Windows 10 free offer

[Ed in Tampa]

About a week ago I was offered a free update to Windows 10. I dealt with this exactly as I deal with unknown ballot measures when voting at the polls.

"If you don't understand it - have never been educated about what it will do for you ------ Vote NO! (don't accept)

What is to understand Microsoft screwed up big time misjudged their customer base and nearly destroyed their empire. PC sales plummetted and computer makers were more than a little upset with Microsoft.

In the meantime Apple saw Microsoft shooting itself in the foot and took advantage of the situation. And they succeeded their sales climbed. Apple also gave their users upgrades free of charge.

In an effort to attempt to win back users Microsoft decided to give away Windows 10. As if they had a choice.

The free windows 10 is Microsoft's attempt to forget the huge mistake windows 8.

[lyall]

Yes Windows 10 is free, but you will have to paid for the updates.
And paid you will for each update.
And you still will have all the problems with viruses, malware, etc.

[JPG]

And, what is the 'cost' after the free trial?

Win 9???

It isn't a trial. It is a free copy, if you have an existing qualified licensed OS now, and elect to take their offer at any time up to one year after Windows 10 releases.

What I am doing is hedging my bet.

I presently have two hard disks in a Raid 0 (mirrored) now for Win 7 Pro SP1.

I am installing a new SSD in my machine and the Bios will allow me to optionally boot from a different drive if I elect to during POST (Power On Self Test). If I do not elect an option during boot sequence, it will boot to the Windows 10 upgrade on the SSD. Not all systems bios allow that selectable drive at boot selection.

I am not upgrading my Win 7, I am reinstalling Win 7 on my new SSD, and then letting Microsoft do the free upgrade to 10 on it.

If anything does not work as expected, or I have an application that just will not behave at the version I have licensed in the Windows 10 environment, I can always still run it in Win 7 until a resolution or upgrade comes out for 10.

Let us see. You get a 'free copy' to TRY for up to a year, then if you decide to keep it you pay for it.

It ain't free except for the trial period.

I be guessing it will not 'work' after the trial period is over if not paid for.

Skeptical? You betcha!!!

[benush26]

Post by lyall » 07 Jul 2015 18:46
Yes Windows 10 is free, but you will have to paid for the updates.
No, just like current copies of other Windows, there will be NO cost for updates

And paid you will for each update.
No. I have no clue where you received your info, but it is unequivocally wrong.

And you still will have all the problems with viruses, malware, etc.
Possibly but not so much..... Much of the internals are controlled by the new OS. Very few ways for all but the BEST Black Hats to find a way in and exploit. The tradeoff is that many of the tweeks enjoyed by hackers will be stopped by the heuristic nature of this new system. I don't expect you to believe me, but the the internals are amazingly sophisticated. 10 is to XP what XP was to DOS.

-------------------------

Post by JPG » 07 Jul 2015 20:01

Let us see. You get a 'free copy' to TRY for up to a year, then if you decide to keep it you pay for it.
JPG, you get a year to ask for the free copy after that it will cost to buy it.

It ain't free except for the trial period.
It is free for as long as you want to use it. No gimmicks no hidden gotchas to costs unless you want to UPGRADE to a PRO type version. That is exactly the same pricing structure they have had for decades in the previous OSs and Office.

I be guessing it will not 'work' after the trial period is over if not paid for.
You would be guessing wrong.

JPG, have I EVER lied to you?!? Well maybe about the quality of my woodworking projects but that's like fishing stories!

Microsoft wants you to have their OS on your computer, tablet and phone, then charge you to use APPS (business or office mainly) and cloud storage (most business people use the free amount very quickly then pay a subscription fee for more).

MS has already paid for the R&D for 10. They have switched business model horses in the middle of the stream hoping the new business model will work. Many programmers are looking to design apps for you to place on your screen and charge you small amounts for upgrades and maintenance ala Apple, Google, Android. However, hacking those apps will be nearly impossible. A rewrite of any code has to pass through layers and layers, each designed to find any little embedded sneak! They have watched IBM and to an extent HP flounder in the home market, yet thrive in the business sector.

Frankly I understand the HUGE dis and mis trust of Microsoft. Could they be lying? Sure. But many who have moved up and out of the corporate structure have been replaced by those who saw the failure of MS to act dynamically to markets and because of that, lose massive amounts of market share. The culture on campus is SIGNIFICANTLY different that just 5 years ago. Yes, they still recruit bright workaholics, pay them huge sums making them multi millionaires in their twenties and burnouts who are shown the door in their thirties. The change is upper management who direct research and try and peek into the future and are then given a chance to try it.

Plus, you have until July of next year to see if it works, sucks or is somewhere in between, because there will be LOTS and LOTS of reviews. If you have been sent the offer, you will still have all that time to decide if you want it. Still free.

Now for the other side of the argument..
If you like what you have and it works for you, why change? If after a few years you feel left out, Staples will have the Home version for the price of a new Forrester blade.

Be well,
Ben

[BuckeyeDennis]

Ben makes a good point. I'm now on a subscription basis with Microsoft myself.

With three high-school and college-age teenagers, laptops have been multiplying like rabbits around here. Plus I still run two desktop machines. I own 4 regular seats of Office, but needed seven or eight. So I signed up for Office 365. For $100 a year, I get another 5 seats of Office. That's only 20 bucks a year per machine, and the software is perpetually updated.

The kicker was that Microsoft bundles 1 Terabyte of cloud storage per user with the Office subscription. At my internet connection speed, (30Mb/s down, 5Mb/s up), that's essentially unlimited storage. Assuming 100% bandwidth and zero overhead, it would take 100 days to upload that much data! I'm going to install a big honkin' hard drive in one of my desktop machines, share it on the home network, and sync it to the Microsoft cloud storage. Then tell the family to store all their photos and such there, and my backup headaches should be gone for a while.

For their side of the deal, Microsoft gets a modest, but very steady and predictable, revenue stream from me.

[garys]

It appears that the upgrade to 10 is legitimate as advertised. You have to look at history to understand why. XP was a huge success for Microsoft, and still today, millions of users continue to use it. That has hurt the sales of Windows 7 and the more dismal failure that Windows 8 was, so Microsoft is trying to pull the herd back together into using Windows 10 like they had with XP. If that works, they again have some standardization with their customers and that helps both Microsoft and the users.
If they can successfully wipe out Windows 8 and the memories of it, they gain back some credibility, and the user gains a more usable computer.
Once Windows 10 is a success worldwide, XP can slowly die and every Windows user can be happy again.
If you are elegible for the free upgrade, and you plan to continue using Windows, it makes good sense to take the free upgrade. That way you have their newest, best supported version of the OS to run. When your current computer needs to be replaced, you will end up with Windows 10 anyway, so why not jump on the wagon now?

[JPG]

I admit to being a microsoft skeptic.

I do not think I will like the destination of that wagon.

Only reason I have EVER changed OS versions was because the new one was bundled with a computer purchased.

My 'problem' with microsoft is our purpose in having an operating system are divergent.


I dislike an OS that 'decides' what functions are currently active(albeit a necessity when 'multi-tasking' 'programs'. "AP" is a marketing term(as are "folders" etc.).

It seems the rarely invoked features that I like do not survive in a useful form between subsequent versions(says he who has only used 95,XP and 7).

I consider a computer to be a tool, not an entertainment device.

Making a computer OS resemble an 'iphone' device makes no sense. Especially since those phones have become so capable recently(small screens are almost extinct).

I am amazed at the capability of the latest phone from Apple(the price for which is a handful to hold).

At least back in the DOS days, one could know what was 'running/active' at any given time, and any 'delays' were likely the result of the executing program.

End Rant!

[dusty]

BEFORE you make plans to participate in this great Microsoft give away, if you are presently an XP user (as I am), you would do well to verify that your machine and the resident applications are compatible to Windows 7, 8, or 10. Even those of you using W7 would serve yourself to run a compatibility check. I have done this with two of my machines that are running XP and I find that my audio systems and my video systems would need hardware upgrades. I also find the the later Windows programs do not like some of my older applications.

I am cheapo! I do not buy into every one of these "upgrades" as they come along. Thus I have OLD software and OLD hardware that is not capable of playing on the same field with the big boys.

[robinson46176]

Linux

My wallet is firmly shut and will stay like that.

I still have an old shop iMAC running OS-X. Works, nothing exciting.
Our 2 phones are of course Android as is the tablet. Works.
Everything else is Linux and unless things change a lot, always will be...

If you ever read of me ever paying Microsoft for anything you should run outside and look to see if it is all over...


.

[benush26]

Linux

My wallet is firmly shut and will stay like that.

I still have an old shop iMAC running OS-X. Works, nothing exciting.
Our 2 phones are of course Android as is the tablet. Works.
Everything else is Linux and unless things change a lot, always will be...

If you ever read of me ever paying Microsoft for anything you should run outside and look to see if it is all over...


.

I smile when I think of Gates and group and their attempt to SELL unix (though I think the version was BSD and might have been called xenix). It was the early 80s and I can barely remember last week! , so details are murky. I wonder what a mess it would have been and if Linus T would have tried to make CPM or DOS into an open source?

Yesterday I happened to be digging through piles of stuff and found my 386SX. upgraded to 4MB at $100 a meg! I was the envy of most everyone in my building because I had a computer and a subscription to GENIE!! I sort of miss that time.

Be well,
Ben