My PC, running Windows 7, suddenly is offering me a free upgrade to Windows 10 when it comes out. I understand from Googling it, they are trying to get over the bad publicity with Windows 8.
I know it's not released yet but does anyone have any views on it. I like Windows 7 and don't want to change to something I will hate. But it might keep my PC going longer.
My other concern is whether my hardware will be up to running it.
Thanks
Jonathan
In message , Jonathan writes
I think they want to get as many people onto Windows 10 as possible. I've think they probably make relatively little money from people buying upgrades to older versions (as opposed to getting a new version with a new computer) and there are benefits to MS in having as many users as possible on Win10.
I quite like it (I've been running the beta here on a laptop). It works better as a desktop OS than Win8 I think.
You could try it out by dual booting into it (the beta isn't quite at the RC stage yet, but it's pretty much there I think.)
This old Core 2 Duo - 4GB Ram laptop runs it just as well as Win7. The only issue I had was the audio driver on the laptop wasn't in Win10 at that point but I was able to install the Win 7 driver. Everything else, including network printers installed and work fine.
Given MS declaration a while back that this will be the last ever release of Windows, I'd be expecting a subscription model to kick in once the year is up ....
I've seen nothing that really points to this, but.......
What is worrying is the apparently enforced updates, which have included updates to drivers etc. As Microsoft, at an earlier stage of the beta, managed to make a whole bunch of testers, including me, think their hard drives had died, I don't have much confidence in this.
On the other questions, I'm testing on a few dual-core Intel machines, some quite old (1.6GHz), and have had no problems caused by the computer hardware. I have a few usb and firewire audio interfaces that worked in W8.1 and 7, but don't (yet?) work in 10.
What isn't clear is whether, if you take a complete image of the Windows
7 machine, "upgrade" to W10 and don't like it and so re-install the W7, the W7 will come back as activated or not. The fact that MS has put an update to W10 icon on the system tray (via one of the recent updates) suggests that they might want more control over activation etc. in the future.I have just been doing quite a bit of work trying to teach myself some new programming skills and have been using a W7 and W10 machine side by side. At first, I found little difference, but as the W10 builds progressed, I have liked it less. The crunch was when I wanted to do a lot of command line programming and needed different programs to be accessed quickly. The new start menu has scroll bars that are close to invisible and other programs have scroll bars that disappear from under the cursor (I think as in IE in W7) and it became extremely frustrating. There also is the issue of "monetising the desktop" and the pressure to run under a Microsoft account login.
For my use, Linux is too limiting, and I'd use W10 in preference, but I think, on the current showing, I'll stick to W7.
You can download and install a developers version now. Got it running on an old vista laptop now. It automatically sets itself up as dual boot so that you still have your old OS. Not quite brave enough to put it on my main PC but if you have an old laptop or PC to play with it's worth a go.
well, amongst others:
Once you have it, you will either (a) pay to keep it working or (b) not pay, and see it slowly wither.
However, to be honest, having looked very hard at all windows versions, I am still not able to articulate any technical reason to move away from 7. The hardware is well supported. There's nothing showstopping in terms of applications which will *only* run on Windows 10 (*and* which are business-critical). And to be honest, bare-metal machines are so 1990s anyway. Given I was working in a completely virtualised data centre (servers and desktops) in 2007, it's hard to see a genuine reason at the moment to do anything.
Of course for *Microsoft* there's every reason to promote an upgrade to an infrastructure which allows subscription charging, plus an app "Store" where they can gouge customers and suppliers equally. Then they can be like Google. Or Apple.
I find the current "cloud" fad fascinating. It's almost as if everyone who came into IT in the 60s and 70s is now retiring leaving a bunch of young turks who have rocked up with the eternal conceit that it's their generation that invented the current incarnation of the sliced loaf.
In message , Jethro_uk writes
But the Telegraph article just says
"The company's comments suggest Windows 10 will receive small free incremental updates in the vein of Apple's Mac OS X. "
and, of course, journalists are known and celebrated for their thorough research and the precision of their writing. :-)
+1
I am disturbed by the way in which MS seem to be trying to take away any semblance of control from the user
To all of the Linux community who will descend on this post, I would like to point out that, like it or not, many of us are forced to live and work in an MS world.
Malcolm
Not only those from the Linux community either.
What control did the "user" have in the days of mainframes which, (by the way) is where we're heading (back) to.
PCs/Tablets + Browser running on *whatever* hardware are equivalent to the old VT100/DEC/Tektronix smart terminals of the 70s and 80s (our CAD software ran on a mainframe, with a graphics teminal).
"User control" back then was close to zero.
Runs well (very well) in a virtual machine too - which strangely Windows
8/8.1 didn't - al least not on my VM setup.It's the slickest, quickest Windows install ever. And I go back to MS-DOS coming on 3 floppies.
The only "huh" moment is when you *have* to sign the machine into Microsofts servers. It asks "is this a work or home PC ?".
They've noticed how much money Apple makes.
Work, certainly. Even I have to do that. But live? Well, no.
Zero from their OS updates, these days.
8<
M$ have stated that the upgrade will be free in the first year and last "forever".
I have a copy of XP - that too, will last "forever".
(Vague memory of a Hill St. Blues scene about flames on cemetery memorials)
Do you want the eternal, everlasting, or the perpetual ?
Technology has always been like that. Cars are too.
But it is likely that the entire industry is headed that way now, essentially driven by what google has been doing in that area.
And it isn't just seen with OS X either, its also seen with iOS and android. It wouldn't be at all surprising if MS has decided that they have no real alternative given what all their competitors are doing and with Linux quite literally completely free etc.
There is no evidence that they are doing anything of the sort.
Then don't. I'd imagine its a little routine that is starting at launch time put there by windows update. It should be possible to stop it running from msconfig, or manually from control panel.
I'm not sure why anyone would want yet another version of Windows with yet another new set of apps that do not add much to the party as it is already planned and working properly. Brian
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