PC sales decline
My situation is probably unique in the sense I was a PC hobbyist with multiple desktop rigs, but 5 years ago I left UK taking with me a high end laptop (Alienware i7) and this fulfilled my gaming etc needs. When I returned to UK 2 years ago I found this laptop was still fulfilling my needs with Win 7 being more than capable for everything. Then 1 year ago I cloned my SSD to another drive so I could try Win 10 as I didn't like the look of Win 8 but to my dismay Win 10 was just Win 8 modified to appease Win 7 users plus it has added bloatware and spyware aswell !!!
So after 3 months of hacking Win 10 to get rid of this and that and not being able to stop certain Winupdates etc I gave finally gave up and went back to Win 7, but then Win 7 started getting back ported stuff from Win 10 and this was the final straw - So in Feb 2016 I took the plunge after cloning my Win 7 drive yet again and installed Linux Ubuntu. Not because Win 7 didn't fulfill my requirements, not because was slow or unstable, but because of MS's attempt at every turn to change a very good OS which I paid for into something I disliked and also because at every opportunity it was trying to force me to downgrade again to Win 10 !!!
Now I use an OS which is just an OS, not a spying OS, not a data slurping OS, not a security OS with untold viruses which requires a third party piece of software to secure your OS from, but a free OS and by free I mean free from stuff I don't need or require - like built in spyware, like dataslurping every click and typing on websites like banking or purchasing sites etc.
So MS, far from encouraging a Windows user of many many years (Since WIn 3.1) to downgrade to Win 10, you have actually forced me to jump OS's not to another OS like Windows but to a secure fast stable reliable OS and its free.
Yes I cannot play certain games yet ! But with my Steam account any games which I have purchased that get converted to Linux I don't have to re-purchase :) COH2 for example.
I would like WOT to run under Linux but War Thunder is almost the same and with the uptake of Vulkan hopefully many more games will appear on Linux with similar performance to DX12.
I do miss Win 7 and some of my Windows games but for the sake of Security and being data slurped at every turn I will give them up and have peace of mind, stability, better performance.
Final note, because I used web based email, Mozilla Firefox and VLC using Ubuntu with Cinnamon desktop is just like using Win 7 so I feel at home anyway :)