Mostly due to two reasons:

- New PCs stopped coming with XP, Windows 7 was the only option (like now Windows 8.1 is the only MS option if you buy a new PC).
- MS stopped supporting XP.

I would still happily use Windows XP, if MS still supported it, provided security fixes and essential features to it, etc.. (I actually use XP on two PCs, but they are mostly disconnected from internet, and used only for retro-gaming). On my main PCs I have Windows 7, on one there is also a (corrupted) Windows 8.1 installation.

(Clarification: by "Windows XP" I mainly mean the UI part. Maybe the biggest technical reason for me to want to move from XP to 7 was to move from 32bit to 64bit for once and for all. Then again, there were 64bit XP editions too.)

To me an OS is mostly just a platform to launch the applications I want to use. The less it gets on my way in doing that, the better. There were a couple of things that made my life easier in Windows 7 compared to XP (like being able to search and launch Start Menu applications by typing their name), but most of its UI features were pretty useless to me, or even got in my way (like that stupid way how Windows 7 expands and stretches windows automatically if you hit a border etc., I want to shoot the fucker who came up with that idea. The best thing about that feature is that you can disable it.). Or that atrocious file indexing thing that kicks in in all the wrong places and times (I don't recall if it was already in XP actually, but it has irritated me mostly on Windows 7).

Some are linking to the MS Holo glasses... so is that the reason to upgrade to Windows 10? Doesn't it support Windows 7 and 8, and if not, why not? MS can't support it there, or doesn't want to support it there?

If it was some third-party company who released those glasses, I bet my ass they would support also Windows 7 and 8. No question about it. It is just MS who doesn't want to support older versions of its own OS, in order to push its newer OSes. Just like with Firefox vs IE etc. (Firefox still works and updates fine on XP, by the way).

The upgrade probably involves sending in the physical disc you bought and sending it to M$, and they'll send you a disk with the Win 10. However i've heard of such replacements done with burned copies, that are not recognized by microsoft if they later break for some reason and you want a replacement disk.

How online or pre-installed OS's go, i could only guess...
I'm reminded that the whole purpose of Windows 8 was so you could use multiple points of input like two fingers at the same time, while with windows 95 i remember if you touch the screen with two fingers, it puts the mouse pointer in the average rather than on two points. (Safeway computer as i recall).

Microsoft is also very bad at supporting older hardware. I have an old Xbox controller from the original system, and Windows refuses to recognize it without fan-made drivers. Also the question of why USB 3.0 support would not be supported by XP/Vista/7 while pushed on 8 and 10, makes no sense as it's just a driver, and offers no advantage other than to push the new OS, it's not like there's a unique mainframe that's only on 8/10, is there?

I'm going to go with my current plan: Use my computers and don't upgrade. When they break/die, make a new system, put Linux on it. Finally, never look back.

I think 99% of PCs here don't come with any installation CD/DVD, but a preloaded Windows with a recovery partition (which you have to backup to either an USB stick or DVD-Rs yourself).

I presume it goes like with that Windows 8 upgrade I bought on discount, ie. I downloaded some upgrade installation package from MS servers. But my main question now is: do I have to install and activate that installation package before the year's end, or am I free to perform the actual upgrade whenever I want, even years from now?

If I have to upgrade and activate it in the time window, I hope it is still possible to go back to the old OS, and re-upgrade to Windows 10 later on, if so inclined. In that case it would be just a stupid obsolete extra step to perform the upgrade, even though you don't want to upgrade yet.

I wouldn't be surprised that you have to activate it within that window, and you can only do it once...

But that's just a guess on my part.

I certainly hope that is not true. After all, sometimes reinstallations are needed, like now with that corrupted Windows 8.1 installation that a misbehaving Windows Update caused (apparently replaced and corrupted some graphics drivers so now I can't even log into Windows to fix it; safe mode doesn't help).

If I was allowed to install Windows 8.1 only once, that'd be that then.

I'm going to say no. Unless they bring back advanced appearance settings and themes don't both. Windows 8 is smaller and faster then 7 because I took so much stuff out of it. One of which was the appearance settings.

oÒ Strange beliefs about storage and performance influence you got there.
Hint: Making something invisible doesn't make it go away. ;)

peek-a-boo

Bad Day L.A. is awesome... come on now, you know you want to play it :P

This. I could stomach e.g. Android's predictive behavior so far until I had to find out how to disable it, because it just got irritating how I constantly had to correct its flawed corrections. Especially when I am writing in Finnish.

Well give people the option to have in during the installation process then. I would rather not get headaches from the colours. Also I like my thick scroll bars. Thin ones aren’t good for 2K monitors, hate to see what it looks like on 4k :P

Why does the iphone auto-corrects (co-wrecks) comes to mind? Although those are probably worse because they happen after you hit send, rather than before...

http://failblog.cheezburger.com/autocowrecks

Sure, so where are the download links :)

That's what we all say until they force it on you by pushing out DX12 exclusive games with publisher agreements.

That only work on people that are into big publisher games. Since I think I did not buy from big publisher anymore for years (Diablo 3 should be the last, hence 2 years) I think I am quite safe for some years more.