I had to read it twice, as the first time I interpreted it as it was free to use for the first year, then you had to pay to continue. On a 2nd reading, the intent then was that within the first year of Win10, anyone with Win7/8 can update to Win10 for free, but upgrades outside that window will have to be paid for. There is no fee to continue use.
Right now, I think this will be a no-brainer for my existing Win8 systems. I’m not so sure I want to update my Win7 systems though, but a year is long enough for me to play with Win10 on current Win8 systems and decide if I like it or not to update Win7 systems also.
Interesting, I could upgrade my HTPC and gauge the new OS for a good few months before making any decisions, like you I would be loath to loose my main Win7 rig without good reason.
I guess from their perspective, Win7 and 8 are closely related, so upgrading from either to 10 are fairly safe. XP and Vista are much older and hardware of the era might be difficult to support. I do wish they still offered even a limited version of Windows which was free (in cost) to end users. On older hardware you can try it without risk.
Just hitting t’interwebs - the Win10 upgrade will also include pirated operating systems! If this holds out, I hope it means I can finally bring some XP boxes up to date by simply putting a non-activated Win7 or similar on them for onward upgrade to 10.
As shocking as it may sound I do buy Windows, but I wont want to re-buy it for boxes which I’ve already got an OS on. This includes several XP era boxes which would be capable of running Win7-64. Actually on some of them I’m messing around with the Win10 preview already. Previously the “free” Win10 upgrade was stated as only being applicable to Win7 onwards. If I can get my XP and Vista boxes up to Win10 legally using non-activated Win7 installs, I will do. Even better if they just let me put Win10 on fresh.
If it later turns out that is not the case, then they’ll have to make do with XP. They are old enough now they’re hardly worth running for CPU crunching anyway. Not if you have to pay for electricity that is.
Or forget all the above. The previous link has been updated again and clarified. It is true that the Win10 upgrade will install, but it doesn’t change the licence status. So you just end up with a newer un-activated system.
Just had an icon appear on my main Win7 box today. Seems to be a signup to pre-downloader for Win10, so might not be too far off. For now it just asks you if you want Win10 downloaded or not (doesn’t start immediately) and it will do it when ready. Given the preview is still updating, I’m not expecting it in the short term. Optionally can give e-mail for notification when it is ready.
I presume this snuck in with the last set of WindowsUpdates, that or I’ve got my 1st discovered piece of malware! This is the point where someone jokes about Windows and malware…
Yep! I’ve just had one appear on my Win7 laptop. Clicked the link to remind to get my free download. The other two home PCs should have it ready as well when I get home. Still have one box to put a Win7 OEM on when I can, so that means I should have 4 Win10 boxes ready to go at some stage
Got a few updates around here too…
Win7 laptop
Win8 laptop
Win7 desktop (current)
Win7 desktop (previous)
Win7 desktop (to finish building, dedicated gaming rig and cruncher, GPU should arrive today but hasn’t, SSD and Win7 licence in the post)
Still have two Vista boxes and an assortment of XP ones which I really should retire…
Hmm… I also wonder if there’ll be some more brown stuff than normal flying around at work… our IT department pushes out Windows Updates much later after they come out, and then only the Windows one, not for other MS software. So I usually manually install it myself so it is one less thing to get in the way when I’m doing something. Don’t think they’ll be too pleased if another user of the PC doesn’t know and clicks the Win10 button… so I might have to manually find and uninstall the update which provides the Win10 opt-in.
Then again, I might be talking total crap as they use Enterprise, which I believe is NOT part of the free Win10 upgrade since it would be in the Enterprise licence anyway.
Even so it may depend on whether they have set the “install Windows updates automatically” to “NO” in the build and then push out specific updates via Active Directory. Most large Enterprises will do this and some have a Model Office team testing the effect of an update on installed software packages before deployment in my experience. They won’t want Win 10 suddenly installing on to their machines and then finding it incompatible.
While they do major testing, I’m not convinced they do routine update testing. As said, they don’t push office updates at all. Even worse, we have an old application that only works with java 6 so that has to be kept massively out of date.
Win10 should be moot, since the enterprise edition isn’t included in the free update scheme.
The model office team at a place I worked at, used to have a pen drive for us to deploy updates to new builds, based on a batch file that they added info to. That pulled only the tested and required updates from a server. Worked really well and stopped any unexpected issues with the on board software. Where I am at the moment we still have to deploy IE6 and earlier versions of Java on some machines because the software won’t work with the later stuff and like you they have to be kept out of date deliberately.
The latest news on Windows 10 is that it’s due for release in July apparently according to the BBC. All my built PCs are ready for the update and the last remaining build should be ready in time, finances permitting.
This one is hard to digest. The Ars story is hard to follow, but MS’ page seems clearer. It sounds like if you’re running Win10 Insider Preview, you will get updated to release, on condition you sign in with the MS account you used to join the insider program. For practical purposes, this sounds like “free Win10”. It mentions you can step off the preview track, although it doesn’t say if the install will remain activated if you do so.
I have 3 pre-Win7 boxes that could use a newer OS, so I guess tomorrow I’ll make sure all of them have Win10 preview on them, and signed into the MS account. I have enough spare HDs so I can easily swap back to their old OS if something does implode in future.
There’s been some updates since my previous post, where this isn’t an easy way to “free” released Win10 after all. At best you can continue running preview, which will continue to be updated and in effect will be beta for future (post release) releases.
They just can’t keep it simple. Convoluted licensing was something they received bad marks for in the past, and it doesn’t appear they have learned (or care). I think this re-enforces my decision to stick with 7.
