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Windows 10 release date official. THIS SUMMER.
http://www.pcgamer.com/windows-10-coming-in-summer-free-to-chinese-pirates/
"Microsoft has plopped out the announcement that the next edition of Windows - Windows 10, because Windows 9 does not exist—will be releasing in 190 countries this summer."
official MS link: http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/03/17/windows-10-launching-this-summer-in-190-countries-and-111-languages/
Comments
Makes me wish I were a Chinese pirate.
Oh wait, we already get it for free for a year.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Just built a new rig, and got Win7, as I was told that there would be free Win10 - didn't realize it would only be for a year though. Still, not a bad deal.
Question for me is this - will it be something easy to do? Just download some stuff, let Microsoft do its magic, and BAM! there's 10? With all the stuff intact on my pc? No wipe required? And also, will it be something you pay for after the year is up? Such as going to the MS website and slapping down some cash for 10? Forgive me, for I'm an idiot and don't know these things...
yay, free stuff!
where's the catch? Does it come with the NSA surveillance trojan preloaded?
From what I understand, so this is in no way official:
1. You should be able to upgrade from 7 to 10 without having to wipe your hard drive. BUT I think MS controls that...they may only allow upgrade/no wipes from Windows 8.
2. You most definitely would have to pay for it IF you don't upgrade BEFORE the year is up. I upgraded to Windows 8 during the "free" period and never had to pay for it. And since I'm NOT a Windows 8 hater I haven't regretted it. :-)
I'm sure MS will put out plenty of official instructions this summer. :-)
Except people will
A. still have their windows 7 CDs or
B. pirate a copy of Windows 10 for free like they've been doing for years with other versions of Windows.
Most of the time upgrades like that go smooth. I would use ccleaner or any system cleaner to get rid of old temp files first and back up anything real important just in case.
I'm just wondering how many old games won't run any more.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
There was a similar promotion when Windows 8 came out - for a limited time those with Windows 7 could upgrade for $30 - I think the first four months or so.
You downloaded a small installer, it downloaded the ISO and it ran an in-place upgrade (or you could save the ISO and do a clean install or retain it in case you need to reinstall).
It went entirely through their digital store, just like Student copies and other digital sales do. The software came with its own valid CD key, and you could pay a bit extra to get a copy of the DVD with printed key snail mailed to you.
I expect, and it's widely anticipated, that this promotion will work the same - get your key before the year is up and it's yours forever. To install, it will likely be a small installer program that will download and perform the upgrade for you, with the option to save an ISO to use for a clean install or reinstall later.
Now that hasn't been announced officially bit it is how it has been handled in the past. I would not be surprised if there are for-cost "add-ons" -- things like Media Center and Premium Pack and version upgrades have been available for the base OS as paid upgrades for a while, so I would expect that to continue. They would take that out to an annoying extreme if they chose to, but I think they have handled Office payment models and add-on content fairly well recently, and I would be surprised if we see a lot of deviation from that model.
What is this crap? You upgrade to windows 10 in the first year and then you keep it forever? What was your point exactly?
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I think it's interesting (but amusing at the same time) that they're letting everyone upgrade, even if you have a pirated version of Win 7 or 8.1.
As long as MS doesn't go too far and try to nickel and dime everything I would be quite happy with a service based OS, ie pay for Office365, software assurance subs, Skype subs etc.
I think the real reason they are giving it away for only a limited time is to try to drive adoption.
Windows has a 90+% market share, they can afford to charge for their software, because it's the dominant force - people will buy it, because the alternatives are not cheaper (you can argue Free is cheaper, but once you have to migrate software platforms there are costs other than the OS license, and those add up quickly).
The problem Microsoft has, is that of that 90+%, it's fractioned across various versions. Most of that is Windows 7. A lot of it is still Windows XP. Some of it is still as old as Windows 3.1 (not kidding). They are expected to provide at least nominal Day 0 and other security support for most of those platforms - and it's a huge manpower drain, and the older platforms just didn't have the tech at the time to keep up and patch easily, so that becomes more and more costly to maintain over time, and MS isn't in a position where they can charge money for a security update. So this is to help push adoption - get people over to Win10 for free, get people off the legacy software, then be able to put more manpower towards supporting and developing newer tech rather than propping up legacy tech that they really just want to walk away from entirely.
This also turns into a PR nightmare - every time a vulnerability or Day0 attack hits, it looks bad for MS. Is it their fault that a vulnerability was found in XP, a 12-year-old piece of software, that they had upgraded and fixed in Vista (and later), but people refuse to move off of? No, but it still sure looks that way in the headlines.
The other reason is that it helps to build momentum. The more people that are using Win10, the more developers will use some of it's newer (and proprietary features), and that means more and more people will then move over to Win10. Today, WinXP is essentially the baseline (speaking in the gaming world) because it supports DX9, and you really don't need to ugprade past that to run games. DX9 became the baseline tech. Microsoft is hoping to push DX12 to be the next baseline, but they can't do that unless developers use it, and developers won't use it unless people have it. It's a chicken and the egg scenario which Microsoft is trying to solve by getting the software out there en masse early on.
Now I'm just using DIrectX as an example, most businesses don't care at all about DirectX, but there are many, many other technologies that could be inserted there to make that case, DX being just one of which.
So it's not hard to see the tangible benefits for Microsoft in getting early adoption out there. Yes, Win8 went over badly, and they are really trying to push people off Win7 before it becomes as entrenched as XP did (and still is).
Agree, Win 8, from Microsofts standpoint, was an utter disaster, it was supposed to bring new things, including a version of Directx that would shake things up, it failed utterly, which left the windows user base spread out over several different versions, which as you mention, meant that when Developing a game or other application that utilised Directx, they had to go with the lowest common denominator, and since the percentage of Windows users that have Win XP is still more than double that of Win 8, it meant that for all intents and purposes, Directx9.c became the baseline with support for more recent versions being more of an 'addon' than a focus, and with Win 7 being defacto the most used Windows OS, most developers are no doubt optimising their apps/games etc for that version.
By giving away Win 10 to both Win 8 and Win 7 users for free, they are without doubt trying to unify the Windows user base around a single platform, assuming all Win 7 and 8 users did switch to Win 10, it would probably represent 70-80 percent of the worlds PC users, at that point support for Directx9.c would probably be dropped in favour of Directx12.
Microsoft does not give things away for free without good reason, and that reason will undoubtedly be $$ related, i think one comparison would be Steam, its free software after all, and it has a 'huge' user base, how profitable it is i have no idea, but its an area that i have no doubt Microsoft would like to be a part of, GFWL was a mess, but, Windows Store could easily become a competitor for Steam. But lets hope that Microsoft doesn't block things like Steam etc, because that would probably be an epic fail kind of situation and would probably ensure people remain users of Win 7.
Microsoft is in effect, under the gun, they have to do something soon, Win 8 failed and like Vista before it, they need something now to replace it, and to, in effect, turn around Microsofts fortunes, i hope, Win 10 will be great, i really do, especially as its free, but more because it would be good to finally leave Directx9c in the past.
I misread your comment at first.
It remains to be seen what the price may be, but I suspect the pressure from other operating systems will keep this offer going.
What it means, is that during the first year the OS is released, users of Win 8 and Win 7 can get a free upgrade to Win 10, after that initial year, they have to pay full price for an upgrade, its really to encourage people to get Win 10 straight away, i would imagine that after the first year, anyone who is a bit late to the 'party' may have to fork out around £80 to upgrade, based on previous pricing structures at least, for the 'home' version. Hopefully the free thing is for the 64 bit version rather than 32 bit.. if there even is a 32 bit version of the OS, hopefully there isnt.
But, if Microsoft can encourage 60-70% of the overall Windows user base to get this OS, then they will have succeeded, and inertia will inevitably force the rest to do the same
Still using Win 7/64bit myself, its without doubt the best OS currently available, i did try Win 8, but after a few months i gave up on it, perhaps its because i moved to Win 8 from XP, fortunately the Wife had a laptop which used Win 7, that encouraged me to upgrade again to Win 7/64bit, never really looked back.
I think the fact that Win 10 is going to be a free OS for the first year, might be a good enough reason to get it, i don't know that it offers anything beyond Directx12 to people who already have Win 7, but the whole free thing may well swing it, as long as they don't make a mess of it to the degree that Win8 did that is.
hmm let's see ... I have a copy of win7, I use the upgrade offer. After the free year is up, I have to reinstall the PC because of whatever (virus, malware, PEBKAC ...). I still only have the win7 copy and have to pay for the upgrade this time ???
Man soon as someone says free, you guys forget the nightmare that every Win OS upgrade has ever been.
From friends who are testing 10 a ton of hardware not compatible, including some printers, some smart cards, sound cards, and some graphics cards.
Personally I do not want to spend $1000 in hardware upgrades, and deal with all the software conflicts that always arise with EVERY upgrade to get my "FREE" windows 10.
Thanks but no thanks.
"Walk soft on the Paths of Society...For Subtlety is the Blessing of Sanctuary."
- anonymous
Why so much bitching about non-released Windows then? Go ahead and use Linux with compiz...
Like I said, Linux lacks support from hardware manufacturers, but that doesn't mean it isn't better than Windows. I implore you to search Compiz on Youtube and have a look for yourself, if you're unfamiliar with what else is available outside of the MS Box. I'm not trying to be abrasive, just offering my personal opinion and some enlightenment...if you're not interested...be an adult, disregard it & move on...
"Walk soft on the Paths of Society...For Subtlety is the Blessing of Sanctuary."
- anonymous