Microsoft Windows 10 Upgrade Offered For Free

[engine]

Obviously, if you have a qualifying OS you'll get the free upgrade. There's sense in that in trying to get people onto the latest platform.

Microsoft has announced that its next operating system will be offered as a free upgrade to owners of devices running Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Phone.

The announcement marks a change in strategy to its previous policy of charging for major updates.

The offer, which is limited to the OS's first year of release, may aid its adoption.Microsoft Windows 10 Upgrade Offered For Free [bbc.co.uk]

[jojy]

Good stuff. Microsoft is learning from Apple lately.

[J_RaD]

win 10 will have some serious upgrade steam this year! prob be the fastest adoption of any OS.

[bill]

The big shift will come in enterprise if Windows 10.1 or SP1 comes out soon enough and it's still free. Few large business IT groups will make a switch before that even if they do have plans to move to Windows 10 eventually.

[J_RaD]

Good stuff. Microsoft is learning from Apple lately.

except apple makes money from hardware, not software.

[jmccormac]

Have W10 tech preview on a test box here. It is quite impressive. The real killer hardware will be that Hololens. If Microsoft gets it working, Google is in very big trouble.

Regards...jmcc

[bill]

Just saw this:
https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/553/windows-10-will-free-upgrade [thurrott.com]

Windows 10 Will Be a Free Upgrade

But consider this line: “Once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no additional charge.” This suggests to me that keeping Windows 10 up-to-date going forward is not optional. That in order to get this offer—or perhaps just to get Windows 10 as a consumer, regardless—will require you to let Microsoft keep your system up to date.

So Windows Update will not be an option? That has benefits on the consumer level, but IT departments aren't going to be too thrilled.

[weeks]

So Windows Update will not be an option? That has benefits on the consumer level, but IT departments aren't going to be too thrilled.

Because? More work? Well, the layoffs in corporate IT have been heavy the last five years, so they would be happy for the work. I'd bet you're looking at it from the budget side and thinking "gotta keep those low level geeks around." That was my first reaction, too. But, thinking about it, I wonder if that will be the case if the become updates automatic enough.

Dunno, but you're well aware I'm certain how the apps get updated now on iOS... Maybe a lot less work. Maybe the days of new OS releases are coming to an end? "Remember back in the day when they had OS releases and it was a BIG DEAL?"

[J_RaD]

So Windows Update will not be an option? That has benefits on the consumer level, but IT departments aren't going to be too thrilled.

why wouldn't in house IT dep just use WSUS to update their LAN clients like they can do now.

thurrott isn't the best place to be looking for real world stuff.

[BillyS]

That's interesting... so once you buy a device, Windows stays up to date. Makes a lot of sense to me.

[mcneely]

We can get all excited over this and gush all over the place but we all might do well to read the fine print ---

Keywords here are "Supported Devices"

If you bought a PC 2 years ago and it runs great with whatever win8 thing you've got on it, and 2 weeks from now the guys that built that particular model of machine quits supporting it's hardware/drivers, then you just might be SOL on the big Windows 10 upgrade.

Microsoft was pretty clear on the "Supported Devices" aspect of this upgrade .. You'll get free upgrades for as long as your device manufacturer supports the device. "Life of the device" in geekineeze means "end of support"

How many small hand held devices become obsolete in a year? Two years? 3? ...

How many times are you going to have to buy Windows 10 in 5 years because of device manufacturers discontinued support of these said devices?

Looks like Microsoft is all done with supporting their releases for extended periods of time -- with this next and last OS release, it appears to me that they stand to make quite a nifty little amount to add to their bottom line too.

Will I go in for the free release? .. Of course I will. I've got a handy dandy little machine right here that might still be supported by it's manufacturer next year at this time.

What I won't do, however, is "buy" a new version of Windows 10 every time my device manufacturer decides I need a new laptop, tablet, or PC when they discontinue support...

As it stands now, Microsoft is having to provide updates to machines that you can't even get decent video cards for ... The computer manufacture stopped support on the unit years ago, but here's ole Microsoft, providing writes for stuff most everybody else never uses any more ...

[MikeNoLastName]

It REALLY means that they admit 7/8.x sux and that in exchange for the new theoretically better SW which they should have waited to release instead of 7/8, that you are signing up to agree to beta test all their new updates of ver 10 for them FOR FREE, until it is ready for general release as a salable stand alone product. Probably also means that when MICROSOFT decides they can no longer do what they want to with their software on your processor and Graphics processor, that THEY will declare it no longer supported (BY THEM.) I just wish they would support all my expensive older 3rd party software (like Adobe Illus, QBooks Pro, etc) on V10 unlike with 8.x. My new quad-core proc that came with 8.0 pre-installed is doing little more than running Bitcoin mining and FAH because none of the software I currently use daily on my XP machine will install on it.
Anyone else remember the mantra from back in the Windows 3.x days that all the EVEN numbered MS OS releases never work?

[engine]

There's complete sense in getting everyone onto one OS. It's just a little complicated to manage that change. As was pointed out, the "corporate user" is faced with different challenges compared to a home user.

I know how difficult it can be to manage different computers with different OS, and it's no fun, it's more costly, and, of course, if it looks and acts differently, there's the training issues involved. Not to mention the cost of the upgrade.

Microsoft appears to have eliminated one part by offering the free upgrade. I'm certain i'll be taking up that offer, at some point within the year. I might give it a few weeks and months before I go for it.

My biggest concern is that the hardware is not up to the new software, which is why a few XP machines were written off, and the Win 7 machines were not upgraded. Additionally, some software on the Win7 machines won't run on Win8. Before you say it about upgrading the software: It's not produced in that format any longer. In fact, one of the packages is just not made at all. It works perfectly. It ain't broke!

The support for some legacy programs affects corporate users, too. It's hugely expensive to keep upgrading.

Having said all that, I welcome this move by Microsoft.

[IanCP]

Anyone else remember the mantra from back in the Windows 3.x days that all the EVEN numbered MS OS releases never work?

Oh - I can go back the old DOS days for that expression - which was perfectly true.

Karma?

[RonPK]

interesting: Windows 10 will have a new default browser, named Spartan. Internet Explorer will still be included, mainly for companies that rely on legacy web apps. Spartan will be using IE 11's edge rendering engine.

Seems like a smart move by MS: give users a standards compliant browser (well, sort of) that doesn't have IE's bad reputation. No need to install Google's Chrome.

[bill]

Because? More work? Well, the layoffs in corporate IT have been heavy the last five years, so they would be happy for the work.

No. A lot of companies I know have software and systems that could break with an update, so testing is required before it is let loose on the companies' PCs. Rolling updates of the OS could wreak havoc unless they were properly vetted.

[tangor]

All of this leads to MS getting all hooked to OS as a portal to their online biz (for which they can charge), the storage, the infinite links to all of your devices, the tie to the "big computer", ie. The Return Of Big Iron where every input comes from a "dumb" terminal.

Since the invention of the PC this path has been sought and fought to obtain. Look for "OS as a SERVICE" in the near future. Apple and Google are close in the regard right now.

Ultimately, the OS is not the income, it is what the users are willing to pay to OPERATE it (via cloud, services, apps, etc). :)