>>http://venturebeat.com/2016/11/01/microsoft-stops-selling-windows-7-and-windows-8-1-to-computer-makers/
>>
>>With no new machines with those OSs preinstalled being sold, anyone wanting one is limited to stock still in the channel. Get 'em while they're lukewarm :-/
>>
>>FWIW I don't agree with the link's penultimate sentence - compared to Win7 or 8.1, Win10 is a disaster from a user privacy POV.
>
>I agree with your last sentence - but for real privacy even Win7 should be sandboxed, as MS can retrofit unwanted behavior to older OS.
>In desktop the host OS is already non MS, next laptop will be bought with an eye to run a non MS host OS.
>And that definition includes hypervisors ;-)

I got W7 on one laptop and one virtual box, both with no updates whatsoever, no firewall, no nothing. As sandboxed as it can be, while still allowing me to run a few web things on them. The laptop was infested by W10 briefly (but then nobody wanted to use it at the time, thinking the machine was fried), but we restored it back to original W7. Which we can do indefinitely.