interesting

[Dave Davison]

Hi...I just read the following piece of info that just might be of interest to some who frequent this lounge. Cheers Dave.,

[Microsoft's plan to end support for Windows XP is certainly focusing the minds of many business IT directors, many of whom have thousands of PCs still running the old operating system. And ordinary XP users are also worried about whether they should upgrade or not. Part of the problem is the question of what you upgrade to. If you go into any large PC store, you'll be presented with a single option: Windows 8. Now, while Microsoft's latest operating system might be a good choice for touch screen tablet PCs such as Microsoft's Surface, it isn't a great option for desktop users due to its lack of a proper Start menu and relegation of the mouse in favour of gesture based controls. PC manufacturer, HP, have picked up on this problem and launched a new marketing campaign based on the reintroduction of Windows 7 to their desktop PC range. It's highly likely that they are on to a winner. Windows 7 has been a big success story for Microsoft and many XP users reluctant to make the switch to Windows 8 will look more favourably on a Windows 7 machine. However, this isn’t the result of a secret deal between HP Microsoft to allow them to still sell Windows 7. In fact, if you shop around on the Internet, you will find several major manufacturers selling Windows 7 machines. That's because the terms of Microsoft's original equipment manufacturer (OEM) licence, means that Windows 7 machines can be sold until at least October this year. But Microsoft don't like to publicise this fact. Probably because they don't want people to know that Windows 7 is still available on new PCs. If it were widely known, more PC users might avoid Windows 8 and lower Microsoft's sales figures.
So, if you want a brand new Windows 7 PC from a large scale manufacturer such as HP, you'll need to move soon, since it won't be long before Microsoft blocks the sales completely.