
The final Windows 10 free upgrade nag will be full-screen - rosstex
http://arstechnica.co.uk/information-technology/2016/07/the-final-windows-10-free-upgrade-nag-will-be-full-screen/?comments=1
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kyriakos
I think for Microsoft the cost of maintaining old releases outweighs the
backfire caused by the forced upgrades.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
This. As painful as it may be in the short term it will be beneficial in the
long term. What MS is desparatly trying to avoid is having a critical mass of
users who stick with win7 from here on out like what happened with XP. After
dealing with that for years they want to cut off the appendix before it makes
them sick this time around and who can blame them.

When some big 0day hits 7 all those consumers and small/medium businesses who
turned a surprise win10 upgrade into "well we may as well go with 10 on
everything at this point" will probably stop complaining.

~~~
pdkl95
Microsoft's can wish that everybody updated to the current version, but
fantasies that aren't based in reality usually remain a fantasy.

There are a large variety of reasons to not upgrade, or upgrade later.
Pretending these use cases don't exist or that they should ignore their own
requirements just because Microsoft (or any other vendor) would find it
convenient is a demonstration of how little they care about their users.

This push to force everyone into a monoculture has been so successful (lol),
it has _increased_ [1] the market share of _Windows_ 7*.

> who can blame them

Their customers that expected a well engineered product, but are instead
handed an ultimatum to accept new features, new bugs, new incompatibilities,
and an order to upgrade at the vendor's convenience.

The point is to server the customer's needs, not the vendor's convenience.

[1]
[https://www.netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=11&qpaf=&qp...](https://www.netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=11&qpaf=&qpcustom=Windows+7&qpcustomb=0&qpsp=207&qpnp=3&qptimeframe=M)

~~~
uola
The market is going towards increased sophistication and incremental updates
for operating systems. At the same time you have to be able to compete with
low cost or free alternatives. Pretending that you can do that, without
limiting the number of versions you have to maintain, is worse in the long-
term.

~~~
jolux
Well then they'd be wise to offer free Windows 10 upgrades to Windows 7 users
forever instead of charging for it after July 29th 2016. And yes, I know they
have to make money, but Apple hasn't charged for an OS upgrade in ~3 (soon to
be 4) years now and that is their competition. If they were serious about
getting people to use Windows 10 they'd let people stay on 7 until their
compatibility concerns are fixed.

~~~
kyriakos
I'll ignore the Apple comment since everyone knows the reason for that. What
we don't currently know (I think) is if Microsoft will charge a premium for
upgrades after the 29th. From what I've read they haven't announced upgrade
pricing which means it either won't have an upgrade version (i.e. you pay full
price) or it will be a dirt cheap and they won't announce it in hope they get
more Win10 installs before the expire date.

~~~
kgwgk
> The free upgrade offer will end on July 29 and we want to make sure you
> don’t miss out. After July 29th, you’ll be able to continue to get Windows
> 10 on a new device, or purchase a full version of Windows 10 Home for $119.

[https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/05/05/windo...](https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/05/05/windows-10-now-
on-300-million-active-devices-free-upgrade-offer-to-end-soon/)

It seems there will be no other upgrade path than paying $119. But of course
it's not unlikely that they will be forced to extend the offer or give some
other option.

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dcw303
They're going about this the wrong way.

The little use my Windows 7 PC gets is for games. I have zero incentive to
upgrade to Windows 10 as everything still works fine.

They should take their win10 advertising budget and throw it at a popular
games studio to make an exclusive for the new OS. That'll have a much bigger
impact on conversions.

~~~
ferbivore
Please never say that again. It's bad enough that all the Xbox ports are
Windows 10 exclusive.

~~~
masklinn
AoE3 outright refused to install on Windows 2000, required WXP. Put me off for
a long time (though turned out I hated AoE3 when I tried it).

~~~
digi_owl
I seem to recall Just Cause 2 required either Vista or W7.

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bane
I'd actually love to be able to upgrade, but I use Windows 7 as a Virtualbox
guest and all I get when I try to upgrade is "Unfortunately, this PC is unable
to run Windows 10" due to the VirtualBox Graphics Adapter.

I've gotten Win10 to install by forcing it a couple of times, but it runs like
a dog and the guest extension don't seem to work.

~~~
TorKlingberg
I run a Windows 10 guest in Virtualbox and it works fine. Well, about as fine
as I expect from desktops in Virtualbox.

~~~
bane
Was it an upgrade from 7 or a new install? 7 works fantastic (been using it
for a couple years). My brief experience with 10 as a guest was that VB was
not ready for it and it was a buggy mess, screen glitches, couldn't get guest
additions to support native resolutions, etc.

~~~
TorKlingberg
It was a new install. You have to tell Virtualbox which OS it is going to run,
though I am not sure what it does differently. It seems you can change the
setting afterwards.

You may just have bad luck. It always takes me a day to get Virtualbox running
correctly on a new PC, no matter how many times I have done it in the past.

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malka
Well, I guess Microsoft does not have any more consumer trust to lose, so they
may as well go at full speed to try and promote Win10 that way.

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kijin
I hope the "Do not notify my again" option really does what it says this time.

Unfortunately, I doubt that Microsoft will simply stop nagging people after
July 29. They'll either extend the free upgrade indefinitely, or change the
pop-ups to read something like "Limited time offer, 80% off!"

~~~
MichaelGG
Not to mention the trickery of putting it on the other side of the screen, in
low-contrast text. Purple on purple?

MS has no decency or plausible deniability here. They want to remove the end
user's choice and rely upon trickery.

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clarry
I recently bought a Thinkpad with W7 Pro. I have no real use for Windows right
now, and I'm thinking of wiping that disk to install a BSD on it.

But things change, and I if I'm lucky, I may (have to) do a little bit of
software development (porting at least) for Windows in a year or two. Most
likely people will want Windows 10 support at that point. In my situation,
would you recommend upgrading?

EDIT: I've considered using a VM for Windows, but I don't know if it'll be
painfully slow. And I'm not sure if I can get a copy of Windows for that
purpose free of charge.

~~~
StavrosK
I would recommend a VM, which is what I do for all systems I need to develop
for but not use as my everyday system.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Note that VMs often will not get the necessary IDs to entitle the PC itself to
the upgrade. Switching between a VM and bare metal will change the entitlement
as Microsoft sees it, and I'm not totally sure entitlements will work on VMs
at all. Just in case, I'd upgrade the PC itself, even if you do it with a
spare hard drive or something.

~~~
StavrosK
Hmm, you're right, I'm not sure what will happen to the license itself. It's
just what I do when I need to develop for systems that I won't use for other
things.

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frou_dh
It's interesting that the big update to W10 ("Redstone") arrives a couple of
days after the free offer ends. Perhaps they want the last minute rush of
cajoled upgraders to be greeted with a known stable version, rather than the
latest and greatest which could have issues to shake out.

~~~
kyriakos
running a redstone insider build on my laptop right now. it seems more stable
than their release branch and a lot of the UI inconsistencies were fixed. of
course I cannot speak for every PC out there but I know of cases with the
current stable build not working on some PCs which means that one is not a
stability monster either.

they should have either extended the free upgrade offer for a month or
released Redstone earlier. it doesn't make sense to make someone upgrade today
and then force them to re-upgrade to redstone a few days later.

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abricot
Have they announced the price for upgrading after the deadline?

~~~
bdz
£99/€135/$119 for Windows 10 Home or £190 for Windows 10 Pro.

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TheRealDunkirk
So if I've upgraded, and then downgraded (twice!), will Microsoft remember,
and let me upgrade later, when 7 goes off support?

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Kristine1975
Microsoft must be really desperate.

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intoverflow2
Wondering what Windows 7 users are going to be using 4 years from now....
can't hold back the flood forever so not sure why they're still so insistent
about it when MS has made their intentions so clear.

~~~
CSDude
My father still uses winxp laptop to play dosbox games so I think people will
be fine.

