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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

#71

Post by rasz_pl »

voltagex_ wrote: post #70
rasz_pl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is dropping RT. RT is being moved INTO your desktop and taking it over. Just look at the list of services running on your win8.whatever.

Erm, vaguely the same amount that are visible in taskmgr/services.msc in Windows 7. I'm running the 10 Preview now and the "RT" part (Metro, I presume) is much less intrusive.

Really, your Windows 7 runs TimeBroker service? There is over 20 services and tasks with sole purpose of supporting Metro/RT crapfest, something nobody asked for nor wants.

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

#72

Post by jeeva »

talmand wrote: post #62
thought_alarm wrote: post #59

I don't think this free upgrade is much of a shock. 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.

It's not a shock but it's outside the norm for Microsoft. Typically you do not get free upgrades from one version of Windows to the next. You can free updates to your current version. But never a free upgrade to the next major version. WinXP users enjoyed six plus years of free updates to WinXP. I don't see this type of release from Microsoft changing their update/upgrade model. They're just doing it as a means to pu…

Let's be a little honest, though - this is a spectacular rebrand for 8.2, along with large user-visible changes (not forcing Metro) and some cool backend stuff. A lot of this stuff was originally going to be in the second service pack for 8.1, if I remember correctly (most distinctively, the start menu returning).

They've said themselves that they needed to get away from the stigma that is associated with 8.* - and that's great. Charging for it would be a bit harsh.

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

#73

Post by talmand »

jeeva wrote: post #72
talmand wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a shock but it's outside the norm for Microsoft. Typically you do not get free upgrades from one version of Windows to the next. You can free updates to your current version. But never a free upgrade to the next major version. WinXP users enjoyed six plus years of free updates to WinXP. I don't see this type of release from Microsoft changing their update/upgrade model. They're just doing it as a means to pu…

Let's be a little honest, though - this is a spectacular rebrand for 8.2, along with large user-visible changes (not forcing Metro) and some cool backend stuff. A lot of this stuff was originally going to be in the second service pack for 8.1, if I remember correctly (most distinctively, the start menu returning). They've said themselves that they needed to get away from the stigma that is associated with 8.* - and t…

Well, sure, it's like what happened with going from Vista to Win7. But since they are mostly a software company I don't have much issue with them having a business model that makes them money, and that involves charging for software.

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

#74

Post by DavidBradbury »

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.

Meh, I got a cheap tablet that has done me good for what I wanted it to do. I don't expect something like that to stay up to day with technology when I buy it.

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

#75

Post by tmzt »

Someone1234 wrote: post #39
devindotcom wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

RT would have been amazing if they had been able to create an x86/64 emulator. Even if it ran 50% slower than on a native CPU and even if it ate battery like crazy at least it would have given the platform a nice back-catalogue. Instead not only did RT have virtually no software on it, but Microsoft went out of their way to make it "impossible" to build ARM-native software for it without essentially hacking into your…

Or supported Win32 API which would have brought with it a number of open source and free applications, such as VLC, OpenOffice.org, AbiWord (smaller, so more suited to RT), and Firefox.

It seems that Microsoft is working on a new UI for Office which will eliminate the need for Win32 support on devices such as RT in the future.

At the same time they restrict what native applications can do on Metro devices, which limits the usefulness of existing codebases and forces Metro tablets to start over without the long time catalog of Windows software.

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