End of life for Windows Server 2003 R2 is July 14, 2015

[Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d]

On 06/25/2015 04:06 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On 6/25/15 3:58 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
>> On 25/06/15 18:46, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>
>>> Heh, that's awesome actually :)  Got a source for that?
>>
>> Windows 8 was a big failure. Windows 10 is looking much better, I think
>> it will get a much higher adaption rate.
>>
>
> With their track record of "every other release" cycle where one is
> great (XP, 7, (perhaps) 10) and one is horrid (Vista, 8[.1]), I wonder
> if they skipped 9 on purpose :)
>
> I'm definitely looking forward to upgrading to 10 to try it out for
> free, that alone is going to foster huge adoption.
>

(Keep in mind, I'm saying all this as someone who was primarily a 
Windows guy all the way from 3.1 up to...well, last year: )

No, every other release is *less horrible* than the clusterfuck 
immediately before.

Pundits and techies thought 7 was great because they were only comparing 
it to Vista, not to XP. They will likely think 10 is great, because it's 
what 8 tried to be, not that what 8 tried to be was ever anything 
worthwhile. Yes, granted, 7 > Vista, and 10 > 8.1. But aside from kernel 
improvements, XP > 7 > 10. Hell, the supposedly "great" Win7 is what 
finally pushed me over to Linux. (If I want my OS constantly patronizing 
me *and* trying to dictate every detail of how my computer is set up, I 
can just get a Mac...or Ubuntu...or Gnome 3...or any tablet...)

I've been saying for years, all MS ever needed to do was let people have 
an "XP with updated kernel". But they're too busy screwing with 
everyone's UIs to ever be willing to offer that, and I'm convinced 
that's a big part of why XP still exists despite deprecating it and even 
giving away the newer OSes. Outside of fashion-ville silicon valley, 
nobody wants MS's brilliant new UI ideas. MS keeps reinventing the 
steering wheel, and then wonders why fewer and fewer people are biting.

I'll likely be upgrading my Win8.1 partition to 10 (but not my Win7 
installations). But not right away, I'm waiting for the reports to roll 
in on whether the Win10 updater clobbers the linux bootloader (most 
likely, when have Windows installers not done that?) and then look at 
the best practices for avoiding/unfucking that.