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Microsoft: Windows 10 Will Remain Free For People With Accessibility Needs (betanews.com)
Reader Mark Wilson writes: The free ride is coming to an end. Windows 10 was always going to be free for the first year after release, and this year is up on 29 July. There are, of course, still ways to get your hands on Windows 10 for free beyond this date. One way is to buy a new PC with Windows 10 installed, although not many people would regard this as a free upgrade. But Microsoft has also confirmed that people with accessibility needs will still be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for free after the deadline. Writing on its Accessibility Blog, Microsoft points out that the 29 July cut-off point does not apply to people with accessibility needs.From Microsoft's blog post: As you may have heard, the free Windows 10 upgrade offer for customers running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 is set to end on July 29, but we want to clarify that that deadline will not apply to customers who use assistive technologies. We are continuing to deliver on our previously-shared vision for accessibility for Windows 10 and we are committed to ensuring that users of assistive technologies have the opportunity to upgrade to Windows 10 for free as we do so.
That's one reason why the upgrade is not free. Another reason is that you will loose many hours if not many days in productivity by botched upgrades, newly introduced bugs, features like advertisements or Cortana that slow down your PC and make you less productive, forced OS updates that come at the wrong time, and so on.
Additionally, you will likely loose the equivalent of a 30% price increase with every application purchased from the Windows store, since professional developers have to take into account the share they owe to Microsoft in their pricing as additional business expenses. (Now to be honest, I suck at these percentage calculations and believe the right way of calculating this is not as a 30% price increase, because the basis for the 30% difference should be the new price not the old one. But I'm too fucking lazy to figure this out now and therefore leave this as an exercise to the reader.)
Forget all the "Windows 10 is spyware" stuff for a second; the interesting thing to watch is the tactics they're using. In my opinion they're pursuing a good strategy (for them) but it's going to really anger most "prosumer" users and smaller business users.
The interesting thing about Windows 10 is that it's not a "free upgrade," it never was "free," The consumer versions (Home and Pro) of Windows 10 use data mining to pay the bills with Web 3.0 bubble money. From an IT perspective, the only option these days is Enterprise if you want full control over the machine. You only get Enterprise if you sign a Software Assurance agreement, meaning you basically are paying on an ongoing basis for the OS. The big difference is with Windows 7 and 8, small to medium shops would usually just re-use the Professional license that the OEM obtained when they built the PC, without having to re-license it, because the Professional version gave enough control over the computer. With Windows 10, you can't disable the Store or the telemetry on anything except the Enterprise version, nor can you access the Long Term Servicing Branch (LTSB) which is the closest thing you can get to the old RTM + Service Pack update cadence.
Honestly, it's just semantics. Since it's still a "product," Microsoft still needs to tout a free upgrade as the stepping stone from the previous OS versions. They're just taking a one-time revenue hit pulling everyone up onto the same version of the operating system much the same way Apple has been trying to do. In return, they get all the "grandma PCs" running ancient versions of Windows out of the ecosystem and can redeploy all those development resources doing legacy stuff to the new versions. Windows 8 is basically in the coffin, and Windows 7's end-of-support date is constantly being moved up in such a way that they don't violate any promises, but they do make it hard to deploy new copies of it. In reality they're going to be offering whatever channels they can for free upgrades to Windows 10; there's no upside for them not to at this point.
except your previous license can still be used. so no, it's not a trade. you will never see a license key for windows 10 when you upgrade and you keep the option to roll back at your desire.
Yes, it's a trade (with some caveats) You can roll back, sure, but you can't use your Windows 7 license on a computer, upgrade that computer to Windows 10, then install your Windows 7 license to a different computer, for example.
Microsoft has committed itself to a campaign of computer terrorism, attacking people's personal computers and taking them over, installing malware and spyware, and doing everything they can to trick, pressure, and blackmail people into installing their shitty 'operating system', very often giving them no choice or ignoring their choice to not 'upgrade' to it. Then they issue North Korea-level propaganda about their 300 million installations and how Windows 10 is such a big success (Windows 10 is BEST Windows!). Microsoft should be prosecuted under anti-hacking laws and dismantled, victims paid restitution for their trouble, and the Microsoft CEO's head on a pike in the middle of Silicon Valley for his crimes.