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Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#41

Post by Someone1234 »

jedberg wrote: post #2

It's not the price of Windows that was keeping people from adopting Windows 8. It's the irrelevancy and the fact that corporations don't see the ROI. The time it would take to upgrade their company isn't worth the gains, which are minimal. Unless Windows 10 proves to be a massive improvement in performance or usability, I suspect it's uptake will be just as anemic, free or not.

The upgrade isn't "free" for most companies, kinda.

If they're a small business and use OEM installed copies of Windows and those OEM copies are Pro or lower then, yes, they get a free upgrade.

If it comes with Enterprise OEM they won't get the upgrade, and if they are on a volume licence (which most companies, even medium sized are) then they won't get a free upgrade and will instead need Software Assurance (subscription upgrades).

Many companies upgrade because of non-obvious benefits, namely how newer versions of Windows ineract with Active Directory, WDS, WUS, and similar. Every version of Windows comes with new and sometimes impressive enterprise features that consumers just rarely notice.

For example, go here[0] and look at the Enterprise column. It is these types of things that are what gets enterprise excited, not how pretty alt-tab looks or if it has Cortana.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_8_editions

Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#42

Post by ars »

colechristensen wrote: post #37
JeremyNT wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we'll be keeping it current for the supported lifetime for the device. My question is: what exactly is the "supported lifetime for the device?" Is this "supported lifetime" defined by the manufacturer's warranty? The original OS date of installation? Something else?

You're thinking too hard. It means if you install Windows 10 during the free period, it will be as if you bought a normal Windows license.

That's not what they said though. That's what they want you to understand.

If they meant that, they would have said that. There's a reason they chose the language they did.

Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#43

Post by jtgeibel »

devindotcom wrote: post #23

Guys arguing about what "free for a year" means, be aware they DID specify this and if you think they haven't communicated it, you probably weren't there! "For the first year after Windows 10 is available, we will be making available a free upgrade to Windows 10 for all devices running Windows 8.1. Once a device is upgraded to Windows 10, we'll be keeping it current for the supported lifetime for the device." If that…

The part that confuses me, and that I hope they sufficiently clarify, is that I run my (rarely used) copy of Windows in a VM. So I can move that VM from one machine to another as I upgrade my hardware. This seems to route around their "supported lifetime for the device" language, as they are most likely relying on eventual hardware obsolescence and continued income from OEM installs. But in a sense I'm evading that by moving the VM from one laptop with Linux pre-installed to another.

As far as I am aware, installing Windows in a VM has always been allowed by their license (although they tried to limit this in some way in the past and eventually backtracked, around the time of Vista if I recall). Will they attempt to return to such restrictions, or simply write people like me off as an extremely small portion of their install base from which they do not expect to extract further revenue?

Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#44

Post by JohnTHaller »

devindotcom wrote: post #35
McGlockenshire wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the smallprint from the page on their current Windows 10 promo site[1]: > It is our intent that most of these devices will qualify, but some hardware/software requirements apply and feature availability may vary by device. Devices must be connected to the internet and have Windows Update enabled. ISP fees may apply. Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 Update required. Some editions are excluded: Windows 7 Enterprise…

No RT! That's harsh, but the truth is dropping RT like a bad habit is the best thing they could do. Sucks for anyone who bought a copy on a cheap tablet, though.

Windows proper won't run on Windows RT hardware, so this was kind of a given.

Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#45

Post by Someone1234 »

Amezarak wrote: post #34
fit2rule wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't used Windows in 10+ years, so I've got some questions for those who are smarter than me on the subject of Windows: Does it come with package management yet? Can I easily avoid DLL hell these days? Can I add my own local repository and use it to maintain a fleet of workstations, making sure they always have the same configuration no matter what? Is it easily possible to connect to a Windows machine and admin…

> Does it come with package management yet? No. There is the Windows Store (all or most Metro apps, GUI) and things like NuGet for Visual Studio, but that's not what you're looking for. There are third-party solutions. [EDIT: See sibling comments; W10 adds one.] > Can I easily avoid DLL hell these days? DLL Hell is no longer a concern. It's not a matter of avoiding it, it won't happen except perhaps in very unusual e…

This is completely pedantic and adds nothing to the discussion, but 2008 R2 added Core Mode, rather than 2012. 2012 continues it however.

Otherwise your post is great.

Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#46

Post by STRiDEX »

jtgeibel wrote: post #43
devindotcom wrote: post #23

Guys arguing about what "free for a year" means, be aware they DID specify this and if you think they haven't communicated it, you probably weren't there! "For the first year after Windows 10 is available, we will be making available a free upgrade to Windows 10 for all devices running Windows 8.1. Once a device is upgraded to Windows 10, we'll be keeping it current for the supported lifetime for the device." If that…

The part that confuses me, and that I hope they sufficiently clarify, is that I run my (rarely used) copy of Windows in a VM. So I can move that VM from one machine to another as I upgrade my hardware. This seems to route around their "supported lifetime for the device" language, as they are most likely relying on eventual hardware obsolescence and continued income from OEM installs. But in a sense I'm evading that b…

Take a snapshot of the VM and reset it to that point when the free trial period expires. They have you do this with their official VM's for IE testing.

Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#48

Post by jtgeibel »

STRiDEX wrote: post #46
jtgeibel wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part that confuses me, and that I hope they sufficiently clarify, is that I run my (rarely used) copy of Windows in a VM. So I can move that VM from one machine to another as I upgrade my hardware. This seems to route around their "supported lifetime for the device" language, as they are most likely relying on eventual hardware obsolescence and continued income from OEM installs. But in a sense I'm evading that b…

Take a snapshot of the VM and reset it to that point when the free trial period expires. They have you do this with their official VM's for IE testing.

But this isn't a free trial period. My understanding is that if you upgrade in the first year then you have a fully licensed version of Windows for the lifetime of the "device". But what is the lifetime of a virtual machine?

Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#49

Post by wideroots »

ars wrote: post #42
colechristensen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking too hard. It means if you install Windows 10 during the free period, it will be as if you bought a normal Windows license.

That's not what they said though. That's what they want you to understand. If they meant that, they would have said that. There's a reason they chose the language they did.

That's what they mean. You are listening/reading into it too much. Every Windows has a number of years for support, and this number can change. The number has never decreased and has only increased in the past because people/companies were too slow at getting rid of old Windows (e.g. Windows XP). We do not know what the actual number of years Microsoft is going to support for Windows 10, but I bet it's going to be around 10 years just like other Windows.

Check http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle for the current list of Windows.

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