The inevitable end of Windows 7 for IMatch

[ColinIM]

In another post, Mario showed us some early statistic from the metadata that he has gathered from our IMatch versions 2018.11.2 (or from later versions of course).

These statistics will be highly valuable for Mario as he sets priorities for IMatch's future development, and speaking as a rationalist, I would never argue with statistice like these. Thay are simply telling us the plain facts.

But I think I might be allowed to say if one of the charts makes me very disappointed!

Of course the charts in Mario's post (linked in my opening sentence) are still very early charts, and the chart ratios will change (more and less) over time, but already this 'Platform' chart is not a happy one for me!



There are so few Windows 7 Users compared to Windows 10 Users!  I'll predict that the ratios in this chart will not change much in the months to come, and that - regrettably IMO - this is an unstoppable tide!

I will continue to use Windows 7 until the very last feasible minute, and I will continue to update my 'major' software applications until they (in turn) can no longer support Windows 7.

(These major applications include for example IMatch and DxO PhotoLab which recently and unavoidably (of course) pulled in a .NET upgrade to version 4.7.2 before it could start its own upgrade installation.)

When I can no longer install or upgrade one of my major applications I will simply stop paying for software upgrades.

Yes, I might change my mind and install Windows 10 if (Ha Ha Ha!) Microsoft suddenly becomes an 'ethical' company and does something to win back our trust - perhaps by explaining to us exactly what metadata they're extracting from our machines, and giving us a chance to say "no thank you". I would gladly provide metadata to Microsoft, under some circumstances, but trust must come first.  Given sufficient trust (in Microsoft) I could happily agree that (some) data gathering (by Microsoft) can bring benefits to all Windows Users.

(I'm not yet ready to rely upon the few Utility programs that claim to help us defeat Microsoft's data harvesting.  I've never been afraid of tweaking complex configuration files, but these Utilities are clearly in an ongoing battle with the Giant Microsoft Corporation, and now (at my age) life is simply too short to fiddle and research and fiddle again and tweak yet another setting to attempt to defeat Microsoft's no-longer-trusted routine patches.  It's a bitterly sad situation.  I take some comfort in knowing that I'm not the only former computer & networks expert to think so.)

Thank you for reading this far.

[Mario]

Do you use a smart phone? In that case, be aware of the fact that most applications are sending telemetry data all over the place. Just saying.

MacOS, iOS, Android, Windows, Linux (depends on the distribution) all send, to some extent, data to the vendors and often 3rd parties.
Many 'fee' apps make money from collecting and sharing your data with paying parties.
Unless you disable everything and run plug-ins, your browser is, via web sites, leaking data about you like an old watering can.

Microsoft is quite open about which data they collect, but there is no way (anymore) to disable all telemetry in Windows 10.
I'm no fan of that either. I would rather pay for Windows 10 and have it not 'call home'. Actually I do. To get all the testing platforms etc.
You can always block the calling home servers in your firewall if you are really concerned about his. Numerous guides about there. There is over 1 billion (!) Windows installations in use today, Microsoft can spare a few users 

Anyway, I have Windows 7 now only running in a container (virtual environment). For security reasons I have disconnected it from the Internet and I use it only for testing IMatch and the installer.
All my machines and cloud computers run Windows 10 or Linux now.

Windows 7 support has been officially discontinued by MS after 12 years in 2015 (!).
Now only the most urgent security patches are released until 2020. It's dead, basically.

3rd party and toolkit vendors are discontinuing support for the Windows 7 platform. And once they do, and I need an updated version of a toolkit which only supports Windows 8 and later, I have no choice and I will have to discontinue support for W7 as well. As you say in your post.

IMatch is a 'native' application, written in C++. I don't depend on Java or .NET so I have a bit more leverage than other applications.

[ColinIM]

To your points about this and that leaking like old watering cans, I can reply, with respect:

Yes, I know.

Yes, I know.

Yes, I know.

Yes, I know.

But again, on principle, I'm against it.
Label me perhaps as one of King Kanute's inflexible Advisors.

(....)
Microsoft is quite open about which data they collect (....)

I'm not yet persuaded that this is an absolute truth ... hence the trust question (on my part at least).

It's not only about the content in the data they gather from us (about which the do give us some information, I agree).  I object to them knowing (or gleaning) the pattern of my day while computing, and how many computers are used in my household, and when I run a particular program etc., etc..

(This is not a 'tin hat' issue for me.  Perhaps I know too much about how my network babbles to the world, but I'm able to accept or control almost all of that babble)

I recall the many Microsoft (and Novell) training courses that I once paid for from my own pocket, and the depth of technical knowledge I gained from those courses.  I would willingly pay to attend a Microsoft course  - if one was available - designed exclusively to explain their company ethos and their reasons for such rigid, obscure data harvesting.  (Yes, it's largely obscure. It's certainly not transparent).

(I already run a couple of Virtual Machines on VirtualBox, but I should only need to "go VM" if (when) my PC hardware dies.)

(....)
IMatch is a 'native' application, written in C++. I don't depend on Java or .NET so I have a bit more leverage than other applications.

Thank you    While I will always accept 100% your business and development decisions in years to come, this point gives me some hope that the diminishing flash of Windows 7 'green' in that chart might perhaps become quite thin before you have to tell us "Bye Bye Windows 7" 

You can probably tell that this 'Windows 7' worry has been bugging me for a long time, hence this long rant that has just escaped form my head!!  But I sincerely don't want to open one of those "Windows 10 versus Windows 7" discussions here on this Forum.  That argument has been wrung dry a hundred times on other Forums.  I think my main aim here was to signal to you that I might stop updating IMatch at some future date - sadly not too far away.

[sinus]

I liked almost every Win - version in the past.
But as always, at first not, after a couple of weeks very well.
Win10 I like really the most of all, but I cannot say, why exactly.

But I can remember, when I had Win XP, I liked also and wanted not update to the next version.

But I had to, because some really important programs did not more run on Win XP, like a software for taxes, from the government!!
Or from some finance-institutes, to go online on your account, they simply did not more run, I had to do it without them or I had to update.

And yes, IMatch is that important to me, that I want not do it without it (hm ... I do not find another word for "verzichten").
And that telemetry-stuff, I like not. I thought really about it, to not let it enable it in IMatch.
But since I trust Mario, I did enable it.

And he had showed, that he does also inform (hopefully from time to time) his users, because some of theses information is surely also interesting for users.

Colin, I guess, you are right, the end of Win7 for IMatch (and a lot of other software) will come.
I like not a lot of some new technology (some I love), but if we like or not, some ways of the humans are not to prevent, sometimes they are bad ones, sometimes good ones and of course there are a lot between these extremes.

[David_H]

Yes, I might change my mind and install Windows 10 if (Ha Ha Ha!) Microsoft suddenly becomes an 'ethical' company and does something to win back our trust - perhaps by explaining to us exactly what metadata they're extracting from our machines, and giving us a chance to say "no thank you". I would gladly provide metadata to Microsoft, under some circumstances, but trust must come first.  Given sufficient trust (in Microsoft) I could happily agree that (some) data gathering (by Microsoft) can bring benefits to all Windows Users.

They do; to both your issues. You can download the "Diagnostic Data Viewer" to see what gets sent back (and unless you've blocked the relevant updates, Windows 7 does exactly the same). As for the 'no thank you' option, you can either pare it down to the minimum, or purchase a version of windows that enables the 'off' setting.

[Carlo Didier]

I'm currently managing my companies worldwide switch from W7 to W10 and I'll be very happy when we finally get rid of the last W7 installation.
For compatibility reasons with current technologies as well as from a security viewpoint, there's no reason to stay with W7.

Collin, I suppose you are neither on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any other social network? If you are, then some telemetry from Windows can't really be  worrying you at all.

And you don't ever pay with a card, but only cash and you only draw that cash always from the same single ATM of your trust?

You have a smartphone? Even without apps snooping on you, Google or Apple know a lot about you as soon as you power it on. And if it's not a smartphone, your telco still knows things about you.

What I want to say is that a healthy amount of caution about what information you give away is surely appropriate, but at some point it doesn't make any sense anymore.

[bonsai]

Colin, I'm 100% with you.
This Win10 crap will never reach one of my machines.
It's not only that calling home. Win10 is a never ending beta without any quality management, as you can see with the last update where they deleted the user data, just for example.

@David
Windows with 'off' setting is an enterprise version, so nothing for the standard user.


@Carlo
You think all and everything is calling home, so you gave up and it doesn't matter?

[unterwasserfoto_at]

It's not easy to move with the times today.

Meanwhile I have to change my workflow for the third time regarding the IMatch. I sat many hours and typed scripts.
Now I landed at IMatch 8. Yes, I have adapted my workflow now. Adapted to follow the mainstream. I have to cut back. I will probably only be able to supply more German speaking agencies.
But what I would like to say is that I have become more effective and don't have to fear with every update that my workflow doesn't fit anymore. I must also confess that I have long after the IMatch3 cried. So the step to the change took a long time. Actually until today. But this time is almost impossible to make up for.

So I would like to talk about Win10.
Currently one of the best operating systems of Windows since XP. In the company where I work we now convert hundreds of computers to Win10. These are not office clients but computers which are operated in the production network.
The advantages outweigh.
So my tip, if you do not go with the time, then you go with the time (hope this comes across in English just like in German) I want to say with it, do not make the same mistake as I with IMatch and wait too long, otherwise the change after years later is very painful.

As far as collecting data is concerned. The times as a hermit are over. Big Data sends its greetings.
At IMatch I see it as a big advantage. I hope that the programs will be improved according to the users.

Still a lot of fun in the digital world

salute
tom

[Carlo Didier]

... and it doesn't matter?

To a certain extent, yes. There's information about me that I don't want to give away and there's information I don't care about. What Windows may collect falls into the second part.

If you want to participate in life, you can't completely block off the world around you.

We give away so much information about us in so many ways every day that complaining about telemetrics, which could actually be useful as you can see in the case of iMatch, often sounds like hypocrisy to me. Mind you, I'm not for uncontrolled and unlimited mining of personal data, but I'm not getting paranoia about it.

And it's so easy nowadays to monitor what applications do (at least for people who are interested in that stuff) that it would be quickly revealed if Microsoft (as an example) were collecting sensitive personal data. It would be known, so they won't do it.

[bonsai]

...so they won't do it.

Ha ha, like facebook (as an example)?
I'm not paranoid and I think I'm able to control outbound traffic in most cases.
Most users don't and they don't care.
But like I said it's not just calling home but the quality of Win 10.
And the quality is abysmal...

[Mario]

And the quality is abysmal...

I work with Windows 10 every day. I don't find its quality abysmal. It does the job. It does not crash, it performs well etc.
There are 1.4 billion Windows installations out there and Microsoft has to update them all every week/month.
It is inevitable that there are problems with each Windows update, especially with the big roll-outs.

I have experienced 'abysmal' performance and tough problems also under various Linux derivatives, from spontaneous reboots to data loss over the years

No system is perfect. Nobody is forced to use Windows 10, there is also MacOS and Linux.

[Carlo Didier]

I'm all with Mario here. Even Windows 7 was not bad at all. We have approx. 1800 Windows 7 PCs running since 2012. Any serious problems we had were caused either by stupid users, hardware problems or occasionally by third-party software or drivers (which is not Windows' fault).

[ColinIM]

Thank you to everyone for your responses.

I'll try (Well, I tried ...)  to give brief acknowledgements to some of your points, but rather than deepen this potential Pandora's Box of Windows 10 pros and cons, I invite you all to focus instead on other threads dealing with IMatch's many charms, old and new.

Regarding Windows 10's merits:

1. @Markus (@sinus)
"Win10 I like really the most of all, but I cannot say, why exactly."

2. @Tom (@unterwasserfoto_at)
"(Windows 10 is ...) Currently one of the best operating systems of Windows since XP."

3. @Mario
"I work with Windows 10 every day. I don't find its quality abysmal. It does the job. It does not crash, it performs well etc."

I do accept that these are justified comments about Windows 10.  To avoid me repeating myself, please also read my longer-paragraph reply to bonsai near the end of this post.

Regarding the privacy theme in Windows 10:

4. @Carlo Didier
"(....) "If you want to participate in life, you can't completely block off the world around you.(....)  Mind you, I'm not for uncontrolled and unlimited mining of personal data, but I'm not getting paranoia about it."

I agree with the first of your points that I've quoted here. And I'm sure I am a long long way from being paranoid, although the specific points that are being weighed here might make that hard to believe!

I'm simply trying to hold the middle ground - while some middle ground remains - and of course I don't consider this to be a futile objective.

5. @Carlo Didier
"(....) if Microsoft (as an example) were collecting sensitive personal data. It would be known, so they won't do it."

As I explained in my reply to Mario above ... to me it is not just about the 'fact' that Microsoft does data harvesting (whether on personal data or not).  I care as much about the extent of this erosion.  It is now a sad fact that privacy erosion will happen to us all whether we like it or not.  This incremental erosion of privacy is too willingly tolerated today (IMO) by too many people.

I should not need to defend myself against the position I'm holding. If it seems a bit 'utopian' to do what I'm doing, then yes, it is (today) almost exactly that.  In other words, our basic personal privacy has moved out of the box we might once have labelled as "My Privacy Belongs To Me" and it now sits in today's box that could be labelled as "Total Privacy Is Almost A Utopian Dream".

The protection of one's privacy needn't be 'utopian' at all!!

6. @David_H
"(....) You can download the "Diagnostic Data Viewer" to see what gets sent back (....)"

Hmmmm! Yes, I've heard about that Utility (written and supplied by Microsoft!), and I've seen it reviewed on (for example) www.ghacks.net.  But the ironic fact is that before I use it I would need to buy Windows 10, and that's an unwelcome chicken and egg situation for me.

But really, my (renewed) trust (in Microsoft) must come first, and sadly we know of too many occasions since at least late 2017 when Microsoft have played less than 'nice' in their efforts to defeat our efforts to control and limit their data harvesting.  That is a battle I don't want to engage in.

7. @David_H
"(....) or purchase a version of windows that enables the 'off' setting."

That (purchase) is regrettably not an option!  I refer you to bonsai's reply above (from about mid-afternoon UK time on Friday 02 November).  His reply matches my knowledge of Microsoft's licensing patterns.  Or have we missed something about Microsoft's  licensing)?

I would love to discover [no sarcasm implied] that an ordinary potential User like myself could in fact buy an Enterprise-level Windows 10 licence!  It would change my thinking a lot.

8. @bonsai
"Colin, I'm 100% with you."

Thank you!  I knew I wouldn't be alone.

But also bonsai, to be fair ...

9. @bonsai
"And the quality is abysmal..."

Hmmmm!  I think your 'tar brush' is too broad on that point  :-) 

From the handful of techy Forums in which I've skulked, and the various Podcasts that I've listened to, I see a broad agreement that Microsoft's upgrades and patches have become horror stories, ever since late 2017 and especially recently. But still, on balance (so far), the Windows 10 Operating System itself continues to get (some) applause (maybe grudging applause!) from the Tech community in general.

Sorry readers ... this "final reply" from me has grown so long that I hesitated about whether I should even upload it!

You are welcome to reply again of course, but (I say again) I invite you all to focus instead on other threads dealing with IMatch's many charms, rather than deepen this potential Pandora's Box of Windows 10 pros and cons.

Respectfully yours,
Colin P.

[lbo]

I liked almost every Win - version in the past.

IMO there were several versions of Windows "to be avoided", for example Vista and Windows Me (don't want to go back further). And to some extent also 8.

Regarding privacy and stability: At least the current versions of Windows 10 Pro (and higher) allow reasonable settings. Use "Semi Annual Channel" (not "...Targeted"!) to avoid the risk coming with early releases. Reduce content of diagnosis data, disable a bunch of other personalization settings and use a local account. Several settings are a bit hidden, though.

Oliver

[Jingo]

Win10 for me... with tweaks enabled to make it behave like Win7... its a great OS.  You do realize you can turn off Windows Phone home stuff just by doing a bit of research (I posted this recenlty on a thread here)... and there is always firewalls if you really want to keep on top of all outbound activity.

[David_H]

7. @David_H
"(....) or purchase a version of windows that enables the 'off' setting."

That (purchase) is regrettably not an option!  I refer you to bonsai's reply above (from about mid-afternoon UK time on Friday 02 November).  His reply matches my knowledge of Microsoft's licensing patterns.  Or have we missed something about Microsoft's  licensing)?

I would love to discover [no sarcasm implied] that an ordinary potential User like myself could in fact buy an Enterprise-level Windows 10 licence!  It would change my thinking a lot.

A Windows 10 E3 subscription is what is required from a participating CSP. Yes, it is obviously business orientated, yes, you'll have to pay for it (yearly/monthly) and yes it may cost considerably more than you wish to pay, but it is available (and covers the user for up to 5 devices too).

[ColinIM]

(....) A Windows 10 E3 subscription is what is required from a participating CSP.

Thank you David.

I didn't know that was (now) available. (It's been over a decade since I worked with Microsoft Volume Licensing in the UK Public Sector.)

I see on a Microsoft blog that the E3 scheme was announced in July 2016, and that since September 2016 it's been available to "businesses of any size from $7 per user/per month".  Naturally those prices will have changed by now, and anyway I would expect them to be on top of one or more layers of costs relating to Enterprise Licensing overall.

I see there's also an E5 option, which includes everything in E3 and adds "Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection and advanced IT administration management functionality".  So I wouldn't dismiss an E5 option.

My favourite UK Cloud Services Provider (CSP) is Grey Matter .  I've been with them a long time and (of course) they offer E3 / E5 Licensing options, so I'll send them an initial query and see what emerges.

TL:DR

This wouldn't be a simple switch for me anyway.  I'd need to weigh-up these next points at least:

• Would I need to be an actual 'business' in order to use an E3 /E5 scheme? (I'm not a business.)
• If do I decide that this is affordable, and if do take this route, I would buy a new computer with up-to-date hardware, just to run this instance of Windows 10.  I would not switch my two current Windows 7 computers to Window 10.
• This Windows 10 E3/E5 option might allow me to reduce a lot of the basic babbling and data harvesting from the PC, but I know it would still be talking back & forth with many Microsoft servers and Cloud services.  So yes, it would still be huge 'privacy' compromise for me to consider.
• While using this (hypothetical) new Windows 10 computer, it seems the computer would be permanently associated with a Microsoft Azure (Cloud) account.  Hmmmm.  That's not an appealing thought either!

Anyway, I'll stop hypothesizing for now, and if perhaps my reply from Grey Matter seems reasonably straightforward then I'll post a summary of it here.

[ColinIM]

[snip]
[snip]
Anyway, I'll stop hypothesizing for now, and if perhaps my reply from Grey Matter seems reasonably straightforward then I'll post a summary of it here.

Just to fulfill my promise of adding a summary here of the reply I got from Grey Matter, with apologies for taking so many days to come back to this.

The short summary is that Yes!  Any one of us can purchase an upgrade from a Windows 10 Pro licence to Windows 10 Enterprise Edition, and the upgrade cost is - in my humble opinion - extremely affordable.

Here are some of the key points I learnt from my contact at Grey Matter, and I've included a couple of reminders just for clarity:

• "Grey Matter" is just one of Microsoft's many "Cloud Solution Providers" (or "CSPs").
• In your country you will have your own list of CSPs - searchable via Microsoft's web site.
• These CSPs sell and manage the Enterprise licences on behalf of Microsoft, so if you switch to 'Enterprise' you will work alongside your own CSP and you won't deal directly with Microsoft's licensing people.
• The Enterprise schemes are in fact subscriptions, so you would be agreeing to pay a recurring annual (or optionally monthly) fee for the support and oversight that you'd be getting (like it or not) from your CSP.
• That subscription cost will be in addition to the price you'd already paid (if any) for your Windows 10 Pro licence.
• (The prices I quote below are exclusive of VAT.)
• The price quotation I received (although of course your price details might be different) was that (here in UK) I would pay an annual fee of  £63.60  to Grey Matter for my (hypothetical) upgrade, on one computer, from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 E3.
• The price for the slightly more versatile Enterprise E5 was  £116.40  per year, and - to keep this brief - I'll leave it up to you to research whether or not you'd need the extra "E5" features.
• The Windows 10 Pro computer which you would be upgrading could be obtained through any usual source. You could build the computer yourself and install your own Windows 10 Pro license, or you could buy a ready-made ("OEM") computer with Windows 10 already installed.
• In order to make the "E3" upgrade happen you would work with your CSP to obtain your own Microsoft Azure Cloud account, and your CSP would then turn all of the necessary 'cogs' in the Azure system - initially to make the upgrade happen, and then afterwards, to keep your computer updated with all of the usual (free) patches plus any extra software or features that you might also choose to pay for.

So, yes, it all sounds impressively simple and (in my view) very affordable!

Also, from what I understand, the extra Administrative tools and privileges available in an Enterprise E3 edition of Windows would indeed allow me to 'throttle back' (reduce) and limit the amount of telemetry that my computer would routinely send back to 'Microsoft', but ironically, the fact that the day-to-day maintenance of the Enterprise E3 scheme requires me (or my computer) to be frequently - if not permanently - logged-on to a Microsoft Azure Cloud server, would completely undermine any warm feeling I might have about "ownership" of my privacy.

Again (without seeming too flippant I hope) before I could "feel good" about switching to Windows 10 or Windows E3 I would first need to have a bit of a brain transplant - or somehow be RE-educated into really trusting the giant, monopolistic, Microsoft.

I know ... I promise ... I do know that I'm in a minority, and that my privacy-paranoia tin-hat is bigger than most other peoples' tin-hats ... but - however appealing it would be to be sure I could stay up-to-date with future IMatch upgrades (and DxO PhotoLab upgrades too) - I must (for now) continue to guard my privacy and look forward hopefully, someday, to a new Microsoft Corporation that really tries hard to regain and to hold my trust.

I'm not there yet, but thank you for listening.

[Mario]

Thanks for sharing this information.

This week was reported that Microsoft Office telemetry reports over 25,000 event types back to Microsoft. Without an option to disable this.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/dutch-government-report-says-microsoft-office-telemetry-collection-breaks-gdpr/

The Dutch Government reported this and is planning actions against MS because this violates the GDPR.

I wonder what Adobe applications are sending home...

I'm pretty clear about telemetry in IMatch and when you turn it off, it is off. No leaking, no 'minimum' set of data transmitted, etc.
Although the data collected is important for me and for the future development of IMatch, I want users to participate voluntarily and with a clean conscience.