Windows 10 Free

[Getback]

Why is it free?

[Skuzzy]

With Windows 10, Microsoft is transitioning the operating system to a service business.  This much, they have announced.   The rest of my comments are speculations based on the tidbits of things they have dropped over the last six months.

Somewhere down the road they will start requiring payments to be made.  They have said very little about how that is going to work, but it could be anything from holding your computer hostage until you pay to not booting at all if you are not connected to the Internet to scaled back operations and so on.

The reason they are not saying much is they want people to switch as soon as possible.  There is probably a level of conversion they are looking for before they start with the full blown 'service' feature of Windows 10.

[Chalenge]

It has to be a huge money saver to eliminate all the various versions and maintain update and support for a single operating system. I doubt very much Microsoft can hold your system hostage without violating a number of laws, the central point being who owns the computer anyway?

Still, it won't hurt to take steps to preserve your current OS.

I hate the Creative Cloud Adobe came up with. Unfortunately, with Autodesk products that I use it's Windows or nothing.

[Bizman]

I doubt very much Microsoft can hold your system hostage without violating a number of laws, the central point being who owns the computer anyway?

I doubt they can. After all, even the current Windows versions are shipped in a sealed box saying something like: "By breaking the seals you accept the license terms which are inside this box." Of course there's license texts available in the Internet, but again "the license is liable to any changes made by the company..." which means the license inside the sealed box may contain major differences to the one published online. You'd be more or less blindfolded until you've accepted the terms.

Still, it won't hurt to take steps to preserve your current OS.

This is a very sound piece of advice! 

[715]

There is another interesting tidbit about Windows 10 that just came out:  all Updates and Upgrades are mandatory.  You know how currently you can set Windows Update to tell you when updates are available and you can select which ones to download and install?  Gone.  Updates are now mandatory and automatic; you can't stop them.  And this is not just security updates; it goes for feature upgrades as well.  So no matter what Microsoft decides to include in new features, and no matter how many of those new features or architectures break some software or peripheral you own... too bad.

Personally, I think it's free because Microsoft probably gets quite upset when a new version isn't immediately taken up by the majority of Windows users and they want to maximize uptake (the only other thing they could do is pay you to install Windows 10).  Their ego was probably damaged by the poor uptake for Vista and later Windows 8.  If you install Windows 10, then all future uptakes are mandatory, so all future Windows versions are, by default, "successful".

[Bizman]

If the mandatory part applies to drivers, it can be a very serious issue. I have a client who just upgraded his rig up to Win8. All of his programs installed perfectly as well as all of the drivers. Note that he runs a one man design office; CAD, whatever. After getting his new computer up and running he suddenly informs that the graphics have gone awry. So after some examination I notice that Windows Update had installed older drivers for his nVidia Quadro, causing the system run in VGA mode. Funny thing is, the newer drivers were WHQL certified as well.

Let's be careful out there...

[Chalenge]

I have too much invested in hardware to have Microsoft arbitrarily decide which of my devices is going to be working today. Large businesses, corporations, and even government will have even more on the line. So, I cannot believe they would go down that path.

[BoilerDown]

According to that article, which was written by a known Microsoft hater, by the way, the Enterprise version will be able to update when they please, the Pro version will be able to delay updates for 6 months, and the Home version will have the updates pushed.

Here's the thing though, you can just block the Windows Update IPs on your firewall/router and make it impossible for them to be received by your computer.  If this is legit, then there will quickly be guides on how avoid having updates pushed to you, if that's what you want.

As the saying goes, when something online is free, you're not the customer, you're the product.  In Windows 10's case, they are using free versions to test updates for the paying Enterprise customers, to give them a level of guarantee that their updates won't break the OS or the various software.

My plan is to pay for one copy and keep my other two computers on Windows 7.  I may switch around which computer has which copy though.  If there truly is no way to only update when I want with which updates I want, then I just won't update, or if I end up needing DirectX12 for some game I want to play, that computer will be used for the games and nothing else.  But I find this possibility to be remote in the extreme.  I've got some Cisco certs and I can block Microsoft's traffic in my home network, they can't get around that.

[Bizman]

I still am curious whether the "free" Windows 10 could be installed on an empty hard disk or not. If yes, saving the old hdd containing the previous OS would be worth it. If no, cloning the current hard disk onto a new prior to the upgrade would serve the same purpose.

[Chalenge]

I posted last week about doing just that. Macrium Reflect (free version) makes that operation painless and quick, but you still have to have the drives. The one thing I feel good about is that the rendering servers I use are Linux, but if Windows gets disabled it won't matter because I will not be able to create content. I'm holding off for now, but if this goes the way Skuzzy is speculating then it may be time to dump Microsoft altogether.

[715]

If the mandatory part applies to drivers, it can be a very serious issue.

That part I don't know about.  I assumed it was for Windows only and that you probably could still have Windows Update only do Windows and not 3rd party drivers.

Yes you can block the Windows Update in your firewall (which I think violates the EULA, which mentions having to accept automatic updating) but then you don't get security updates, which is probably a bad thing.  And yes, the article I read (arstechnica) did mention people with the Enterprise version could control updates and with Pro version could delay them and Home version automatic only.  I just assumed most people would get Home, perhaps that's wrong.

[Chalenge]

After reading more about it I am a lot less concerned. Since I use the Ultimate Edition of W7-64 I will get the Pro version of W10. MS recommends removing any antivirus before upgrading, which I don't like but I guess that's not negotiable. They will support it for 10 years and they offer a method to return to W7 if needed, plus you can hold off upgrading for a full year.

So, no worries.

[Getback]

That's some scary stuff.

[Bizman]

That part I don't know about.  I assumed it was for Windows only and that you probably could still have Windows Update only do Windows and not 3rd party drivers.

I suppose we can't tell anything for sure until the actual release, or rather after the first major issues. But if you look at the settings of current versions, by default Windows Update is set to automatically download and install all important and recommended updates. The recommended updates include at least some drivers. For more details, see http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/automatically-get-recommended-drivers-and-updates-for-your-hardware.

Getback, for further creeps read http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/servicesagreement/, http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/default.aspx, http://www.microsoft.com/privacystatement/en-us/microsofthealth/default.aspx and https://account.healthvault.com/help.aspx?topicid=privacypolicy. It's like "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave"...

[Skuzzy]

It has to be a huge money saver to eliminate all the various versions and maintain update and support for a single operating system. I doubt very much Microsoft can hold your system hostage without violating a number of laws, the central point being who owns the computer anyway?

Still, it won't hurt to take steps to preserve your current OS.

I hate the Creative Cloud Adobe came up with. Unfortunately, with Autodesk products that I use it's Windows or nothing.

If they chose to go a payment scheme, where you have to pay them at some regular interval as a rental/service fee, they would be well within their rights to not allow the operating system to function, if you failed to pay.

They have also hinted they may release the source code of the core operation system into the public domain.  This would be a good move for them. if they go the rental route for the operating system. as it would allow for potential competition which could serve to protect them from law suits over the rental agreements.

They have also stated the cloud/applications is where they are going to make their money which would be in line with the rental mentality, for the operating system as a service business.

As I said before, I am speculating.  As such, I am going to wait and see what happens.