51–60 of 75 posts
Can someone explain why it would only be free for the first year? To spur adoption? It just seems like more trouble than it's worth to start charging people for it sometime in the future.
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.
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…
DLL hell was replaced by >20GB WinSxS directory. Every version of every single DLL, regardless if you ever used or will use one. Stored forever, with no usage stats, no mechanism of trimming, no archive option for never used ones. Introduced just in time to fill ~$40 worth of SSD with data that will NEVER EVER be read again.
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.
Clippy: I heard no one likes our phone OS, so we are going to put it on your desktop for FREE, arent you glad? Metro squares for everyone!
I know I do at least.
Can someone explain why it would only be free for the first year? To spur adoption? It just seems like more trouble than it's worth to start charging people for it sometime in the future.
Ever since Amazon Web Services nothing has ever been the same. Maybe one day we'll all go back to actually "owning" the software we buy instead of just timed licenses and logins.
Remember XP having to be re-authorized if you changed too much hardware? It was before then too.
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> 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.
"Supported lifetime for the device" does not necessarily mean "supported lifetime for Windows 10." Although your interpretation may be correct, they have (intentionally or otherwise) used ambiguous wording in how they describe this.
I wonder if they'll let the (vast number of) pirated versions of Windows 7/8 participate in the free upgrade program. It'd be an interesting change to the dynamic of Windows.
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.
People who bought a Windows XP machine in 2001 enjoyed 6+ years of free OS upgrades from Microsoft. Likewise, people who buy a Mac enjoy 5+ years of free OS upgrades from Apple.
If Microsoft wants to shift into a yearly release cycle and they don't give away the updates to their existing customers then they're essentially charging for service packs, which won't fly.
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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?