Actually doesn't the linux kernel use a similar system? The odd number series are beta and for experimenting and adding new features while the stable series is even numbers? And then when the features are stable and ready they move to even numbers...

Except in cases of Linux they document it well, they don't charge you, and they are completely open about it (including sources).

Although MS isn't exactly following the even/odd, they just increment it at major changes... and service packs? Hmmm..

You can use the latest tech preview internet-less. Basically if you want to use it that way make sure to have your ethernet unplugged when installing so it defaults to a local account instead of a live account. Internet-related apps like skydrive are toned down without it, of course.

Well, I intend to "caveman" around in Win 7 for as long as I can. In fact, I'd probably still happily be using Win XP, if it wasn't for the whole 64-bit support thing. The OS itself worked just fine for me, and did everything I needed it to. I don't see how that calls for ridicule.

Sounds like a cool gimmick, in theory, but I'm not sure how much I'd want to rely on such automated features, especially for important data & conversations, even if they work as intended. The long-term effects of everything being automated and dumbed down and taken out of the hands of the end-users are also questionable.

If you count all Windows releases it doesn't turn out that every second release is good, but I guess logic is not cool for teh Interwebz.
Using pre-compiled binaries are a way of dumbing down the OS. Lets go back to the 80s where we have to personally compile every piece of code we want to use!

Using automated installation packages are a way of dumbing down software deployment. Lets have fun solving Visual Studio's few dozen dependencies, or KDE's few hundred dependencies, one by one.
Sure it worked "fine". Never mind that it didn't use your hardware properly, but it worked fine!

Fine is not good enough.

Those were simpler times. Your bugs were limited to how many lines of code you wrote, or more likely if you used BASIC everything was still source code... I'm referring to Atari400/800, C64 and Apple-2 computers when you were lucky to have 28K of RAM to yourself...

That's the callsign of today's generation: "Minor convenience trumps all!"

If one can get a .00001 increase in "convenience" they are willing to give lots of privacy and who knows what else. Minor convenience is the most important thing to many these days.

Convenience could be all it takes to talk people out wanting privacy

This focus on convenience ... seems unprecedented

It's all they seem to care about..

Oops, I did it again... skip the fearsome wall of text if you hate these.

TL:DR - cloud storage is typically both local and cloud with local synced to cloud. You are not dependent on the cloud to get at your data. It is not like DRM. In part 2, I actually toss in my views about the topic at hand here.

About the cloud for anybody not already knowing this:

I know you posted this some time ago but it made me wonder if you and possibly others are aware of how personal cloud storage tends to normally work with the major players such as Google Drive, Microsoft's Skydrive, Apple's iCloud and the most popular of them all (and the most flexible I might add) Dropbox.

The way these services operate by default is to maintain all of your data both locally and in the cloud. The idea being that should you be offline you still have complete access to all your files. Once you go back online again whenever that is, changes are synced up to the cloud at that time.

Of course, there's exceptions to every rule such as online applications which read and write data in the cloud like Google Docs. While they can save stuff locally on demand the default behavior is to do nothing locally with you data. I wonder how much that stuff really gets serious use aside of Chromebook users.

So, they just possess a copy of your data and the benefit of that is off-site storage of valuable files more than anything. For example, photos, rare music ripped from CDs that would be hard to find or expensive if you could, movies you've made, etc., etc.

If anything, a lack of flexibility with some of these services is a problem when you want to offload data that is local and just keep in the cloud to save space on your primary drive where these services tend to store data locally. Dropbox is the most flexible I have seen in looking into the options in that it allows me to pick and choose what folders sync and what folders do not. So, I could upload a bunch of archival stuff without it wasting space on my startup disk. It's nice to have that option.

Don't get me wrong. I do not have complete faith in the cloud anymore than I do in any other storage system. I keep data like that locally on an external USB drive. In some case redundantly on a second one for precious data like family photos and my music library just in case the external drive bites the dust.

I see cloud storage as a good thing in that somebody could break into my home and steal my computer and the external drive next to it and even the one in the closet and I'd be screwed. Similarly a house fire would likely destroy these things and if I lived myself I'd be pretty sad about that. If the stuff is in the cloud too, I am safe from unexpected disaster of pretty much any kind. Cloud storage for the important stuff has become cheap too.

So, nobody is getting your data in a DRM sort of way where they are controlling access to your stuff. Quite the contrary, you control that unless they have a devastating problem on their end and lose it all. Barring natural disasters that isn't too likely though as I am sure they redundantly back up as well.

We now return to the original topic:

As for Microsoft wanting an online account to login to your operating system every time you use the computer, I don't think that's happening. It'll be optional is my guess although they probably will require it one time as a DRM thing to tie that account and license to your hardware in oem license fashion as has been mentioned elsewhere not to mention setting you up whether you like it or not to access their app store. I really cannot imagine an online login requirement to use Windows regularly though. That just isn't going to fly with users.

On my Mac I have an AppleID account to access all things iTunes from the Mac App Store to music, movie rentals for my AppleTV box, etc., etc. They also bill that same account for cloud storage I opted into. However, I do not need that account at all to login to OS X. I have a entirely separate user account for that. I think after a one time registration and account creation during install that will be what most Windows users wind up with as well but knowing Microsoft it may not be the default. I suspect users will have to deliberately set that up themselves. That's just my guess.

I have zero interest in Windows 10 personally. I run XP and Win7 in virtual machines using a software called Parallels that has built in DirectX support and works very well for many titles although obviously there is a performance trade off there. It's one I've found easy to live with however. I'm phasing out Windows here as I play the stuff I own that requires it. I'll hang on to the XP VM for as long as I can get away with it for GOG classics, etc. but whenever my two Windows licenses become obsolete I'm so done with them. They can't even give it to me for free. Fortunately, a lot of GOG titles run very nicely in Boxer (DOSBox for Mac) and Wineskin (A nice Wine setup app for Mac) so even if I tossed Parallels I'd have most of my oldies but goodies to play.

Mac gaming is a lot better than people who don't do it might imagine. For everything else, there are Playstations. Say what you might about Apple but they don't screw you around like Microsoft does in my experience. I didn't get to be a fanboy without being given reason to be.

There's never been a better time to start looking at alternatives and I don't mean just my personal favorite. If I didn't have this Mac I'd be looking real hard at what my favorite distro of Linux could be. I've run Linux quite a bit in the past. I like SuSE myself but Mint is nice too. I'm a KDE fan personally or at least I was then. I'd have to re-evaluate that after this much time. I tried Ubuntu but I hated Unity. Of course, you aren't forced to use Unity. Fedora didn't do it for me either. Gentoo tempted me but I was too lazy. The wonderful thing about Linux though is there is just so much choice. Like with OS X, gaming on Linux has come a long way in recent years. A combination of an alternative OS and your favorite console and you too can be Microsoft free! Well, that assumes your favorite console isn't an Xbone.

What do you mean "didn't use your hardware properly". If it didn't use it properly it wouldn't be able to run anything.

And "fine" certainly is good enough for 99% of people.

I prefer good old XP. It never slows me down with updates anymore because it doesn't get any. Finally! Of course, this caveman keeps his XP caged in a virtual machine just like his Win7 because that's where Microsoft operating systems belong, in cages insulated from the superior host operating system. Besides, all they are is gaming OS's anyway. Why would this caveman want to use them to send email?

This old caveman can click Mail on the dock, type the first two or three letters of the addressee, hit tab and title it, drop the cursor into the body of the email, type his musings at high speed and click send in almost no time. I don't need some silly Halo NPC to help me.

By the way, your example assumes perfect speech recognition which does not exist. Therefore, you will find yourself needing to fix Cortana's mistakes or else sending off some pretty fucked up emails at times. This process can tend to slow one down considerably. I use speech recognition for texting but you know, when I use the Messages app on my Mac to send texts I find I'm much faster without the "help."

Now, if you will excuse me I must go find a woman to club into submission because that's how we cavemen roll.

Yes, speech is pretty much only useful when you can't readily use fast input devices. If you're by your computer with a mouse and keyboard (and you can use them well enough), it's pretty useless.

I get your point, but what annoys me with your cavemen analogy is that it is probably how MS thinks : improvement = redesign + new functionalities.
Then here I am, spending an awful lot of time trying to show my old parents how to do what they had quite a hard time to learn on XP, this time on their new windows 8 laptop. It's extremely upsetting for them and for me. In my opinion MS fails to its responsibilties big time on that matter - they suck at taking care of older people, which are a growing customer share.
I hope things would have evolve when you'll get older (or hopefully mankind would have found a miracle cure against memory loss).

I can honestly say that since my family started using Macs and iPads I never get support calls anymore. It's wonderful. I did have to walk my father through setting up his AppleTV but that is only because he is too lazy to even try on his own when he knows I will just tell him what to do. He's not at all a lazy person either but such menial tasks he does not hesitate to delegate to lesser family members such as myself.

My father exclusively used Macintoshes (?) in the past millenium (pre Mac OS 9 era), and I guess I will have to check for making him go back to Apple in the future, he doesn't need windows for weird softwares anymore and the different Linux I made him try didn't work out (not even Suse). I can't imagine myself recommend my parents getting a win 10 pc.

Kek! :D

Yes, Apple is very good with keeping UI consistency. At least for the OS side. If you're a developer, Visual Studio is better than Xcode in this respect.