Windows 10 will automatically download on to Windows 7 or 8 PCs | Technology | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2 ... -computers

It's increasingly likely that I'll be walking into the Apple store in a few years time to test a Mac.

This is their second swipe at it and they had to backtrack because it was massively unpopular. Seems MS aren't terribly good at learning lessons about not peeing off their customers.
I guess the annoying thing for them is that Apple manage to effectively pull the same stunt on a fairly regular basis and the majority go along with it. Apple however use hardware obsolescence (often through software updates) to do it which is a neat trick.

Yeah, I'd been thinking about that but I don't know the ins and outs, really. How obliged are you to update with a Mac?

Microsoft's real issue is how to make money from something they now have to give away for free they fcuked up so badly. And every move with 10 has been designed to treat the customer like an idiot while scraping every penny and bit of data going. As you say, they've already had to backtrack before, and that's not even including when they lost the console war pulling similar sh1t.

Not at all, you can turn off automatic updates in the App Store, though the default setting in System Preferences is to download but not install system updates and ask you when to install. With auto updates switched off you have to manually check in the App Store.

iOS, on the other hand, seems to take a different approach and automatically download iOS updates when connected to a power source, whether you like it or not. Wouldn't be surprised for this strategy to make an appearance in OS X as well, at some point in the near future. I hope not, but suspect it will.

Thanks for that, good to know.

Apple typically used to support the current and one or two previous versions of OS X. Not sure how much that's changed. They seem to be a bit less mercenary about it since Steve Jobs died funnily enough. Each new version of OS X used to bump the minimum spec of machine necessary to run it but since they ditched support for 32 bit CPUs again they seem to have been less mercenary about the hardware specs for each new version. El Capitain supports macs going back to 2007 for example. You typically need a newer machine to work with all the swishy new features but the base is is generally okay on older hardware.

My iMac hasn't had any security updates made available for it for nearly 3 years. It still works fine, but runs Windows and Linux now, because I can get updates from them for years to come - Microsoft will stop supporting my iMac in 2020, Apple stopped supporting it in 2012!

I can't upgrade to a newer version of the OS and Apple won't provide updates for older Macs, the only option is to scrap a working machine and buy a new one - or put a non-Apple OS on it.

Your "only option" is to scrap a working machine? Just because Apple don't issue updates for it doesn't suddenly stop it from working! As previously mentioned, El Capitan supports a fairly wide range of hardware - I don't think that's changed since 10.8 Mountain Lion, has it? Maybe you were just unlucky to have a model that's just dropped below the minimum specs for recent systems, is it a 32-bit processor? In terms of security, as long as you use common sense then I don't see any problem.

The only reason old versions of Windows still gets updates is due to massive corporate inertia, if MS could drop support for old versions quicker they'd do so in a flash (witness how quickly they dropped support for each generation of consoles as the new one appeared). The fact is generally speaking there are viable technical reasons why older hardware hasn't received updates - e.g. the move to 64 bit OS for example, it's all well and good to say 'well they have the code why not' but the bare fact is you can't just back port 64 bit code to 32 bit. Dependencies can be an absolute bitch in these cases, for example.

Linux fair enough, one of the advantages of an open source OS is you get support from the community as long as the community is willing to provide it, so all you need is a fair number of technically competent people, it's essentially zero cost.

Tell you what Dave, tell us when you bought the Mac that Apple have dropped support for, when it was manufactured and when the last OS update for it came out. Then we can judge whether Apple's support for it has been sufficient or not.

er... I don't think Dave talked about scrapping it, in fact it sounds it sounds like the opposite. He's essentially scraped the OS that came on it, to carry on using the hardware.

Your only option is to scrap a working machine if you want to keep using OS X. As Dave himself pointed out that's not the only option available, it's just the only Apple want you to go with. They are still, at least for a lot of things, a hardware driven company so of course they want you to buy new hardware on a fairly regular basis and in the past they've been fairly ruthless about using their software updates push people into upgrading their hardware. As I said that position does seem to have softened a little since the death of Jobs. My old 2008 Mac Pro will run El Capitain so that's in the region of 7 years if software support which I don't think is too bad really. If you've got a similar vintage 32 bit Mac then you're stuffed as far as OS X support goes which is frustrating it is an otherwise still functional bit of kit but hey ho. Apples decision to move to a pure 64 bit platform was ultimately a good one and frankly one MS should have had the courage to do as well a long time ago (like at Win7 IMHO).

Given most of the security updates it hasn't had over the last 3 years have fixed bugs for remote code execution, then no, not throw it away, but I wouldn't let it near an Internet connection running OS X.

It is a 64-bit Core2Duo processor, but Apple only put a 32-bit EFI in it, so no updates since 2012.

Dell and HP tech support warn against upgrading to Windows 10 | TechRadar
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/ ... 10-1308362

It would certainly cut down on their workload in the long run...

I upgraded my 2010 Sony Vaio with no problems. It went from 7 to 8 to 8,1 to 10 (and is now on the Fast Ring), with no re-installs and it works fine.

we've git a couple of Dell laptops and an HP desktop in the house all upgraded to 10 without a hitch.