
Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year - secfirstmd
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30924022
======
devindotcom
Guys arguing about what "free for a year" means, be aware they DID specify
this and if you think they haven't communicated it, you probably weren't
there!

"For the first year after Windows 10 is available, we will be making available
a free upgrade to Windows 10 for all devices running Windows 8.1. Once a
device is upgraded to Windows 10, we'll be keeping it current for the
supported lifetime for the device."

If that's not clear enough for you, I don't know what to say! Furthermore the
actual public awareness campaign hasn't started (this announcement came two
hours ago, remember) so chill out for a second before calling something a poor
job of communicating. They have a limited time to show off a huge amount of
features including a goddamn _top-secret holographic VR helmet_ , plus the
details on the release aren't even ironed out yet, so if they didn't spend an
extra five minutes drilling down on the release strategy (8 months away at
this point) you're going to have to forgive them.

~~~
McGlockenshire
Here's the smallprint from the page on their current Windows 10 promo site[1]:

> It is our intent that most of these devices will qualify, but some
> hardware/software requirements apply and feature availability may vary by
> device. Devices must be connected to the internet and have Windows Update
> enabled. ISP fees may apply. Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 Update required.
> Some editions are excluded: Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 8/8.1 Enterprise,
> and Windows RT/RT 8.1. Active Software Assurance customers in volume
> licensing have the benefit to upgrade to Windows 10 Enterprise outside of
> this offer. We will be sharing more information and additional offer terms
> in coming months.

1: [http://windows.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows-10/about](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/about)

~~~
devindotcom
No RT! That's harsh, but the truth is dropping RT like a bad habit is the best
thing they could do. Sucks for anyone who bought a copy on a cheap tablet,
though.

~~~
Someone1234
RT would have been amazing if they had been able to create an x86/64 emulator.
Even if it ran 50% slower than on a native CPU and even if it ate battery like
crazy at least it would have given the platform a nice back-catalogue.

Instead not only did RT have virtually no software on it, but Microsoft went
out of their way to make it "impossible" to build ARM-native software for it
without essentially hacking into your own system.

Microsoft set RT on the road to ruin from almost day one. It is unsurprising
that they're pulling the plug. I will say when they announced the Surface Pro
3 without a Surface RT 3, the writing was on the wall as far as end of life...

~~~
tmzt
Or supported Win32 API which would have brought with it a number of open
source and free applications, such as VLC, OpenOffice.org, AbiWord (smaller,
so more suited to RT), and Firefox.

It seems that Microsoft is working on a new UI for Office which will eliminate
the need for Win32 support on devices such as RT in the future.

At the same time they restrict what native applications can do on Metro
devices, which limits the usefulness of existing codebases and forces Metro
tablets to start over without the long time catalog of Windows software.

------
jedberg
It's not the price of Windows that was keeping people from adopting Windows 8.
It's the irrelevancy and the fact that corporations don't see the ROI. The
time it would take to upgrade their company isn't worth the gains, which are
minimal.

Unless Windows 10 proves to be a massive improvement in performance or
usability, I suspect it's uptake will be just as anemic, free or not.

~~~
fit2rule
I haven't used Windows in 10+ years, so I've got some questions for those who
are smarter than me on the subject of Windows:

Does it come with package management yet? Can I easily avoid DLL hell these
days? Can I add my own local repository and use it to maintain a fleet of
workstations, making sure they always have the same configuration no matter
what?

Is it easily possible to connect to a Windows machine and administer it from a
command line/scripting environment? Can I disable the GUI and use Windows
without tying up resources for unneeded functionality - i.e. no graphics card
required?

Is all of this onboard, or does some/most of it require the involvement of a
3rd-party add-on? If its not onboard, can I validate that 3rd-party with
signed keys? Is there an onboard key agent that will make this possible?

Is there an easy way to get a compiler onboard without requiring registration
and so on, or does it ship with development tools already set up and
configured? Are these tools usable without requiring GUI involvement - i.e.
remotely?

These are earnest questions, I honestly don't know. If the majority of the
answers are in the affirmative, then I'll give Windows 10 a try - it would
make a nice change from what I've gotten used to with my Linux machine.

~~~
Amezarak
> Does it come with package management yet?

No. There is the Windows Store (all or most Metro apps, GUI) and things like
NuGet for Visual Studio, but that's not what you're looking for. There are
third-party solutions.

[EDIT: See sibling comments; W10 adds one.]

> Can I easily avoid DLL hell these days?

DLL Hell is no longer a concern. It's not a matter of avoiding it, it won't
happen except perhaps in very unusual edge cases I'm not familiar with.

> Can I add my own local repository and use it to maintain a fleet of
> workstations, making sure they always have the same configuration no matter
> what?

You can do this. This is one reason Windows is so big in enterprise.

> Is it easily possible to connect to a Windows machine and administer it from
> a command line/scripting environment?

Yes.

> Can I disable the GUI and use Windows without tying up resources for
> unneeded functionality - i.e. no graphics card required?

In Server 2012 onwards, the GUI is optional.

> If its not onboard, can I validate that 3rd-party with signed keys? Is there
> an onboard key agent that will make this possible?

I am not 100% on what you want, but yes, Windows executables are commonly
signed and that is integrated with the OS.

> Is there an easy way to get a compiler onboard without requiring
> registration and so on, or does it ship with development tools already set
> up and configured?

Windows does not ship with a compiler or other developer tools installed. You
can install Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition, which has all the features
of Professional Edition, for free and without registration (afaik - I'm doing
it right now, so if I'm wrong, I'll edit). You can of course install all the
free-software development tools you want. Most tools support Windows
reasonably well.

> Are these tools usable without requiring GUI involvement - i.e. remotely?

Yes, although most people don't do so. I've only fiddled around. I've heard
that manually fiddling with msbuild is actually more pleasant than using the
GUI.

~~~
Locke1689
>You can install Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition,

If you prefer to use the compiler and build system at the command line and
you're only interested in managed development (i.e., C#), you can download the
Microsoft Build tools package[1], which contains the compilers and MSBuild for
headless development.

[1] [http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/download/details.aspx?id=4493...](http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/download/details.aspx?id=44931)

>> Are these tools usable without requiring GUI involvement - i.e. remotely?

Yes, I do most of my building on the command line. Editing, of course, is in
VS, but I've also had fine success with Vim.

------
MrGuyUser
Windows 10 looks pretty awesome. And if you like me down graded to an android
phone from a pretty good old windows 7.8 phone you'll realize that the voice
recognition stuff on android hardly works. I use a nexus 4 which is too new to
change again, but I hate that I can't reply to texts with the headset. Yeah I
know there is probably an app out there and probably a mode. I didn't figure
it out. Win 7.8 phone did it automatically and switches off when you turned
the headset off. So the Cortana feature looks even more amazing to me. One
note that I've realized the voice rec on the latest version of Android works
acutally pretty good now. It's been like 4 years. And still doesn't work great
with the headset. All apps on android are scary since they want all kinds of
access to contacts, messages, phone. Oh boy, I can't install anything because
I'm too afraid of what it might do with that access. I only really trust the
native stuff.

What I wonder is how they plan to monetize free windows 10 as a service. I'm
not going to be happy if I find it's another yearly fee like Office 365. I
searched forever to find a legit activatable copy of office 2010 to avoid
that.

~~~
sliverstorm
Supposedly the big money has never been in Windows licenses. For example,
Office is a big money-maker for them. So it is in their interests to have
everyone run Windows, even if they don't get license revenue.

Hearsay though.

~~~
kryptiskt
Windows licenses is a big money maker, but nearly all of it comes from OEM
installations and enterprise customers. Few people shell out for upgrading
their old computer, they tend to run what came installed on it.

------
thought_alarm
I don't think this free upgrade is much of a shock.

People who bought a Windows XP machine in 2001 enjoyed 6+ years of free OS
upgrades from Microsoft. Likewise, people who buy a Mac enjoy 5+ years of free
OS upgrades from Apple.

If Microsoft wants to shift into a yearly release cycle and they don't give
away the updates to their existing customers then they're essentially charging
for service packs, which won't fly.

~~~
talmand
It's not a shock but it's outside the norm for Microsoft. Typically you do not
get free upgrades from one version of Windows to the next.

You can free updates to your current version. But never a free upgrade to the
next major version.

WinXP users enjoyed six plus years of free updates to WinXP.

I don't see this type of release from Microsoft changing their update/upgrade
model. They're just doing it as a means to push the user base harder to
transition and possibly as a small admittance of the screw-up over Win8.

Apple, on the other hand, went from cheap upgrades to free upgrades over the
last few versions of OS X. It's not the same thing as Microsoft's release
pattern.

~~~
jeeva
Let's be a little honest, though - this is a spectacular rebrand for 8.2,
along with large user-visible changes (not forcing Metro) and some cool
backend stuff. A lot of this stuff was originally going to be in the second
service pack for 8.1, if I remember correctly (most distinctively, the start
menu returning).

They've said themselves that they needed to get away from the stigma that is
associated with 8.* - and that's great. Charging for it would be a bit harsh.

~~~
talmand
Well, sure, it's like what happened with going from Vista to Win7. But since
they are mostly a software company I don't have much issue with them having a
business model that makes them money, and that involves charging for software.

------
Narishma
Does it mean that if you do the free upgrade, once the year is over you'll
have to pay to continue using it? Or does it mean instead that the upgrade
will be free for the first year, and if you want to upgrade after that it'll
cost you?

~~~
kyriakos
From what I understood from the video it means you get the chance to upgrade
within a year of release. They also said you'll be receiving automated updates
for the supported life time of the device (whatever that means)

~~~
Someone1234
They've done a really poor job of communicating that.

The free upgrade for one year thing is fairly cut and dry. However what they
meant by that "we'll support updates for the lifetime of the device" is
completely meaningless and confusing. As opposed to what they've been doing
until now..?

Also they keep on talking about "Windows as a service" with zero clarification
on what that means. Is Windows becoming a paid subscription? Is that just
meaningless marketing speak?

I'll say this, Microsoft has a bad track record of making these events 50%
longer than they should be and filing in the gaps with marketing department
nonsense that doesn't mean anything. There were some bits of that that were
simply cringe and or a huge time waster.

Some fruit-named company do these presentations better. They're still better
than Google however...

~~~
patja
I agree that the language "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 additional charge." found on
Terry Myerson's blog (
[http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/01/21/the-
next...](http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/01/21/the-next-
generation-of-windows-windows-10/) ) is troubling at worst and confusing at
best.

Since when does Microsoft decide what the "supported lifetime of the device"
is? All of my devices running Windows were hand built by me from best-of-breed
components that I frequently swap out.

I could see it making sense if it was for the supported lifetime of Windows 10
because that at least is something where Microsoft should be expected to
define a final end of support date. But that is not what it says, and even
that would be odd...Microsoft is going to either turn off my OS when they
decide to no longer support it, or make me start paying to use it at that
point?

Makes no sense any way you slice it, at least as currently (poorly)
communicated.

------
z3t4
Probably they are changing business plan to take 25-30% of each app ever sold
for the OS instead of just charging for the OS itself.

Finally, you do not have to port your app to all devices.

And hopefully you, as a user will be able to control how much access each app
has to the computer.

Imagine buying a new smart-phone with lets say Android, then you install
Windows 10 on it instead and everything just works.

The only problem I see is that they need to make the SDK easier for me to
start making native apps instead of web apps. Especially the UI part.

------
joshstrange
Can someone explain why it would only be free for the first year? To spur
adoption? It just seems like more trouble than it's worth to start charging
people for it sometime in the future.

~~~
BigChiefSmokem
Ever since Amazon Web Services nothing has ever been the same. Maybe one day
we'll all go back to actually "owning" the software we buy instead of just
timed licenses and logins.

~~~
mhurron
You haven't owned software for a while, long before anyone every thought of
AWS.

Remember XP having to be re-authorized if you changed too much hardware? It
was before then too.

------
kemayo
I wonder if they'll let the (vast number of) pirated versions of Windows 7/8
participate in the free upgrade program. It'd be an interesting change to the
dynamic of Windows.

~~~
secfirstmd
Especially in emerging world markets, where it's often impossible to buy a
legitimate copy of Win 7/8 even when you want to.

------
rasz_pl
Clippy: I heard no one likes our phone OS, so we are going to put it on your
desktop for FREE, arent you glad? Metro squares for everyone!

~~~
Gmo
Actually, a lot of people who have an WP 8 phone do like the OS a lot.

I know I do at least.

~~~
copperx
I doubt the OS was ever an issue.

The issue was the lack of applications for the OS.

~~~
dagw
Or more importantly the lack of quality of the apps that do exist. As a part
time WP8 user I've never really suffered from a lack of apps, but I often find
that the apps that are there never live up to the quality and finish of
equivalent apps on Android. Don't get me wrong, they're all fine and all get
the job done, but never quite as nicely as on Android (or iOS).

The only exception where the Nokia Here navigation apps.

