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Windows 10 Release Date: July 29th
Ammalgam writes with news that Windows 10 will be released worldwide on July 29th, 2015. It'll be immediately available for PCs and tablets — their announcement doesn't mention smartphones. The upgrade will be free (within one year of launch) for users running legitimate copies of Windows 7 and 8.1. Another reader notes that users of those two operating systems are now being prompted to upgrade by a message in their notification area (system tray).
My daughter (13) has been my test subject for the windows 10 release so far and she's been initially satisfied with the OS, but unsatisfied with the performance. Based on her use, I'm surprised that they are releasing it at this time. it's been buggy, crash prone, and generally lackluster in performance. Now, it may be that the preview candidates are missing some key optimization features, and I realize that most of her drivers aren't optimized. From a User Interface, if you are used to windows 8.1 you'll probably appreciate this more. they've uncovered or removed some of the veneers that made it so difficult to navigate.
I realize as an AC on /. I'm probably going to be flagged for Troll, but other than the performance issues (which I'd hope they fix) I find it to be like the windows 7 answer to vista for windows 8. That said, I'm probably going to wait a few months to install/upgrade it because after all.. software doesn't work out of the box anymore.
I dunno, I like to be in control of the situation and this freebie sounds sketchy, do we get to keep the upgrade for offline install?
My history of windows use has always reinforced the idea of "clean install" over upgrade, not sure if that's still true but I imagine it is still the better route.
The price of the Win10 pro is absurd, $250, or $149 for OEM if you can handle your own support *snicker*
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I know that once I upgrade, I will always be able to use it. But what I meant was: can I download the upgrade and obtain a license now and use it later?
It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
How does it all work?
If I install Windows 10 on my personal desktop, with valid key.
Then trash the machine, re-install from a brand new original Windows 10 media DVD. Does the Windows 7 key work for Windows 10?
Even if another user signs in?
Is the Windows 7 key tied to my "Windows account" (they seem to be pushing accounts / logins now.... my Windows 10 test machine I literally login with my Microsoft live account) or what was once called live...
I own at least 3 machines with genuine Windows 7 keys but I administer / work on / help with at least 30. I do NOT want to have 30 unique Windows 10 "accounts" with MS.
So is it literally a flag in the DB "this key is now Windows 10 and Windows 7"?
These "folks" - Yeah the first OS i've used was in fact win95 - sorry but I'm late generation it seems. The complaint is that I don't want to change my OS if I don't want to, and that should be my choice - plain and simple. You spin your own web and live in the world you can neatly categorize. You say its different, yet don't even realize what different means. Different can mean hundreds of hours reconfiguring and migrating applications. Different means hundreds or thousands of dollars in migration costs. How naive are you to think you know what's best for everyone else?
The start menu still uses tile-like buttons, and the windows are "Metro" style. I don't particularly care for the look. The "flat" looks with 16 colors are a step backwards, trendy or not, and I include Apple with this. It looks like some sort of accessibility mode has been enabled for people with poor eyesight.
I've been in favor of every Windows upgrade (aside from ME) since WFW 3.1.
95 gave us a native TCP/IP stack and DirectX. XP looked a little too "Playskool," but the NT kernel tradeoff was so worth it.
Vista was a nice visual upgrade and provided fully-baked 64-bit support. The driver issues were largely overblown and non-issues after a few months anyway. The sidebar was useful for displaying hardware usage. My biggest critique was the price and SKU explosion; the introduction of crippleware at the OS level. Market segmentation might be a good business practice, but insulting knowledgeable customers in the process generally is not. Meanwhile, "Ultimate Extras" proved to be a code name for language packs that were useless to many, many people. Still, these were not criticisms of the core OS itself, just the business practices surrounding it.
Win7 refined the Vista UI and added stability, booted significantly faster, search indexing was improved, and revised UAC (which I had previously disabled) made the feature more acceptable.
Meanwhile I get nothing in Windows 10 other than an interface I don't care for. If XP had been nothing more than a re-skinned Windows 95 with all the same features, I wouldn't have upgraded then either. I'll stick with 7 until they EOL it or introduce a compelling reason to upgrade. I suspect that they've run out of compelling features to add. It would require a sea change in core hardware that we're unlikely to see in the near future -- 128 bit processors, or quantum computing. The feature set of OSes seems to be mature at this point, much like the core controls of vehicles. At this point it's just change for the sake of change, which is a waste of resources.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere