade to a newer version once every year or so or when critical security patches are needed because a new hacker threat has arisen. Some of our servers have NEVER been rebooted because we didn't need the updates or newer versions in those cases and because they are completely walled off from outside intrusion. We switched in 2006. That's reliability...

I suppose that most people don't know that the most successful applications MS sells(Word, Excel, etc...) weren't developed at MS, they were purchased... and this is where I have the greatest distain for MS. Their 'collaboration' practices don't just border upon illegal, they demolish the border... One of the many examples is shown in MS's actions in the case of the MS-IBM collaboration over OS2. It is a perfect example of completely underhanded, completely unethical, and effectively demolishing the integrity border. With the budget of a medium sized nation MS is both willing and able to throw phalanx after phalanx of lawyers at the smaller target company which effectively keeps the wronged party in court until their money runs out and leaves them with no other choice other than to just quit their effort for redress.

In the end, it comes down to buying superior well designed and well built software or buying unreliable junk. Personally, I'm unwilling to cut off my nose to spite my face. I'd choose the more reliable product every time. If you can't stomach Apple's culture and are willing to accept the identical culture in MS but are tired of the MS junk, try Linux. You can do this without much turmoil by installing one of the Linux variants(try Ubuntu) as a guest system under the MS OS. This approach preserves your MS system and allows you to try out a Unix system. When you become accustomed to Linux and feel comfortable leaving the other Evil empire then you can install a Linux system as the primary OS.

AF