Microsoft's ambitious plan to get Windows 10 running on a billion devices within the next few years depends to a large extent on the success of its free upgrade offer.
When the company first announced the terms of that offer last May, it literally included an asterisk and fine print. Those terms have changed slightly over the intervening months, but one element has remained constant: The offer is good for one year after the availability of Windows 10.
Here's the actual wording of the offer, as it appears today:
It's free and easy
Upgrade confidently - 100+ million fans have upgraded and are loving it. You'll have a free, full version of Windows 10 -- not a trial or a lite version -- if you complete your upgrade before July 29, 2016.
And this is what currently appears in the fine print at the bottom of that page (emphasis added):
In fact, Microsoft's real goal with this upgrade offer isn't just to get its installed Windows 10 base to a billion. The long-term goal is to help close the books on Windows 7 in an orderly fashion before its extended support commitment ends on January 14, 2020.
Some of those Windows 7 PCs will simply be retired, of course. But what about those that are only a few years old and have more than four years of usable life ahead of them? For Microsoft executives, the prospect that hundreds of millions of PCs will still be running Windows 7 on New Year's Day 2020 has to bring back unpleasant flashbacks of Windows XP's messy end.
Ed Bott sees at least three possible scenarios playing out when July 29, 2016 rolls around...
Read more: What happens to those free Windows 10 upgrades after July 29, 2016? | ZDNet
Thinks Shawn.
W-10 still reminds me of a snake in a wood pile.
One doesn't know which end is the head or the tail until it makes a move. One just has to wait and see.
If W-10 becomes are great as Microsoft and consumers hopes it will, I won't have a problem buying it.
Had mentions of holdouts... but nothing about noncompatible systems I'd say Ed missed that point just a tad.
No Ed didn't miss the point.
We are all suppose to buy the Surface Pro with a Intel processor to solve that problem.
The three year old junk system in my specs just isn't good enough for the wonderful W-10.
Your system may or may not be compatible with Win 10 but I sincerely doubt it "isn't good enough". I have installed Win 10 Pro on a 7 year old netbook with an Atom processor and 1.5G of RAM and it runs fine, IMO better than XP that the netbook came with.
I personally don't care whether the free upgrade goes away or not. I won't be upgrading the Win 7 or Win 8.1 machines I have so it's a moot point. Going forward, I will only build or buy new machines which will not be eligible for an upgrade anyway.
I read this article too. I have no problem with a 'journalist' touting all that is beneficial about a certain product. It is what they do on Tech websites. What is clear in his article is that W10 can leverage all that the OS can deliver ONLY through NEW hardware. Older hardware can not. The new silicon is the differentiator.
So if you do NOT have the new silicon, why are you upgrading to W10 ? Your PC and all its hardware internals were designed and optimized to run W7. The GWX campaign was all about getting as many W7 users onto W10, regardless of their base hardware technology. However, they will NEVER make use of the enhanced security or new features in W10.
The author approaches privacy concerns and mandatory windows updates raised by consumers as mass hysteria. He states that most are lies and misinformation. Why is data collected being sold? Why is it used to generate personalized ads? Why does Cortana read emails?
To me this article points out the attributes of W10. It is impressive. The new silicon is impressive.
The author makes it quite clear (indirectly) that my current W7 PC is not a candidate for W10, however, MS GWX says it is. Offering W10 for free is more to Microsoft's benefit than mine - at this time. We need competition in the market place and I want MS to succeed, but they have to produce a product that I want to use.
Well m$ could send us unfortunate 6 y.o. dog meat computers a coupon instead of telemetry updates I imagine the reception would be different :)
Also don't forget about this person laptop motherboard failing after he upgraded to windows 10.
Windows 10 killed my dell xps 2710 (Link)
His updated his info which scares me because I also have an all-in-one desktop but a different model. I am afraid to run windows 10 now.
I for one plan on taking immense enjoyment in being one of those many thorns in Microsoft's side.For Microsoft executives, the prospect that hundreds of millions of PCs will still be running Windows 7 on New Year's Day 2020 has to bring back unpleasant flashbacks of Windows XP's messy end.
Same here.For Microsoft executives, the prospect that hundreds of millions of PCs will still be running Windows 7 on New Year's Day 2020 has to bring back unpleasant flashbacks of Windows XP's messy end.
The chief reason for XP's "messy end" was that XP was so good compared to the crap that was Vista. Had Vista been as good as Win7 people would have been happy to move on. If they really want to get people off of Win7 they should have made Win8, Win8.1, or Win10 worth switching to. Three duds in a row and they wonder why people don't want to "upgrade"?
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