Microsoft Reveals Windows 10 Will Be a Free Upgrade

mpicpp was one of many to point out this bit of news about Windows 10."Microsoft just took another big step toward the release of Windows 10 and revealed it will be free for many current Windows users. The company unveiled the Windows 10 consumer preview on Wednesday, showcasing some of the new features in the latest version of the operating system that powers the vast majority of the world's desktop PCs. The developer preview has been available since Microsoft first announced Windows 10 in the fall, but it was buggy, limited in scope and very light on new features. Importantly, Windows 10 will be free for existing Windows users running versions of Windows back to Windows 7. That includes Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and Windows Phone. Microsoft specified it would only be free for the first year, indicating Windows would be software that users subscribe to, rather than buy outright. Microsoft Corporate Vice President of the Operating Systems Group Joe Belfiore showed off some of the new features in Windows 10. While Microsoft had already announced it would bring back the much-missed Start Menu, Belfiore revealed it would also have a full-screen mode that includes more of the Windows 8 Start screen. He said Windows machines would go back and forth between to two menus in a way that wouldn't confuse people. Belfiore also showed a new notification center for Windows, which puts a user's notifications in an Action Center menu that can appear along the right side, similar to how notifications work in Apple OS X. Microsoft Executive Vice President of Operating Systems Terry Myerson revealed that 1.7 million people had downloaded the Windows 10 developer preview, giving Microsoft over 800,000 individual piece of feedback. Myerson explained that Windows 10 has several main intents: the give users a mobility of experience from device to device, instill a sense of trust in users, and provide the most natural ways to interact with devices." More details are available directly from Microsoft.

Comments

Only for the first year

[Timmy D Programmer]

I think the key question is what happens after the first year? How much does it cost after year 1? If you don't pay will it brick your PC or just stop providing updates?

Re:Only for the first year

[AK Marc]

Nah, you'll see me do like I did with Office 2013. Screw 360. I own my Office for life. I don't pay subscription fees for software. It's mine, or I don't run it.

Re:Only for the first year

[Anonymous Coward]

I use windows 8.1 as well. The start screen is annoying and obtuse and useless but it's not much less usable than the win7 start menu.

But that's not a problem for us. We're power users. We know what we're doing. We can turn off and uninstall the useless distracting dreck that comes pre-loaded on the start screen.

For everyone else win 8 is an abject fucking nightmare. What used to be a familiar star menu is a whole other computer-in-a-computer. A bizzare split-brained experience with this new.. Thing covering up the old and familiar when all they want to do is browse the web or launch word. I've seen users launch the calculator app and be completely unable to get out of it, left staring at a full-fucking-screen fucking /calculator/ designed for a touch interface. On their desktop computer.

And that's the real issue. The start screen isn't a replacement for the start menu. It's it's own OS that's had the start menu functions shoehorned in to it. It has it's own APIs, its own software store, it's own interface metaphors.. And it sucks. It's completely and utterly inappropriate for a business environment to boot. A whole shitload of new things nobody in the business world needs that need to be turned off and managed because who-fucking-knows what data they leak to MS servers. Who the fuck thought it was a good idea for enterprise versions of windows to ask for microsoft-cloud-appstore-onedrive-what-the-fuck-ever accounts on first boot? (Fortunately you can now bitchslap the majority of that out of existence with group policies and the rest with some easy scripts)

The underpinnings of win 8.1 are fantastic. It's fast, has support for cutting edge hardware, is stable as hell, and is somehow smaller than windows 7 (After updates. I'm not kidding. Look for yourself.)

If microsoft could decouple windows from the braindead consumer shit they try to shovel on to it they'd have no problems going in to the future.

Windows 10 is shaping to be the next win7. It looks like microsoft has finally realized they pulled a vista with win8 and they're listening to their users.

Please no...

[Detonia]

indicating Windows would be software that users subscribe to, rather than buy outright.

I sure hope that indication is wrong.

Dear Microsoft

[DickBreath]

Please remember the words of your younger, wiser self. If it is free, then it must not have any value.

Full-screen Start is the problem

[tepples]

The much-maligned UI is actually just the Windows 7 UI with a full-screen Start menu, which I find interrupts my workflow to exactly the same extent that the Windows 7 Start menu does, meaning minimally.

The fact that it's forced full-screen rather than snapped is the problem. At least with the Windows 7 Start menu, I could see a bit of what I was working on in the corner of my screen, which provided some subconscious continuity. In fact, if I had a program snapped to the right side (Windows+Right), I could see all of it while the Start menu was open. But with Windows 8's Start screen, everything is covered up. The full-screen context switch imposes a cognitive burden similar to going through a doorway and forgetting what you came in for. That's why the first thing onto every Windows 8.1 PC that I use regularly is Classic Shell, which reproduces the functionality of Windows 7's Start menu.