Who no longer uses Windows?

[Gavsrob]

It happened about a year ago. There was no provision to ever upgrade to win 10 on my laptop and never will be. I forced the upgrade and my graphics card was unsupported. Why, when win 7 worked? Is it that hard? + Windows was always updating and shutting down! The fan was going nuts, and the disk usage would stay at 100% for the first 15 minutes! The software tended to be paid for and I struggle with that concept. A planet of 7 billion people, all too greedy to share working code to uplift each other? So once again I tried Linux. This time, instead of Ubuntu, I tried Mint with the cinnamon desktop. Linux had, of course, progressed as well. Suddenly, everything looked as good or better and all for free and all drivers actually worked. They worked! not even AMD or HP or Microsoft could collectively solve the problem! I will never go back to windows, it is slow, money grabbing commercialised bloatware/harassware and now with little squares to pretend that it is your phone! It has one flavour and that flavour is [insert expletive here]! I keep a working copy, but it just sits there for an emergency that will probably never arrive. If I was to start it I can predict an ice age long upgrade and offers to try office 360. Why would I need that when there is Libre office?

[nakednorman]

I don't mind paying for good coding that works for me, which is why I donate when I can to projects I support.
It's relatively painless & makes you feel good

[AZgl1800]

I have to keep my big Win7 Desktop for a long time yet...
too many financial programs on it that just simply will not run in any OS except for Windows, period.

But, for my daily driver and enjoyment, Linux is now my favorite.
I like being able to tune it to my specifications, not what Microsoft enforces my PC to have on it.

I learned a long time ago how to get rid of their bloatware, by judicious modifications to the Registry.
But that is a place where the uninformed can really destroy their computer.

[CoffeeFiend]

I still use my Win10 laptop a bit. I do have another laptop with dual boot Win 10 and Ubuntu. Then on my main Win10 laptop I have Mint, Parrot, Anarchy, Debian, Kali, Tails, and Fedora in VMs. Eventually I am going to load over the Win10 partition on my Linux machine. I like Ubuntu, but I like Mint more. I tried to load Mint originally, but kept getting kernel panic every time, which is why I went with Ubuntu instead. That was Mint 18.2 Cinnamon. Maybe I can try a couple different Mint distros to see if I can actually find one that will load on my el cheapo HP pavilion.

[MartyMint]

My last dual boot was 2005 with Windows XP and Mandriva.
When Ubuntu 5.10 released, I decided to wipe my drive and do a fresh install...I had no reason to reinstall Windows, so I didn't.

[xillmisa]

I was about to ditch Windows for few months ago, but i can't, because school computers uses Windows and everytime, when ICT class starts, then i had to use Windows for some reason... but i still prefer Linux Mint...

[Snafu]

I'd been considering changing to Linux for a while and reading up on different distro's when I was given an old desktop with Vista on it. I installed mint on that and loved it! I decided to install it on my laptop as well as dual boot with windows 10 but couldn't think of any reason why I'd want to boot it into windows again so I ditched the dual boot idea and just replaced windows with Mint. I'm planning on using the laptop to try out a few Linux versions just to check them out.

[rado84]

From today I join the club of those who keep Windows 7 backed up in an image for "just in case" and single boot Linux.

[dcrowder]

Me at home. At work it is not possible - all software only for Windows.

Same here. I do keep a bunch of Linux virtual machines at work though.

Same here. I cringe every morning as I login to Win10.

[Whos606]

Only 2 months.
About a year ago I bought a refurbished HP Z420 workstation with a Xeon es-1650 processor with Windows 10 pre-installed with a 250 gig hard drive and 8 gig of ram under 350 a great deal at newegg. After a while a few reinstalls and losing some data I decided to give Linux a try again ( back when Red Hat was still free for support tried Mandrake but never really gave it a fair shot ) so I bought a new SSD and decided to put Linux Mint with the cinnamon desktop with a fresh install and glad I did. My daily computing usually involves web browsing, music, you-tube, and some banking now learning about Linux so no real need to have Windows, but I still have a extra hard drive with Windows laying around.

[Mattyboy]

Hmmmm. Well I boot it up ( I have a silly amount of hard drives in my desktop ) install the updates, review the latest 'tweek' ( see pointless addition, its all very pretentious over there ) then shut it down again. I've been a M$ qualified system admin since W7 ( but have never worked in the field ) and I like to keep up to date.

Do I use it? No, not at all. I find the experience of just being in the Windows 10 environment a complete frustration, its an overblown mess, monumentally tedious and long winded just to get around, pages and pages of settings to navigate. Needs a proper 'desktop mode'. No wonder the enterprise demographic need their arm twisted to install it.... just not a practical fast workflow environment.

So, I have it yes, but never actually use it, haven't for years.

[jontrv]

Me too...
Used to run XP until long after it was declared dead, then 2.5 years ago my motherboard failed. Got a new one, with extra RAM, too much for XP, so I ordered a win7 licence, which didn't arrive...
While I waited for the licence, I thought I would try out this strange thing called Linux Mint, then 17.1.
Six weeks later the Win7 licence turned up, and is still unused, I have never booted Windows since...
Right now I am stuck on Mint 17.3 (and FGRLX) until the AMD opensource drivers in 18.3 support dual monitor on my antediluvian Radeon HD5670.
One day I might give in and buy a modern graphics card, but I so hate discarding something that works perfectly,
JT:

[Superannuated]

I was a Mac guy from 1984 until about 2000 when the price finally drove me to Windows. I recently wiped my old MacBook 2.1 that was EOL and installed Mint 18.3 Xfce. The Mac program I really miss is Circus Ponies Notebook, an excellent outliner and organizer of documents and projects.

With Windows I ran XP until the lack of support pushed me to the superior alternative of Mint. My only need for Windows (W7) in the past few years is for syncing my iPod Nano with iTunes and for filling in my state tax pdf form, which doesn't work with Document Viewer for some reason, although it does with the Federal forms.

[SpectreOl]

Op, I am like you.. the past few years is linux only.. I also have a think pad and the first thing I did was to replace the hdd and install linux.

Same on the desktop pc, running mint 17 atm, needs an upgrade..

Ok, I lie a little.. I still have a win7 partition for gaming, but seriously, how often do I use it? If I want to game, there's always the ps4..

[Benedetto]

The last vestige of Windows (10), having used M/Soft since XP, should disappear from my desktop tomorrow when I hopefully install LM 19 and erase the Windows partition, simply leaving Linux Mint on the pc. I moved to Linux almost a year ago but due to uncertainties kept to a dual boot Linux/Windows option. Basically all I ever did since with W10 was to update once per week and then back to Linux Mint. I started out with Cinnamon 18.1 and now use 18.3. However, as most newbies will know, Linux, after years of Windows and them basically holding your hand (often too firm a grip I have to say) find Linux is a big learning curve.
But I have got to understand Linux and the advice and help here on this Board has been a good experience - even for someone of old age.
As far as my laptop is concerned (Sony VAIO) it appeared too difficult a task to set up a dual boot operation, s it remained W10 until a month ago. I realized then that having W10 installed was pointless so I decided to install Linux Mint and wipe W10 off the disk.
So, what do I miss that W10 gave me and I no longer have? Basically long winded updates/upgrades - some of which were troublesome, a profusion of apps I did not use and the ever present anti-virus updates and scares.

[Pierre]

all of my own PCs have LinuxMint installed onto them,
- the odd other Linux System is also available on a few partitions, as well.

likewise, I've also got a copy of win-7 & win-10 running on two other machines,
as most folk, who know me, also know that I'm some sort of Computer Geek

but, on my main PCs - they all are running LinuxMint

[shawnhcorey]

What's Windows?

I think the last version I had installed on my PC was Windows 3.1. Or was it 3.3?

[zoli62]

I think the use of Windows and Linux also has its own privilege. The biggest disadvantage of Windows today is the update mechanism, unlike Linux.

[ThinkPadUser]

I still use Windows 10 for gaming, but I use Linux for everything else. I have zero intention of dropping Windows on any machine meant for gaming. I love that a lot of my games are available on Linux though but it's easier to just have another machine to game really.

[SallyK]

Very occasionally I help my brother out with his Windows 7 laptop, but I haven't used Windows at home since 2010 or at work since 2011 - my current employer actually uses Red Hat, and knowing Linux has sometimes been useful, even though I don't work in a technical field.

When my Dad's Vista PC went out of support I moved him to Peppermint, and he's been pretty happy with that ever since.