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

[MisterBuggie]

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?

I didn't hear anything about a subscription on the stream, but the stream is buggy, so maybe I just missed it.
But what I understand is that upgrade will be free if done in the first year, like the 30€ upgrade to Windows 8 in the first few months. If you don't upgrade within the first year, you'll have to buy the new Windows.

Re:Only for the first year

[Bomarc]

Why wait that long?
Request: Linux developers -- please provide us with a smooth migration path!
Let me get rid of my various Windows OS's.

Re:Only for the first year

[phantomfive]

Either way, I predict a massive revolt about 365 days after the upgrade is released.

I doubt it. There wasn't a massive revolt when Adobe went to subscription. Or Microsoft Office. As long as they don't completely mess it up, they will be ok.

I also predict a massive PR push by various Linux groups starting about 300 days in.

They don't have the funding to make a massive PR push.

Re:Only for the first year

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not what it means. It means you have the choice to upgrade to 10 for free within 1 year. If you wait more than a year after release you have to pay. Anyone who got a free upgrade will continue to have a full 100% working and updated OS after the 1 year.

This is exactly how they did things with 8. I don't know why the article author is pulling BS out of his ass.

Re:Only for the first year

[clorkster]

http://blogs.windows.com/blogg...
Relevant portion:

This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no additional charge.

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

[chmod a x mojo]

That's the thing, is the upgrade "free for the first year" meaning you don't have to pay for the upgrade license , or is it "free for the first year" meaning after a year you have to pay some kind of subscription fee.

For the time being I am leaning towards the first option since I haven't read anything yet that says MS will have a subscription for the OS ala Office 365 ( if there is official confirmation please do let me know! ).

A subscription for an OS just seems awkward, with too many hurdles to jump. I.E. how long a grace period for renewal, IF there is an auto-renewal option how hard is it to get canceled, especially for business what happens when the version you are on - and don't want to upgrade away from - is EOL'd... I still use a networkless Win98 machine due to upgrade costs to the machine it is connected to being $50K+ just to upgrade from a P2 / Win98 setup.

Then again it _is_ MS we are talking about, they would probably just charge ahead without thinking like usual.

Re:Only for the first year

[nabsltd]

I doubt it. There wasn't a massive revolt when Adobe went to subscription. Or Microsoft Office

I don't need any licensed (or even installed) Adobe software or Microsoft Office in order to play games or browse the web, but I need the OS.

Re:Only for the first year

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I doubt it. There wasn't a massive revolt when Adobe went to subscription. Or Microsoft Office.

True. It does take time for people who are annoyed by such a move to respond to it and for the market to create alternatives, particularly if you're talking about an incumbent industry giant with a diverse user base like Creative Suite or MS Office. There is always some resistance immediately, but given that these subscription services quickly become more expensive for significant parts of the previous user base, it may still be more commercially beneficial to take advantage of those users and force the move to software rental as Adobe did (though Microsoft haven't so far).

That said, in both of those cases, it's quite clear that the market is creating alternatives, and that significant numbers of users are starting to defect (or simply didn't get on the subscription upgrade treadmill and are waiting for better options). For example, people doing Web work on Apple machines now have several promising graphics applications that are getting much more favourable reviews than anything from Creative Suite has for a long time, for a one-off permanent purchase costing the equivalent to just a few months of Creative Cloud subscription. The days of asking what's out there to draw UI elements or illustrations for an article, laughing amiably with the FOSS evangelist who suggests the GIMP and Inkscape, and then coughing up a thousand bucks for Photoshop/Illustrator/Fireworks are gone, and they aren't coming back.

As long as they don't completely mess it up, they will be ok.

I'm not so sure. I doubt anyone is going to come along with a single killer app in either case, but huge all-things-to-all-people suites feel a lot like yesterday's software to me, and I find it quite plausible that both Adobe and Microsoft will steadily lose market share to a hundred small but highly specialised competitors. The moment we reach the point -- and possibly we already have in some contexts -- that using Real Office Document Formats or Real Photoshop Files is no longer a killer compatibility requirement, a significant driver that keeps people on MS/Adobe has already been lost.

And just to get back on topic... I don't really see why all of the above arguments wouldn't apply to Windows as well if Microsoft do pursue some sort of rental licensing scheme where your system locks up the day you stop paying. They already lost phones and a large chunk of the server/back office market. Losing desktops as well would surely be the end of Microsoft as any kind of serious force in the IT industry, because I don't think they can afford another Vista/8 fiasco so soon. With mobile apps, web apps, native OS X apps, and all the things you can do with Linux these days, there are plenty of other ways the market could realistically move before Windows 11 arrived, and again once Microsoft has lost the critical mass of effectively Windows-only software that advantage is probably never coming back again no matter what they do.

As I've said before, if it were me I'd push hard the other way: promote Windows as the one platform where stability and true long-term support were absolutely trustworthy, so if you buy Windows or develop software to run on it you know it's still going to work five or more years later. Then sell the OS with a clearly stated support programme where you get security and compatibility fixes free as the ecosystem evolves for a certain reasonable period (maybe 2-3 years) and then you have the option to keep them going for a modest fee after that, but without ever going full rental and putting customers in a potential pay-or-it-stops position. I don't see this happening under the current management, unfortunately, as they put in place a CEO whose entire background pulls in the other direction.

Re:Only for the first year

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Still doing professional work with CS5. Still waiting to find a paying customer where this causes a problem. Still waiting for a killer feature in any more recent Creative Cloud release that makes us regret not paying Adobe more money.

Re:Only for the first year

[jeffmeden]

The Ars Technica post was a little more useful and less FUD-ridden, although I won't hold my breath til I see it directly in Microsoft product marketing materials:

Update 2: A blog post from Terry Myerson clears up what "Windows as a service" means, though the duration of "the supported lifetime of the device" is still foggy. "This is more than a one-time upgrade," writes Myerson. "Once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device—at no additional charge

Re:Only for the first year

[Optic7]

Reading that blog in more detail, I think I understand what they are doing. "Supported lifetime of the device" *probably* means that the license will be tied to the hardware and will not be transferable. Perhaps they will generally make licenses super-cheap, but not transferable? Or perhaps they will go subscription-only on new devices.

"IT'S A TRAP!" may be appropriate here. We will find out for sure soon enough.

Re:Only for the first year

[Anonymous Coward]

You evidently don't actually use Windows 8.1. 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. I can't comment on Windows 8, which I've never used, but I find Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 indistinguishable for all practical purposes. I'm also writing this on a Macbook running OSX, which dual-boots into Linux (Fedora 20, if you're interested), and the desktop with Windows 8.1 on it dual-boots into Fedora 21, while my other desktop which I now rarely use dual-boots Vista (also much maligned, in the same way that XP was on launch, except that XP recovered its reputation thanks to an overwhelming monopoly and an internet that was only nascent at the time, whereas Vista has been damned for eternity even though 7 is effectively nothing more than Vista SP2) and Mint. 15, I think, or perhaps 16, it's a while since I used it.

The point of this tedious dribble is that the UI in Windows 8.1 is no better or worse than the others I'm using, and nor is the functionality. Admittedly, I've put Cygwin on the Windows machines, minimally, and installed gcc and clang separately from Cywgin, and I've put Macports onto the Mac and again installed gcc and clang separately from Apple's somewhat outdated versions, and I've got Code::Blocks on both the Mac and Windows, but that's a comment on app availability rather than the OS, which is basically meaningless these days. And I've only got Code::Blocks on the Windows machine for when I'm developing in Fortran; VS 2013, despite its many, many eccentricities that shorten my life on a daily basis since my day job is C++ development in a heavily Microsoft shop, is actually quite a nice IDE for small C++ projects. Certainly nicer than the likes of Code::Blocks and NetBeans and Eclipse.

Mindlessly propagating propaganda doesn't really help your cause (though I'm not totally clear what your "cause" is, except that it probably involves the phrase "M$" somewhere).

Re:Only for the first year

[TheCycoONE]

From the announcement (as opposed to the silly article that slashdot linked which creatively quoted a few things for hype): "We announced that a free upgrade for Windows 10 will be made available to customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 who upgrade in the first year after launch." I hope that clarifies things for everyone.

Re:Only for the first year

[tattood]

RTFB:

We announced that a free upgrade for Windows 10 will be made available to customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 who upgrade in the first year after launch.*

*Hardware and software requirements apply. No additional charge. Feature availability may vary by device. Some editions excluded. More details at http://www.windows.com./

Re:Only for the first year

[DaHat]

Or... maybe, just maybe 8 isn't as bad as some claim.

Shall I go on a rant about how unusable Linux is today for many users and then accuse those who may be a little more used to the system and defend it as being "not that bad" of being shills?

Re:Only for the first year

[bananaquackmoo]

Not really. If you're the kind of person who builds custom computers, when you call them up just say you replaced the motherboard. If they really push (and I've never had a problem with that) then just say the previous one went bad and had to be RMA'd or replaced. They're happy to remove the old motherboard from the license and apply the license to your new one.

Re:Only for the first year

[edtice1559]

Which is the reason that software companies want to sell subscriptions. It's hard to employ an army of highly paid developers if you don't know whether you have any future revenue.. If not enough people buy new versions or subscriptions, the company goes bust and then there's nobody to maintain the software you already have. You'll find a way to keep it running Dumpster diving for the necessary hardware cause the app won't run in modern operating systems. And some other creative things. All of which will be more expensive than just paying an annual subscription and/or support/maintenance fee. It's really a question of whether you want to squeeze your suppliers or be successful together in the medium to long term.

Re:Only for the first year

[RDW]

You evidently don't actually use the advanced features of the Windows 7 Start Menu. There are good reasons that the full-screen Start menu is so maligned.

Neither is as good as the Classic Shell start menu, which works on both.

Re:Only for the first year

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Which is the reason that software companies want to sell subscriptions. It's hard to employ an army of highly paid developers if you don't know whether you have any future revenue.

So maybe you should keep improving your software in ways that are actually worth more to your users. If you don't have a solid plan for doing that but you've got the point of employing an army of highly paid developers, you're doing it wrong and need new leadership.

There are literally dozens of changes that Adobe could have made to the major CS apps we use where any one of them would have justified a three-figure upgrade fee for everyone in my company who uses that app. I'm not even talking about huge changes that would have been expensive new developments; even some relatively small UI improvements to remove time-wasting frustrations might have made buying the upgrade an instant yes as a business decision.

They didn't do any of those things in several years before CC, and as far as I've seen they haven't since then either, so we wouldn't have upgraded so far. On the other hand, we would never rent essential software from anyone unless it was literally the only viable strategy to continue the related business activities at all, which in reality it never is. So in effect, Adobe have gone from a position where even one of many modest improvements would probably have earned a small business worth of upgrade fees from us sooner or later to a position where there is basically zero chance of ever getting more money from us.

You can play that game for roughly as long as the extra money you're making from other people makes up for the losses. However, as certain other big software companies have been learning in recent years, taking your user base for granted it rarely a viable long-term strategy in this industry. Sooner or later, significant people at your big customers start doing the sums, figure out you're charging them more in long-term pricing, and take steps to change that one way or another but invariably at your expense.

Re:Only for the first year

[jez9999]

Not really. If you're the kind of person who builds custom computers, when you call them up just say you replaced the motherboard. If they really push (and I've never had a problem with that) then just say the previous one went bad and had to be RMA'd or replaced. They're happy to remove the old motherboard from the license and apply the license to your new one.

Yep. My machine has had 3 new motherboards, 4 new gfx cards, 10 new RAM modules, 2 new hard drives, a new PSU, 2 new cases (one with additional go-faster stripes upgrade), 3 new montors, 4 new mice, a new keyboard and 5 new surround sound speakers. It's still going strong with the original OS.

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.

Re:Only for the first year

[hantms]

You evidently don't actually use Windows 8.1. 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.

No.

Indeed I can live with the start screen. It's awkward, but I can live with it. The real disaster is elsewhere and I can't believe I still have to point this out after 2-3 years.

1. Default apps for many file formats are ridiculously dysfunctional Metro versions. This means users are cast into Full Screen Hell, showing Beelzebubs re-imagining of a PDF reader, image viewer or music app, designed for those confined in the darkest levels of hell. Escaping from these apps is actually hard. Noone can hear you scream.

2. Charms Bar on the right that pops up usually when I don't want it to. Which is always. Heh.

3. Some other bar on the left with any Metro apps that opened, usually without me wanting them to. What is that thing anyway and why is it there. Why is having two task/app switchers in a single OS ever a good idea? WTF Microsoft! W!T!F!?

4. Settings Schizophrenia. Where is that setting? Full-Screen-Hell-Mode or Control Panel? Or (gasp) BOTH? Oh My @#(&$ing GOD!

5. Installed Apps.. Where do they go? 8.0 Put everything and the kitchen sink in the start menu. 8.1. puts nothing in the start menu. Where are they? They're in a level below in the middle of a huge list of stuff. The only reasonable way to open an app is to search for it. So you better remember what it's called, Mom!

6. Search. I'm running out of expletives. It manages to open yet another full screen abomination in front of me when I'm looking for "Supplier Visit Notes 15Jan.docx", AND it starts finding stuff on the Internet.. What the hell MS!! You've messed up just about the most basic purpose of an OS user interface which is to let me store files, find them back and open them!

Anyway, you may feel less anger and pain about the above than I do but the point remains that Win 8's peculiarity (See, I can be nice too) isn't confined to having a start screen instead of a start menu. I guess I could have made that point in just a single line. ;)

Han.

Please no...

[Detonia]

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

I sure hope that indication is wrong.

Re:Please no...

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering they pulled it out of their ass, I'd say it is wrong.

Free for 1 year doesn't mean they start charging after one year. It means you have the option to upgrade for free for one year after release. If you wait more than a year then you have to pay.

Whoever wrote this article has no reading comprehension skills.

Re:Please no...

[nine-times]

I think you're right, and Apple has done something similar. I actually think Apple's move was very smart. By encouraging people to stay up to date with the latest version, they significantly cut the demand for legacy support, which in turn, I'm sure, cuts their support costs in general.

Microsoft can't do quite the same thing, though. While Apple has always treated software as a loss-leader to sell hardware, Microsoft has relied on Windows licensing as a pillar of their business. I suppose they can give the desktop OS away for free, indefinitely, as a loss leader to sell other associated software/services (Office 365, Windows InTune, Windows Server, Exchange, and whatever else), but I would imagine that would be a significant change in their business model.

Re:Please no...

[Luckyo]

I read the original article this is sourced from. And then I read the small print at the bottom of the article that most people missed.

The article is actually spot on if you read the small print. But it looks like it's wrong if you just read the main article.

The main article states the following:
"We announced that a free upgrade for Windows 10 will be made available to customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 who upgrade in the first year after launch.*

This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no additional charge."

Note the asterisk.

Now here is what it says in small print under the article:

"*Hardware and software requirements apply. No additional charge. Feature availability may vary by device. Some editions excluded. More details at http://www.windows.com./"

This basically let's them downgrade the "free version" into shitty "limited edition" and then ask for sub money for "full edition".

The issue here is that Microsoft pulls a lot of money from windows tax. I seriously doubt that they are willing to lose this money. Either we're looking for an upgrade as a desperate means to push windows app store upon people (which doesn't exist in 7, which majority of PCs are on) or this is a classic "try before you buy" scheme which downgrades the OS after a year "trial". Either way, we just don't know. Original article's claim of "no charge" promise is pretty much gutted by the "feature availability" caveat. We'll have to wait and see what they do.

No

[A Friendly Troll]

It doesn't "indicate" subscriptions.

It says pretty damn clearly that the upgrade to Windows 10 costs exactly 0 if you upgrade during the first year after it's released.

English, motherf***er. Do you speak it?

Re:No

[A Friendly Troll]

No, absolutely not.

http://blogs.windows.com/blogg...

We announced that a free upgrade for Windows 10 will be made available to customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 who upgrade in the first year after launch.*

This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device â" at no additional charge.

Microsoft is perfectly clear about this.

The article is wrong, the summary is wrong, and whoever decided to post something that links to Mashable's random interpretations should be fired.

Be afraid, be very afraid

[Anonymous Coward]

If you aren't paying for it, then you aren't the customer.

Re:Be afraid, be very afraid

[A Friendly Troll]

Myerson's quote from the presentation: "People care about their privacy. So do we. You are our customer, not our product."

Or another interpretation

[sitkill]

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets...
"Once a device is upgraded to Windows 10, we'll be keeping it current for the supported lifetime of the device," said Terry Myerson, executive vice president of the Operating Systems Group.
Sounds like it could be either.

Not another McAfee...

[danbob999]

McAfee free for 30 days. Windows 10 one year. What a hell it will be to buy a Dell laptop next year.

Re:Rent seeking

[mobby_6kl]

The summary is wrong. What they were saying is that you can upgrade for free during the first year after Win10 release. Then it works as usual, you get automatic updates etc.

im guessing the iterations were something similar

[nimbius]

Windows 3.11: Better than dos!
Windows 95: now 32 bit!!
Windows 98: uh...3 more than 95!
Windows ME: grinds cats into freezer meat!
Windows XP: We've been told you dont want or like having cats ground into freezer meat...so this one doesnt do that. also we're doing letters now for real instead of numbers. Dont question it..
Windows Vista: Reboot simulator included!
Windows 7: ok so lets just do numbers again. 7 is less than 95, plus 3.11 minus the square root of 2000 is....eh....we changed the start button for you
Windows 8:: Hello there youths! we're told you like touched screens! Also we have an app store now and that has always been there. check out the full-screen start menu there now isnt that nifty?
Windows 9:: Maadamme Romani threatened to unravel my lifeweave if we ever used 9. seriously. its cursed. also all our code would mistake it for 95 or 98.
Windows 10: We gave you back the start button, but also included a mini start screen in it as a big fuck you for not accepting the start screen. Also its free...because uh...Ubunt...er...apple is still our competitor...yeah.

Free upgrade for one year

[dm513]

From what i've read on other sites...free for a year means...that they will offer the upgrade free for just one year...If you want to update to Win 10 later...you'll have to pay...I've seen nothing to indicate that means Windows is going subscription.

free as in AOL

[raymorris]

Not free as in free speech.
Not free as in free beer.
Free as in AOL. :)

Dear Microsoft

[DickBreath]

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

Cinder Rella at 12:01 am

[Tablizer]

what happens after the first year?...If you don't pay will it brick your PC...?

It turns into Vista, the equivalent of a pumpkin.

beer wants to be free

[raymorris]

> Beer is never free. Someone has to pay for it.

beer wants to be free

Re:beer wants to be free

[idontgno]

Don't anthropomorphize beer.

It doesn't like it.

Pete Pachal is an idiot

[Overzeetop]

The linked article has Pete Pachal's unfounded speculation that Windows 10 will be an annual subscription, touting it as fact.

The actual quote from a MS executive is, "Once a device is upgraded to Windows 10, we'll be keeping it current for the supported lifetime of the device," said Terry Myerson, executive vice president of the Operating Systems Group.

So, no, you won't be losing your upgrade after a year. Like Apple, once your device has reached it's supported lifetime MS isn't guaranteeing that you'll be able to upgrade anymore and you'll be stuck with an OS that has basically been EOL'd as far as support is concerned. This is really a way to (1) get you on the hardware upgrade train (2) reduce version fragmentation in the Windows sphere and (3) reduce legacy OS support for the vast majority of MS users.

Re:Rent seeking

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh.

http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/01/21/the-next-generation-of-windows-windows-10/
"This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no additional charge."

The article is 100% wrong and as far as I have seen they are the ONLY ones making hints at subscriptions.

Re:Subscription service eh?

[rockabilly]

Go back about four iterations of the EULA. No one has owned their Windows operating system in quite some time.

Re:DVD

[misosoup7]

The upgrade download always has an option to download the email to burn to DVD. Once you have the iso you can turn the iso into a USB stick this from Microsoft if you don't have blank DVDs or a DVD writer. It's open source too, so likely no nefariousness there.

So wait, guys, I'm still not clear

[OldSport]

The previous 200 comments have not satisfactorily answered the question: will it be free forever or subscription based?

Beware ...

[PPH]

... of Geeks bearing gifts.

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.

Re:Full-screen Start is the problem

[vux984]

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.

All true. No argument.
Now, as you are clearly both intelligent and a power user: why exactly do you use the start screen so much in 8.1?

Create custom taskbar menus and pin the apps you use. Documents folder is pinned. Control panels, system properties, etc is right-click on the start button? I can go days without using the start screen on windows 8.1. And when I do use it to search for some obscure thing I rarely use, the fact that its full screen instead of crammed into a corner of the screen is actually a benefit.

Don't get me wrong, I think bringing the start menu back with 10 is the right move for a LOT of reasons. And primarily I completely agree that the way the OS throws them back and forth between the classic and modern UIs is a problem; that shouldn't happen unless they want it to.

You don't need classic shell; you just need to pin and create custom toolbars.

The reason I don't like classic shell, is that while it rejects the mistakes of Windows 8; it PRESERVES the mistakes of Windows 7. The classic start menu is an abomination. Clearly what they did with win 8 isn't the correct solution; but at its heart the startmenu is a fixed size POPUP window stuck in the corner containing 2 operating modes, with an arbitrarily deep nested folder heirarchy, and then a bunch of widgets (search), pinned apps, automatically adding frequently/most used apps, and so forth all bolted onto it. It is categorically a terrible bit of user interface.

Windows 8 got the start screen wrong. But Classic Shell clings to a UI that's at least as terrible but is "familiar". We need to try something new. Maybe windows 10 will get it right... i haven't tried it yet.

What about servers?

[mlts]

I wonder if the server version of Windows 10, likely Windows Server 2015 or 2016, will have a similar update program, or if it will follow the same steps as previous server versions.

Windows Server editions are not as flashy as the client releases... but a single feature or set of features can impact the enterprise in a very large manner. For example, the deduplication ability of Windows Server 2012 and Storage Spaces/ReFS has put the OS near parity with ZFS for defending against bit rot, and the ability to add hard drive space without having to rebuild an array.

If an edition of Windows Server came out with a Hyper-V kernel on par with VMWare in management ability (as in RAM compression/deduplication/ballooning), with real-time drive deduplication. Couple this with Infiniband support and the ability to access another machine's hard drive volumes (in a clustered way, so locking between boxes is preserved), and this would allow a bunch of Windows boxes to not just act as a compute node farm... but also provide SAN-like access and redundancy. More drive space would be easily added by tossing more computers in the array as well as adding disks.

I have a feeling the server version will likely stay the same, with no real incentives to get people from 2012 or 2012R2... mainly because the UI (for the most part) isn't an issue, because one ends up using SCCM/SCOM/SCVMM for most management duties anyway, so the UI on the server doesn't matter as much.

Maybe Some Clarification

[WheezyJoe]

Ars Technica was present at the announcement, and the Q&A afterward was both insightful and confusing. They clarify the free upgrade to Windows 10 as follows (emphasis mine):

Update: Microsoft fielded some questions about this upgrade in its Q&A session after the event. The company "hasn't decided" how it will handle upgrades from Windows 7 or 8.1 after the first year of Windows 10 availability ends, and it is "working on an update for Windows RT," but doesn't have further details to share.

Update 2: A blog post from Terry Myerson clears up what "Windows as a service" means, though the duration of "the supported lifetime of the device" is still foggy. "This is more than a one-time upgrade," writes Myerson. "Once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device—at no additional charge."

It seems to me Microsoft is still keeping the details close to the vest. So, for my money, the jury is still out for what happens in a year.

Still, as a strategy to get people to move off Windows 7 in a hurry, this is pretty good. You'd only wonder what would have happened to the XP user base if Vista or 7 had been free. On the other hand, this Windows 10 ecosystem is a really big gamble, and Microsoft desperately needs developers to make their platform compete against iOS and Android. Based on that, giving the first taste away free is a pretty ballsy move.

I only hope they don't try to recoup some of that lost revenue by filling Windows 10 with trackware and clickbait, forking out tons of your personal data to Bing servers because, well, that's where the action is.