You can upgrade (not now since the free offer expired) a retail version of 7 or 8.x then transfer it to another computer. You just may have to phone Microsoft. I think that is why they added signing into a Microsoft account, so they would be less busy handling windows 10 transfers to a new system or systems that get a new motherboard.
Last edited by groze; 11 Aug 2016 at 15:06.
Even if it is transferable (I've read conflicting reports on this), it's no big loss to me, I'll stick with 7 for now. I didn't even want to upgrade any of my 8.1 licences.
If it tickles my fancy in future, I'll just go out and buy a full version.
The only version without all of the ilk is enterprise and that will never happen
No rent an os for me :)
They may have subscriptions coming to the enterprise version of windows 10.
I think you need at least 20 or more employees before you can get the enterprise version & cost at lot of money. However, that restriction doesn't seem to apply to insiders testing the enterprise version.
In Windows 10 Microsoft is striving to replace the normal Windows APIs with ModernUI APIs. This means that the classical/desktop API got frozen. There is no expansion any more (like from XP to Vista). This means that there will be never a classical program that would work on Win10+ and not on older versions. So, there is no incentive to upgrade. I would still use Win2000 if not for compatibility issues but those times WinAPIs were expanding quickly.
Most major multinational and even down to SME level organisations will prefer a lease model to a straight forward purchase model as this better suits control of cash flow over the life of the capital investment. it's just as likely that the change of the enterprise system purchase model to a lease model, will be due to pressure from the buyers, as to a decision from Microsoft.
Most hardware in modern business organisations, (and government & educational organisations), is leased not owned and it's understandable for this to also apply to software - it allows flexibility to adjust to changes in market trends, and to better predict cashflow
Yea but it's still pretty bad to take group policy settings away from pro version it is why I upgraded to pro.
It hasn't caused me any issues at all - I've always used Pro and have not noticed any changes in my day to day use, I have access to Both pro and enterprise but choose pro for smaller networks and keep Enterprise for major systems where the extras such as app locking are of use.
I still keep old obsolete or Near end of life OSs on VM for work purposes but have long since moved on an my productivity is better than ever, that's the only thing that matters
I see it as the start of removing items for really no good reason
Once they start removing items I doubt they will stop.
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