"I already promised my friends they will get the job, so IT HAS TO BE DONE."

... the start button has been in 8.1 since it was released some months ago. I'd prefer if he brought back also the start MENU, and Aero. My computer is not a tablet, it does not need features designed for touch-screen, or removed to "improve battery life", so I will not install an OS that treats it like one.

Assuming that number wasn't bullshit, that means even if just 1% of the free user base becomes paying customers, they would have doubled their paying user base.

I don't endorse copyright infringement (I refuse to call it piracy), but "added malware" is only a problem if you get the files from untrusted sources, or at least without checking the comments to see if anyone complains about it. But, of course, that applies anywhere. Some seemingly legitimate websites that offer free downloads of software, include bloated adware-loaded "downloaders" that can be bigger than the file you intended to get.

Firewall is not the problem, NAT is.

Unless you assume the bitcoins to grow in value over time, as the general trend is, in which case keeping those bitcoins may give you a better benefit than the interest a bank may give you for keeping the real money in it.

Not necessarily: if all they were concerned about was hacking around model "locks", they could still release the documentation on the "public" registers, protocols, etc. and still require a special undocumented binary blob to be transferred into the gpu at boot.

I doubt that. The firmware, maybe, but probably not drivers. Normally the difference between high-priced and low-priced models is that the low-priced models have some internal fuses blown, so that some of the cores are disabled. Sometimes those cores were defective, other times they disable cores just to meet the demand. It could be that they disable the cores with firmware instead of fuses, and somehow the drivers could reenable cores in the latter cases, but my guess is that the people who give the orders simply think of their precious architecture details as information that needs to be kept secret, in case the competition gets too many ideas from those details.

... 8 bits per component == 24 bits total.

IPS panel technology can display true 8bit color just fine. Most professional grade screens are some kind of IPS (S-IPS,P-IPS,...), with the rest being some kind of VA (MVA,PVA), and for professinal use, 8bit is only just barely enough.

If you are thinking about OLED (or any buzzword derived from it), they have the main advantages of being more visible under sunlight while using less power -- with supposedly wider viewing angles, although since modern IPS/VA screens look fine regardless of the angle, I'm not convinced that it's any better in that area.

I was trying to write some other better analogy to explain why you shouldn't expect new software to be written from scratch, but then I thought it was just pointless. Almost all subsequent versions of ANY product (software or not) are "refurbished" design-wise. The sticker is not necessary because it should be your expectation that they reused most of the code or part designs. That's what it being a new version implies. They revised the old design, polished some aspects, changed other parts, assembled it, and then put it in a store so you can buy it. This is not just Microsoft, it's not even just software. This applies to EVERYTHING.

You want discounted price because you already own part of the same software? No problem! Simply buy an upgrade license instead of a new one. Microsoft has been offering them all this time. At launch Windows 7 Pro was $240 for the full edition, or $140 for the upgrade edition. Windows 8 had a special offer at launch, where they offered upgrade copies of Windows 8 for $40. The offer ended so it's now $100 instead.

I'm not a car owner so I don't have experience with buying cars, but I'd expect a car dealer to laugh at me if I tell him to give me a discount simply because my old car already had 4 wheels and a front engine. And as far as I know, car makers stop making parts for old models after a certain amount of time, so you have to buy them from 3rd parties. But you don't expect them to keep supporting your very old car just because you feel like buying a new one is unnecessary, do you?

By the way, Google Shopping Search found me a Windows 7 Pro license for just $26: http://www.dealscube.com/detail.asp?id=32580#page=description

I know about dynamic structures and the stl well enough, thanks. I was referring exclusively to arrays. High-level implementation of vectors, lists, queues, or any other linear sequence of items were not part of what I said.

You are comparing apples to trees. A new car will not use old parts, but it WILL reuse the same design of the engine and the transmission, and possibly the same door locking mechanism. If you find a bug in the way the doors are locked that lets you bypass the lock and enter the car, chances are the same bug also exists in older models. You don't reinvent the wheel with every single model of a car. You may improve it, but the design is pretty much the same now as it was 15 years ago.

That is not how most programming languages manage the memory, though. If you have such specialized needs, then yes, managed languages are out of the question.