Windows 10 free upgrade for Win 7, 8
polycounter lvl 15
So apparently Microsoft announced that Windows 7/8 will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for free the first year, however what does that actually mean?
Can you get a free upgrade to Windows 10 the first year, or can just upgrade and use Windows 10 for free the first year (as trial)? I'm getting a bit conflicting info, anyone knows more about this?
Can you get a free upgrade to Windows 10 the first year, or can just upgrade and use Windows 10 for free the first year (as trial)? I'm getting a bit conflicting info, anyone knows more about this?
Replies
Whether you'd want to be an early adopter for a Microsoft operating system is another question.
Surely the true early adopters are the people currently using the technical preview?
or just any OS for that matter. Just get a hold of Mavericks... shows you that the idea of semi mandatory yearly releases is rubbish (or look to Autodesk)
Those are masochists.
Competition is good.
I like the sound of that!!!
Windows 8 users
what's wrong with tools like virtua-win? been using that for the last decade or so.
kwramm: are you suggesting mavericks is bad (haven't tried myself, so no opinion either) or that it's better than yosemite?
With 10 I'm not sure there's much point, I don't really care much about borderless windows and other minimalist UI stylings. Nor is the ability to shout commands at my computer particularly appealing. Unless there's something else to this OS I'm not seein (other than dx12)
I keep running into things that require windows 8 to use so I'll probably upgrade just for that. I have a wireless display adapter that requires win8, and I was needing to stabilize a video in movie maker recently and I found out that feature only exists in the win8 version. It's mainly just BS things they restricted to win8 users, but whatever, I'll play along I guess.
Yuuup. I occasionally use a Surface Pro 3 for work and, while it certainly works and I can get stuff done, Windows 8 is kind of a pain to work with because it's so disjointed. If they can provide a more seamless, overall integrated experience that uses the best features of Win 7 and 8, then I'll upgrade ASAP.
I probably won't need to upgrade to W10 until the unreal engine stops running on Win 7 (which won't be for a few years i think), besides, when i do upgrade, it'll be a whole new system for me, the hardware in this thing is getting old.
But since I don't use anything with a touch screen (no depth perception = no point), certainly not a monitor, which seems to be W10's selling point, i can't see myself needing W10 anyway.
Thinking of going back to Yosemite. Did a clean install of Mavericks, but stability wise it's worse. The UI is also not very well thought out. The flatness makes it hard to read UI elements and turning on the assistive features makes it ugly. The font also doesn't match older apps. I find it harder to read than the old OS X default font - but there's no way to change this (yeah, user-friendliness bla bla)
you may be right about the surface. On the PC, just turn Metro off and you have a Win 7 experience, but with a OS optimized for SSDs and without the bloat (bye bye movie maker!).
That's the only thing I'm worried about 10 - please MS, don't bring back the bloat apps!
btw. you can apparently hack-change the font on yosemite, just have to re-apply with every OS update.
I'll probably still use the start screen in windows 10.
Windows 10 seems to be a refinement of the formula that 8 used, removing some of its more awkward pieces.
So long as that search button isn't taking up real-estate on my taskbar with no option for removal, I'm happy. Not as happy as I was when there was nothing but my applications on the taskbar, but the windows logo/start button is a necessary evil for those who have trouble with hotkeys.
sounds good. Might save me the hassle of reverting. Do you have a link or is it easy to find on google?
I mean Mavericks isn't much worse than Yosemite, but it's not much better either. To me it felt mostly like an upgrade for the sake of it. which made me more way of Apple's yearly releases.
try this: https://github.com/schreiberstein/lucidagrandeyosemite
thanks!
I think that if you configure windows 8 start correctly its much much faster and better than windows 7 start. Also small things in that OS make the switch better.
I'll never understand why people say this too.
After previous releases being less than stellar, and a win8 launch that came with annoying extra features (who needs tiles on a desktop PC ... not everybody has the time or desire to learn how to turn all these little things off), I think it's safe to remain a bit skeptical by simply sticking to something that works until a justifiable upgrade comes around. Zac : I'd rather spend my time learning how to use the latest release of 3DCoat rather than messing around with a brand new OS
Now of course DX12 is a different subject altogether, as it might be the one feature justifying the switch. We'll see !
Until then I can't see the point unless I need to work 'holographically' any time soon:/
And having an SSD makes boot time a pretty trivial concern. A 100% increase in boot speed sounds like a lot until you realize we're talking about the difference between an 8 second boot and a 15 second one.
I'm gonna need a more convincing reason than that to change OSs.
Win 8.1 boots to desktop right away. There's nothing you need to do to turn metro off. The only thing you need is to install a free start menu replacement. Done!
I'm not telling you you're wrong to not replace a working system - that's a perfectly good reason to stick with 7.
My point is, there's a lot of mis-information out there how "difficult" it is to make Win 8 usable for people coming from 7. It isn't. It's actually pretty easy.
The Dell computer we bought for my girlfriend's parents booted into metro by default, I managed to crash the metro interface trying to find the network settings and was able to configure it to be more like windows 7 from there. I've built hundreds of computers ranging from Windows 3.1 to OS/2 Warp and beyond and Windows 8 is one of the most fuct operating systems I've come across. I thought Windows Vista & ME weren't that bad, 8 is an ass sandwich.
I'll gladly take a free upgrade to Windows 10, though. Besides, I thought Microsoft was going to completely "change" their Windows releases with Windows 10. I'm guessing they are going to try to get everybody to jump on the W10 train at some point so there's no harm in getting used to it sooner rather than later.
I'm sure the bugs will get ironed out eventually.
On my Mac Mini it runs OK. (no insane overheating issues) but I can't stand the sluggish start menu. It keeps on trying to load up search results from the internet which might be the problem. The flat UI is not my cup of tea either.
I just upgraded to Mavericks as well, haven't used it much though, been mostly running on Linux Mint 17 Xfce. (Triple boot ftw! - and for the extreme frustration of setting it up in the first place...
I find it odd that in this day and age of free OSes (OSX, Linux, Android, iOS, BSD...) that Microsoft still wants to charge money for Windows. I guess they just want people to upgrade so they put the psychology of a limited time free upgrade in play, but why not just make if free for everyone or at least anything less than a mid sized company like they did with Visual Studio?
hu? mine feels exactly like win7. i just installed classic shell. thats it
that's true. big difference between 8 and 8.1.
8 is indeed rubbish.
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/windows-10-release-date-price-news-and-features-1029245
And Neox is correct ... I haven't even installed classic shell and the only time I see anything resembling the new interface is if I hit the START button. And I tend to not do that much, so ... it's essentially Windows 7 in look and feel.
Yeah I understand where you coming from, but there are few small things that came with Win 8 that I miss whenever I use my work PC which is Win 7. Like the ability to revert to clean install to "freshen up" the system.
As I understand the tech they put in was to clean up some mess left from previous iterations and built some new things for upcoming technologies (directx updates etc).
Here is a video comparing gaming performance with all three releases:
[ame]
Pretty much the same, though a bit more stable fps on win 8.1.
Generally I like how smoother it is even on older machines and I actually prefer the new start menu, but I understand those who hate it.
We do outsourcing, and having the ability to reset the system all by itself without Ghost or any other software sounds nice. Especially when a dozen of client tools creates DLL-hell on your machine (also, is there any studio that writes uninstallers for their tools???)
I think that's the core of the problem with these discussions. I don't think anyone "hates" on an OS or feature, it's more about not wanting to be bothered by countless little annoying things when ones time would be better off spent on more productive things.
At least, that's how I see things. I am personally very curious about new tech and UX improvements, but not to the point of willingly wasting days of work messing around with settings and browsing Lifehacker posts !
I do understand the appeal of trying the latest tech toy ... as long as it doesn't involve installing new stuff on my machine
I'll be sticking with 7 for now.
Some people don't seem to be able to handle change. Yet on the other hand if programs don't change, then those same people start to call the developers lazy, unimaginative, and out of touch.
Free Windows 10!? Sign me up!:)