Windows 10 to be Free (but)

[yellowlawn]

According to the launch of the consumer version today.

See more - http://mashable.com/2015/01/21/microsoft-windows-10-consumer-preview/

 

[fisicx]

"Microsoft specified it would only be free for the first year, indicating Windows would be software that users subscribe to, rather than buy outright."

Are they stoopid?

 

[smallclaimsassistance]

"Microsoft specified it would only be free for the first year, indicating Windows would be software that users subscribe to, rather than buy outright."

Are they stoopid?

they were always going to go this way after Office 365.

 

[fisicx]

As a confirmed OpenOffice user I'm not likely to sign up for Office365 either - which is also offered free for a year then you start to pay.

Open source all the way...

 

[smallclaimsassistance]

As a confirmed OpenOffice user I'm not likely to sign up for Office365 either - which is also offered free for a year then you start to pay.

Open source all the way...

agree, me neither.

I paid one off for a lifetime copy of Office last year when I bought a new laptop. I also run Apache Open Office on a 7" tablet, and if it gets to the stage where it is Open Office or subscription, it'll be Open Office.

 

[MikeJ]

I thought it was free to upgrade in the first year. They're looking to move people up to 10 as soon as possible, in order to encourage new users to go to 10 rather than 8?

As an aside... what happened to Windows 9? Or are they skipping that to avoid confusion with 95 and 98?

 

[PipeTen-Carl]

It'll be interesting to see what the OEM hardware providers do who presently bundle perpetual windows licenses with their HW. Will they be offering/including say 24 months windows subscription at purchase? Will it finally be possible to purchase an OEM PC without operating system at a lower cost? As largely an Ubuntu user that'd be appreciated.

It'll also be interesting to see the subscription integration and how they work with the end-user, can imagine some anti-trust problems once the user is dealing direct and Microsoft promoting its own products above others (browsers, search engines, security products, office, etc).

Don't get me started on the commercial side (pay monthly anyway, year on year price increases, competing directly against its own partners via Azure, secret discount volume deals for other cloud providers, etc, etc).

 

[hamesy2o2]

The way I read it was you can upgrade for free for the first 12 months and, if you want to upgrade after that, you'll have to pay.

Have Microsoft actually confirmed they are going down subscription based pricing?

 

[fisicx]

They already are on Office.

MS regard the OS as SAAS with everytihng stored online - which means you need to be connected to use all its features so it's likely they will be selling subscriptions for this 'service'. Just about every forum/site/blog I read since the presentation is aghast at the idea.

 

[MikeJ]

Here's an idea! Let's look at the Microsoft site.

http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/01/21/the-next-generation-of-windows-windows-10/

Today was a monumental day for us on the Windows team because we shared our desire to redefine the relationship we have with you – our customers. We announced that a free upgrade for Windows 10 will be made available to customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 who upgrade in the first year after launch.*

This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no cost. With Windows 10, the experience will evolve and get even better over time. We’ll deliver new features when they’re ready, not waiting for the next major release. We think of Windows as a Service – in fact, one could reasonably think of Windows in the next couple of years as one of the largest Internet services on the planet

(My bold)

However - even that's not 100% clear. It could be there's an ongoing subscription, and the updates are at no extra cost. However, I'd read that as a free OS upgrade for life.

 

[HFE Signs]

Its not just microsoft, other programs are going the same way, the good news is it means you are always entitled to the most recent versions and updates.

 

[milow]

They are tring to attract more clients to move to the new version. There is still big number of people using Windows XP, as it works good and does the job

 

[milow]

For the XP - there is a way /registry hack/ to make it update-able again as Microsoft officially stopped the support for it

 

[yellowlawn]

Personally I think they want to centralize everything a la iTunes. You create one free O/S for all devices and everything else will be available from the MS App store. They are also going to open it up for development like Apple have. It's the in app purchase revenue model to me.

As for the name skip. Nothing has been said to accurately describe why. My thoughts were is there x10 devices that will take the new O/S? And that's perhaps were the name derives from.

 

[123Simples]

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/about explains it a bit more

 

[Laebrye]

I'm not against Microsoft moving to a subscription based OS, but I doubt they would do it. If you stopped paying monthly/annually for an OS wouldn't your device become useless? Surely the OEMs would throw a fit if customers buying their products suddenly had to pay a regular fee to keep them running!

I think MS have seen the positive side of Chrome (always up-to-date and fast) and decided that it's the way an operating system should be. By the sounds of the keynote, Nadella wants the firm to be more visible across the breadth of devices they can support through Windows and then use that to get people buying more stuff through MS itself (like games and music for a start).

I've been sceptical about MS for a long time but they've piqued my interest this time (if you haven't already, google HoloLens).

 

[ecoleman]

It's not going to be a subscription OS. It's just free to upgrade for the first year then it will cost you to upgrade.

They've done this to encourage users to update to the latest OS....... and to keep up with Apple who don't charge for OS's updates at all.

 

[mac456]

All this talk about Windows XP, do you really want to use a non supported OS in the days of "wannabe" hackers! Come on guys, Windows 7 is miles better/faster then XP (even Windows 8.1 if you can get your head around the lack of a proper start menu) and the cost is small considering what you get and now you get a free license of Windows 10 when it is released with it!

 

[LucasHart]

It's not going to be a subscription OS. It's just free to upgrade for the first year then it will cost you to upgrade.

They've done this to encourage users to update to the latest OS....... and to keep up with Apple who don't charge for OS's updates at all.

Doesn't this kind of show that Apple is more promising? In my case, Windows 7 still works fine for me so I'm still quite doubtful about getting an update.

 

[TOYO LTD]

I have a strong dislike for Microsoft. I feel as though they try and squeeze every last penny out of you... my suggestion? Try Google. Their services are free and stable, and do everything that Microsoft's software does.

 

[fisicx]

Nope, there are thousands of programs and applications that won't run on Google's OS. Try installing something like photoshop. I know you can stream it but that's not the same as installing it on your computer.

 

[TOYO LTD]

Nope, there are thousands of programs and applications that won't run on Google's OS. Try installing something like photoshop. I know you can stream it but that's not the same as installing it on your computer.

Ah, good point. I suppose it depends on what you primarily use a computer for. Our business runs solely on Google's cloud services (Drive, Calendar etc) and is ideal as we manage a bunch of different companies this way. Again, I guess it comes down to what you mainly use it for!

 

[HandSon]

Recently an icon with an appeal to try Windows 10 for free arose in the taskbar. But I'll continue to use Windows 7 because I'm bot sure that the 10th release is reliable.

 

[pcproblems]

Just incase you feel the need, the 'get windows 10' icon can be removed by uninstalling the update kb3035583

 

[Synology Hosting]

So far I've used windows 10 from about 1 week of the preview build release, and I really like it.

 

[Bradley Holmes]

As an aside... what happened to Windows 9? Or are they skipping that to avoid confusion with 95 and 98?

There were rumors going around that lots of programs had a line of code that defined what OS version they were running on.

if (version.startswith(¨windows 9¨))
then define version as windows 95 or 98

Or something to similar and skipping windows 9 was a simple way to fix that problem.

 

[tsubibo]

Is it confirmed that you have to subscribe in order to use windows 10 after the first year?

 

[fisicx]

Its not 100% certain but there will be some sort of subscripton as you are required to use Office365 and OneDrive and they may need paying for. You will not be allowed to install as a standalone OS.

Esentially it's all a bit of a mess.

 

[fisicx]

This just in:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/30/windows_10_wi_fi_sense/

W10 is going to share your wifi with all your contacts whether you like it or not.

 

[Bradley Holmes]

I´m going to add _optout to my wifi SSID as soon as I get home.

This doesn´t seem like a really well thought out feature to me.

EDIT
Surely it should be the other way around, If i wanted my network shared I could add _optin to the SSID. That makes much more sense to me.

 

[pcproblems]

This all sounds slightly scarey so I'll stick to a mixture of Win7 and Ubuntu for the time being. I have 2 wifi networks in my house so it might be fun

 

[tsubibo]

This just in:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/30/windows_10_wi_fi_sense/

W10 is going to share your wifi with all your contacts whether you like it or not.

WTF. What are the people there smoking?

 

[fisicx]

Just finished reading a report on the latest build. To get all the useful apps you have to have a micrsoft account to loginto the appstore and download everything that use to come as standard.

And they have pretty much removed all customisation options. And you have to work really hard if you don't want to use bing as your default search.

 

[Scalloway]

This just in:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/30/windows_10_wi_fi_sense/

W10 is going to share your wifi with all your contacts whether you like it or not.

Isn't that similar to what BT internet does already? Their routers share part of the bandwidth with a public channel. I can sit in any street and pick up someone's BTwifi signal and use it.

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10992/~/what-is-bt-wi-fi-with-fon?

 

[fisicx]

No, what windows10 does is give all your contacts your wifi password. It a feature not an option.

Read the article and the comments, it's seriously scary.

 

[Simon.P]

crazy

 

[Scalloway]

This sounds exactly like how BT Fon works

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/30/windows_10_wi_fi_sense/

Wi-Fi Sense doesn’t reveal the plaintext password to your family, friends, acquaintances, and the chap at the takeaway who's an Outlook.com contact, but it does allow them, if they are also running Wi-Fi Sense, to log in to your Wi-Fi. The password must be stored centrally by Microsoft, and is copied to a device for it to work; Microsoft just tries to stop you looking at it.

Microsoft also adds that Wi-Fi Sense will only provide internet access, and block connections to other things on the wireless LAN

My phone gets access to a wifi router running the BT Fon software. I can't access the actual wifi password but I can get internet access.

 

[fisicx]

"Microsoft also adds that Wi-Fi Sense will only provide internet access, and block connections to other things on the wireless LAN"

And how long do you think it will be before the hackers break this? The very fact they are sharing your password it worrying. I'd like the option to control who in my contacts list who gets access to the wifi that I (not mocrosoft) pays for.

 

[Scalloway]

All I can say BT Fon has been on the go for years and has been secure so far.

 

[fisicx]

BT Fon does not give people your password. All they do is let people have a little bit of your bandwidth, in return you get your internet a bit cheaper. People connecting to the BT network through your router won't even know who you are, it's a totally different thing to Wi-Fi Sense. Wi-Fi sense connects devices automatically by collecting your password, storing it on their servers and then passing it on to the bloke who cleans your windows.