Which, with Windows becoming a service rather than a product, will be until Windows 11 is released.

The disk footprint isn't the issue. I'm talking about RAM and CPU usage. From what I've read 10 is also supposed to use less power on average, but that's less important to me.
Why do people think that Microsoft will do anything bad? I mean, sure, Microsoft occasionally comes out with some ideas people don't like, but it has always taken them back. Microsoft listens to customers, that's the major lesson I learned over the past few years.

Because Microsoft has a history of monopolistic abusive behaviour which goes back a lot further than the past few years. That they have been more accommodating in recent years is great, but personally I'm inclined to think it's largely because their monopoly has been slipping, rather than because of a change in company attitude.

I don't mean to come off as mean-spirited or nasty, but, frankly, that's simply untrue. If that had any truth to it, I'd be able to run Windows 7 offline without resorting to hacks that allow me a couple of months of usage without connecting to the internet, maybe a year at most. In fact, this is a good case study in how Microsoft doesn't "take them back" but buries the sh!t deeper: Part of the validation system used by Windows was based on a product snuck into XP via an update called Windows Genuine Advantage. After large amounts of protest, Microsoft provided a removal method. And then Microsoft mandated this technology in Vista and later, changing the name to Windows Activation Technologies with Windows 7.

Which has a limit of 10MBs per week for the auto submission. 10MBs. You downloaded more by visiting GOG trying to view your replies.
The crap is stronK in this one.

Haha, I remember skipping this "update" completely when choosing my WinXP patches.
WinXP-SP3 disc version was shipped with it right away though and needed hacks. -.-

He said it would take something like three seconds between issuing a command to move a card and it taking effect, almost always during a certain time of day when the internet is busier. Depending on how much crap you do on individual moves plus a weak internet (of 20-50k a second I think, it was pretty bad) adds up quickly.

But I don't know the details, only what I'm told second hand.

WAT... no wonder that looks familiar... Thankfully first thing I do if I ever install one of these OS's is removal of those features...

Let's not forget the XBone debacle with Always Online DRM and 24-hour check-ins for the system for it to work. I guarentee you it had nothing to do with customer feedback or people complaining, and everything to do with preorders on XBone being so overpowered by a 9x larger PS4 preorders... not to mention the snide and stupid attitude of their PR Guy who told you flatly out if you didn't want your system connected to the internet all the time and requiring the Kinnect, you could always get a 360.

this is absolutely crazy (if true)

Not with myths of M$ making Win10 sub-based. Wait till reviews, I think.

I guess it's just my ignorance. I was under the impression that once you activate Windows you can run it offline indefinitely.

Yeah, I got it wrong, fortunately it is not true ;)

Yeah, so Microsoft changed its stance, but it gets no credit for that, because hey, it's cool to hate Microsoft. It's always about money. That's what companies are about. But there are a lot of ways to go about everything. Steam is about making money, GOG is about making money, each has its own take. So yes, GOG took back regional pricing because of money, no credit is due.

Not sure if this was asked, but:

So there is one year window for Windows 7/8/8.1 users to upgrade to Windows 10 for free. Does that mean we have one year to obtain the upgrade package, or that we actually have to upgrade our PCs and activate it in a year?

My point is, if I want to still continue using Windows 7 (or 8... yeah right), can I do that, even though I also wanted the free upgrade just in case? Similarly like I did get the heavily discounted Windows 8 upgrade for my Windows 7 PC, but it is currently just sitting there and I am still using 7? (I actually installed and activated it, but I presume even without that the Win8 upgrade package would be usable even today.)

I'm still trying to figure out the real reasons I'd want to upgrade to Windows 10, besides that Windows 7 (and 8) support will end at some point. Windows 10 has some speech system where you can tell the PC to do things like search for some file, but naturally it doesn't support Finnish? No thanks, anyway. Sounds too gimmicky.

One of the main points I wanted to at least try Windows 8 were the claims that e.g. games will run faster on it than on Windows 7, but those claims proved to be false. Other than that, I saw very little reason why I'd want to use 8 instead of 7, even if 8 still seemed quite usable.

At this point game backwards compatibility is so important to me that maybe I'll wait when I have no other choice but to use Windows 10, ie. when I buy a new PC which come with Win 10 preloaded.