Chinese government bans Windows 8 from government computers.

China bans use of Microsoft's Windows 8 on government computers | Reuters

Cliffs: China is mad that Microsoft ended support for China's tens, possibly hundreds of millions of PC's with pirated Windows XP, so retaliate by not buying anything new from Microsoft. China claims ban is to "ensure computer security."

Chinese government computers generally have a Pentium IV and integrated graphics. They don't even have drivers available for Windows 7, let alone 8.

Last year I did some translation work for a Chinese university. I swear to god all the PC's they had were still running Internet Explorer 6: Internet Explorer - IE 6 Countdown | Modern.IE

 

My guess here is they are withholding patronage to force the OEM to start supporting XP. At the very least for them alone. I doubt this would happen since they do have such little licensing for the quantity of hardware. Maybe China will become the new Linux capitol of the world.

 

So an end-user who has never bought your product in the past punishes you for ending support on a decade-old product...by once again not buying your product. That'll make Microsoft sorry!

 

If you think about it, since piracy is so rampant, isn't there an unspoken ban already in effect on purchasing Windows products? Sorry this is just too much fun.

 

I just want to let everyone know that I'm now officially boycotting Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, and the entire private plane industry. Now that they won't see any of my money, they'll be sorry!

 

Me too! No Aston Martins, Bugattis, or Lamborghinis either, ever again.

 

W8 has been out for quite some time so why ban it now?

Wonder if is it to do with the KB2919355 debacle, the W8.1 update 1 which has corrupted many W8.1 systems and failed to update. So far no fix from MS for well over a month now. MS has also said there will be no more security updates offered if update 1 is not installed although IIRC the deadline has been extended from May to June. What a mess.

 

They refuse to go to windows 8 ... however ARE getting windows 7, which in the end may be a smarter thing to do as almost all government departments are going to 7 and not 8 globally.

 

The US Department of Defense has purchased $617 million of Win8.x licenses.

 

With money likely borrowed from China, so in effect, the Chinese are supporting Windows 8.

My parents' laptop and desktop both run W8. Updating the former to 8.1.1 went completely smoothly. The latter was an absolute nightmare of having to download and install the individual components. Took the better part of 3 hours.

 

Some US & UK banks are still stuck to XP and have plans on making a deal to extend a support from Microsoft, maybe the chinese have the same problem.
Banks negotiate extended Windows XP support for ATM systems- The Inquirer

I still have Win 8 on one new laptop and haven't updated it to 8.1 as l read there are some major problems.

 

My VAIO F23 took 8.1.1 without a hiccup. My Duo 11 had the KB2919355 debacle. I spent the better part of an hour googling instructions and using utilities from the command prompt to remove the damaged installation and manually reinstall the update. I eventually succeeded, but it was far harder than it should have been.

 

Four computers running windows 8 all took 8.1.1 without any issues.

 

All my systems are still on Windows 7....

Sent from my XT912 using Tapatalk

 

Be thankful

A google such as KB2919355 fail brings some 187,000 hits.

Example
KB2919355 (Windows 8.1 Update) Fails (800f0092 and - Microsoft Community
Thread closed after 1100+ replies and still a lot of posters without resolve.

Microsoft reissues botched Windows 8.1 Update KB 2919355 | Microsoft windows - InfoWorld
Helped just a few of the many.

Not just one common problem but many different error codes it seems. IIRC one of them was not having a big enough recovery partition. I would have thought disk space checking before installing would be an expected basic check, the mind boggles.

 

Well, when you don't listen the voice of your clients, this is what you get...

 

While no fan of Windows 8, or subsequent offerings, the hardware issues and error codes have little to do with the bad UI. The fact is if the OS were 100%stable like Windows 7 then market saturation would probably be at least slightly higher.

 

On the other hand, googling "walrus in my ear" brings some 454,000 hits. This is why measuring google hits is the most useless measurement EVER. (And I'm saying this as someone who dealt with the KB2919355 issue).

 

On the other side of the coin, you seem to have come out of the issue so far ok, there are many out there who have not. With this knowledge in hand along with the fact that each person affected will tell a friend that will tell at least two others. We all know where this leads too.

 

Sure, there are going to be answers that are not failed installs and duplicates just as there is likely to be many people who haven't posted their own problems with it, just looking for answers and also the people who don't even realize they have a problem. KB2919355 is a fairly unique word unlike your example using common generic words. For instance googling 'KB4919355 fail' will not see so many hits. I agree hits are far from perfect but IMO they can give some perspective when used with some uniqueness.

 

Still using Windows 7 for my clients and my 1 work machine.

My backup work machine is in the process of becoming my primary work machine just because I love it more than the other one. Runs Linux with a hosted VM of Windows 7 for those damned Microsoft programs I can't run under WINE. (I'm looking at you OneNote.)

 

Just a thought, but would it not be funny if M$ were forced by the market into making sure their software is wine compliant.

 

More news, retaliation?

China Said to Study IBM Servers for Bank Security Risks - Bloomberg

 

This one looks more like politicians feeling too lonely than anything else.

 

Being government agencies, it's extremely unlikely for most departments of the PRC government to build their own PCs. Off the shelf Windows PCs have OEM licenses anyway, so chances are they do have legal Windows licensing for most of their systems.

Whether they actually use it is a different matter.

According to Wine HQ version 2010 should work.

 

Replace with local systems. Well local to whom? Does China want the banks to use servers made in china, in a sense aren't they already? Are they just trying to get the middleman, in this case IBM, out of the way for their own version of one?

 

It's attention seeking under the name of the Chinese government, just as usual. It won't get real any time soon.

The "de-IOE-lization" campaign where I standards for IBM, O for Oracle, and E for EMC, had been going on for some time, so this is nothing new. Banning the middleman means the local counterparts would be able to charge more, but they know a lawful and enforced ban isn't feasible with the level of influence they have now, so they let their allies in the government to make as much noise as they can instead. This is not something that can be enforced on a large scale at the moment, but it will help them in the long run.