Even though regular, free Windows 7 support has ended only a few days ago, Microsoft has already been forced to release a regular update to fix a bug.
We reported earlier that Windows 7 users were complaining of their wallpaper being replaced by black screens when they install the important KB4534310 and KB4534314 updates for Windows 7.
The wallpaper bug affected all the Windows 7 users who use stretch option while setting up wallpapers. Microsoft later confirmed that it was indeed a bug but said the company would fix it only for customers who purchased ESU, i.e. organizations. However, it looks like the company has gone back on its word and decided to release an update for everyone.
The best laid plans.
And the FSF have opend a petition, to open Windows 7
https://www.fsf.org/windows/upcycle-windows-7
I’m sure demanding Microsoft make Windows 7 open source will work with just a few more signatures!
That’s as likely as someone farting peas on the moon
Don’t you just love how polite the FSF asks to do exactly what they want without any benefit for Microsoft:
When somebody talks to me like that I am always going to do exactly what they ask of course /s
Microsoft has nothing to gain by keeping it closed either… MS doesn’t really make any money on MS. They make money on Office…. Windows is literally just a platform for their software that they actually profit off of.
Sorry but that’s complete BS. Office and related products/services make up about 25% of Microsoft’s total yearly revenue, and it’s been consistently about 10% more than what the Windows OS makes – around 15% of their total yearly revenue. Microsoft made billions of dollars from Windows last fiscal year and when this fiscal year is over the same will be true again.
As for as Microsoft having “nothing to gain by keeping it [Windows 7] closed”, I fully disagree. Windows 7 has been a massively successful OS. There’s a lot of methods & technology in it that competitors would benefit from were they to have access. Additionally, extending the life of Windows 7 works against Microsoft’s roadmap whether the lifeline is provided by Microsoft or the community. I can’t think of a single compelling reason Microsoft should open source Windows 7.
Windows is even more than you think friedchicken. I couldn’t find 2020 numbers quickly, but from this article https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/02/19/heres-how-microsoft-makes-its-money.aspx you can see that windows is the major part of the “More personal computing” segment that brings in about 40 billion of revenue per year with a 10 billion “profit”. Office is in the “Productivity and business processes” and Azure is in the “Intelligent cloud” part. Without going too much into detail, All of these three divisions are about equal and bring in about 10 billion every year
People that think that just because their Windows 10 Home was “free”, MS doesn’t make any money on Windows in general have no idea
Why don’t they try XP or NT first?
Like it or not, 8.1 or 10 are functional replacements for 7, but losing the legacy of XP and NT actually had an impact. To me, preserving 7 is more about a fashion statement than function.
http://www.reactos.org
Open source XP already exists. It’s just reverse engineered, rather than being based on any existing MS code
I know you mean well, but ReactOS is still in alpha and calling it Open Source XP is simply disingenuous
8 and 10 are the fashion statements. The only functional changes are to fix a few bugs, remove some backwards compatibility, and extend a few top level layers like DirectX.
Which is why MS wouldn’t release 7 to open source. It’s still the most recent base for Windows.
Please define “functional changes”, because I think adding store-apps, adding Hyper-V and WSL, adding Microsoft Account and Azure AD Connect, adding SecureBoot, adding a whole bunch of Windows Management features (like virtual desktops, resizable commandprompts), adding commandprompt copy/paste, making Windows Update a simple and smooth experience, enabling files-on-demand for OneDrive, etc etc are really functional changes
avgalen.
If there was a “Like” button I’d have used it!
And I agree about ReactOS, it’s a great simulation but a long way from being an Open Source version of the real XP.
I really miss the upvote/downvote feature of the old osnews. I would normally read a topic at level 2 so I didn’t have to read nonsense comments like the ones above and I could focus on the useful information. The new osnews shows a lot more garbage.
I also really dislike how you can only Reply a few levels deep on a topic, basically stopping useful interaction. The new osnews prevents a lot of good interaction
Speaking of useful information: ReactOS is basing itself on Server 2003, not XP (not a great difference, but still)
‘The wallpaper bug affected all the Windows 7 users who use stretch option while setting up wallpapers. Microsoft later confirmed that it was indeed a bug but said the company would fix it only for customers who purchased ESU, i.e. organizations. However, it looks like the company has gone back on its word and decided to release an update for everyone.’
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Why does this read like it’s somehow a *BAD* thing?
yoko-t,
Because somebody wanted drama 🙂
Seriously though it would have looked really bad for microsoft to release an update breaking windows 7 desktop images on the very day they planned to stop supporting it and then not fix it. That just seems vindictive. Fixing the bug was the right thing to do.
The question is, what had they to modify there the day they were plugging out the support ?
Just lol. Security updates? Hell no. A wallpaper bug? Yeah, that’s more important. Let’s fix the wallpaper for everybody even though we’ve told them to fsck themselves on the security front. That’s Microsoft logic in a nutshell, right there.