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Operating Systems Windows

People Are Obtaining Windows 7 Licenses For the Free Windows 10 Upgrade 172

Posted by Soulskill from the cheap-is-relative dept.
jones_supa writes: Windows 7 has quickly started increasing its market share of desktop operating systems, nearing 61%. If you're wondering why this is happening when Windows 10 is almost here, the reason is this: Windows 10 will be available as a free upgrade for those running Windows 7 and 8, and the new OS will have the exact same hardware requirements as its predecessor, so the majority of PCs should be able to run it just as well. Because Windows 7 was launched in 2009, a license is more affordable than for Windows 8, so many users are switching to this version to take advantage of the Windows 10 free upgrade offer.
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People Are Obtaining Windows 7 Licenses For the Free Windows 10 Upgrade More

People Are Obtaining Windows 7 Licenses For the Free Windows 10 Upgrade

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  • 10th post (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @09:09AM (#50024899)

    Used to be 7th post.

  • Assumptions are the mother of all ... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Nice theory, but it's not 'the reason' unless it is proven to be. What about the people replacing XP or Vista? And the disappointed 8.x users switching to 7?

    • Technically the reason is the reason regardless of whether you have yet proved it is the reason.

    • Re: Assumptions are the mother of all ... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      lol. I purchased several with the express intent to not upgrade.

      • OK.
        So you may had good reasons to stick with Windows 7. My place at work is using Windows 7, the UI change to windows 8 would cause way too much issues. Also we just migrated a few years to windows 7. And there was a huge compatibility issues that needed to be address... I do expect it is much easier to go from Windows 7 to Windows 10, as this time we didn't jump from a 32bit OS to a 64 bit.

      • lol. I purchased several with the express intent to not upgrade.

        Same here, actually a number of my clients XP legacy apps have 16 bit installers, ergo no go Win 7 natively. These apps are installed in XPvirt boxes under Windows 7. I have no idea if Win 10 pro will support XPvirt boxes or if support for them will shortly disappear thereafter in some sort of forced update..

        My advice to any business owner, would be to avoid this latest Win 10 release like the plague, they still don't have a stable build and it's less than 1 month before product release. I feel that us

        • Windows 8/8.1 dropped XP Mode, so I seriously doubt they'll bring it back for Windows 10. Especially since Microsoft doesn't update the XP VM anyway.

          On the other hand, you should be able to use the 32-bit version of Windows 10 and run your 16-bit installers natively just fine.

    • I expect it is more from the Small business white box community. Yes they still exist. So they save money by getting Windows 7 Licenses and upgrading to Windows 10 by the time they sell their PC's.
      I expect technically this would be against some agreement with Microsoft. But these guys are such small fries. The the cost of investing and fighting for it is more then then small pocket change these companies have for profit. If it were a Dell, HP or Lenovo doing this, that would be a different story all toge

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      +1 to that. We're still buying Win7 machines, with no intentions of ever installing Win10 on them.

  • Enable the 'act now' crowd (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mr D from 63 ( 3395377 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @09:14AM (#50024927)
    Part of this approach is simply that the offer allows people that are considering new hardware to go ahead and do it, and not wait for W10. In the past, many would hold off as a new OS was on the horizon. So its not necessarily all about saving $$.

    • Much more reasonable than the theory that many people would rush out to shops to buy a Win7 license just to be able to get Win10 later.

      Basically no-one every buys Windows as separate retail copy. It comes bundled with a new computer. It is interesting of course how Win7 is still gaining market share.

  • For me it's the reverse (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    With affordable/budget computers soon to be secure boot locked to windows 10+ ONLY(no more linux etc). I am buying a few older'' computers to keep options open.. Ditto with a Windows 8.1 tablet, TW802 that I like, once Win10 rolls around forced windows updates, etc..Bad enough I can't run OLDER OS's on that, so buying now to avoid forced updates (and at least for now, linux is a possibility).

    • With affordable/budget computers soon to be secure boot locked to windows 10+ ONLY(no more linux etc).

      Many Linux distributions are totally fine booting on a computer with activated secure boot, using a boot loader that was signed by Microsoft.

      Do you have any source for your claim that that will not work anymore? Otherwise I call FUD.

      • Re:For me it's the reverse (Score:4, Informative)

        by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @09:42AM (#50025141)

        Many Linux distributions are totally fine booting on a computer with activated secure boot, using a boot loader that was signed by Microsoft.

        Do you have any source for your claim that that will not work anymore? Otherwise I call FUD.

        They were spreading the same crap about Windows 8 machines. I haven't found a machine yet that I can't install Linux onto.

        And there is always Macs - although running a Unix-like OS on a machine that is also Unix-like might be something for the department of redundancy department.

        • And there is always Macs - although running a Unix-like OS on a machine that is also Unix-like might be something for the department of redundancy department.

          Correction. OS X is certified as UNIX, it's not UNIX-like. http://unix.stackexchange.com/... [stackexchange.com]

        • They were spreading the same crap about Windows 8 machines. I haven't found a machine yet that I can't install Linux onto.

          Surface 2 requires a signed bootloader so that limits your abilities quite a bit, but as for spreading crap there's a bit more info that needs to be considered:

          Microsoft's certification for OEMs have the following requirements:

          Windows RT: Secure Boot enabled.
          Windows 8: Secure Boot optional. If Secure Boot is shipped it MUST be user selectable in the BIOS. If Secure Boot is shipped it must be enabled by default.
          Windows 10: Secure Boot required and must be enabled by default. Wording about Secure Boot being u

      • Do you have any source for your claim that that will not work anymore? Otherwise I call FUD.

        Windows OEM certification documents don't say that it will not work anymore, but rather don't ensure that it will.

        Windows RT requirements for OEMs included the requirement that Secure Boot is enabled. *** Potentially bad for linux.
        Windows 8 / 8.1 requirements for OEMs included the requirement that Secure Boot if available must have the ability to de-disabled by the user. *** Good for linux.
        Windows 10 requirements removed the wording that the user must be able to disable secure boot. *** Potentially bad for

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Sounds like a paid anti-MS shill. Especially since Win8/10 both work fine on BIOS only PCs.

  • Wow, this article really pulls a conclusion out of its butt. They look at some vague web statistics, notice that Windows 7 has gone up a tad - likely due to seasonal usage differences or many other things - and then draw a wild conclusion that people are using it to get Windows 10?!

    They are probably getting kickbacks from Microsoft for posting it.

    • Re:Article conclusion is quite a stretch (Score:5, Informative)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @09:39AM (#50025105) Homepage Journal

      Wow, this article really pulls a conclusion out of its butt. They look at some vague web statistics, notice that Windows 7 has gone up a tad - likely due to seasonal usage differences or many other things - and then draw a wild conclusion that people are using it to get Windows 10?!

      I can only speak for myself, but I bought a Windows 7 license at least partly because I would be able to upgrade it to a Windows 10 license... and partly because I feared that Microsoft would raise the prices or make them unavailable when Windows 10 came out. So a little from column A, a little from column B. Why are you surprised?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by pla ( 258480 )
      then draw a wild conclusion that people are using it to get Windows 10?!

      I recently helped a local nonprofit upgrade to Win7 for exactly that reason.

      Yes, I can think of plenty of other reasons for people to pick up a Win7 license (as the most obvious, "I just got a new laptop with Win8, help!"), but the average retail customer will realistically just use whatever the computer comes with, and keep it for the life of the machine.

      If, therefore, we see an uptick in sales of an OS you can't even easily get

    • Indeed -- if I had to buy some version of Windows today, I'd buy Windows 7. It works, and the UI is pretty reasonable. XP is old and no longer supported. 8 is ugly and I don't want to learn a new UI. I would make the same decision regardless of whether I was planning to upgrade at some future date.

  • "simple trick"? (Score:3)

    by jbmartin6 ( 1232050 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @09:29AM (#50025041)
    I am sick of seeing these 'one simple|weird trick' spams everywhere

  • Alternatively (Score:5, Insightful)

    by clickety6 ( 141178 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @09:37AM (#50025083)
    Alternatively, people have seen that Windows 10 is just as bad as Windows 8 and are hurrying to buy Windows 7 licenses as the only decent version of Windows with a reasonably long remaining support window...

    • Re:Alternatively (Score:5, Informative)

      by PRMan ( 959735 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @10:37AM (#50025565)
      Except that Windows 10 is much better than Windows 8. Although I agree that I slightly like Windows 7 better, but not enough to forgo a free upgrade and more years of bugfix support.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        People keep saying this and I'm confused. I've run several of the latest Windows 10 builds and there is not a single aspect I can point to as being better than Windows 8.1. When I want a phone UI on my large desktop monitor I'll be sure to install it though.

        • How about you ignore the phone GUI then? I mean it is completely optional in Windows 10. The logical conclusion is you must just be a masochist.

    • Are they actually buying licenses, or just downloading it from somewhere? OP talks about increasing market share for Win7 - not about a surge in number of licenses sold by MS.

  • I bought an SDR that only had Windows software to run the thing with the full command set, So I needed a Windows OS. I bought a copy of W7 Pro because I knew it would work, and I could upgrade if W10 turned out to not be a steaming pile of shit.

    Windows 7 works remarkably well in Bootcamp. And Yosemite is only a reboot away.

    This only makes sense, at least for my application.

  • Err, okay (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @09:39AM (#50025115)

    Let's apply Occam's Razor:

    People are buying Windows 7 instead of Windows 8 because the former is cheaper and most people seem to prefer it.

    Sure, they get Windows 10 as well. Woohoo. If it's unusable for the first year, their fallback OS isn't Windows 8.

    • Occam's Razor would show that people in general lack the incredible foresight needed in your scenario.

      More likely case: Free upgrade! Did you hear that? Free!!! I must buy this now because I'll get something for FREE.

      Woooooo.

    • Sure, they get Windows 10 as well. Woohoo. If it's unusable for the first year, their fallback OS isn't Windows 8.

      converting to a windows 10 license destroys your windows 7 license.

      Sure, you can just ignore the activation prompts, or use one of the deprotection tools, but it's still an annoyance if you want to go back.

  • Or people hate Windows 8 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Culture20 ( 968837 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @09:59AM (#50025273)
    People could just as easily be wanting anything "not windows 8" but can't wait to buy a computer until windows 10 is released. That would mean Windows 7 or some other OS. Inertia means Windows 7.

  • Win 7 lower priced??? (Score:4, Informative)

    by bev_tech_rob ( 313485 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @10:20AM (#50025431)

    Because Windows 7 was launched in 2009, a license is more affordable than for Windows 8

    Where can I find it cheaper? Just checked on Newegg for Win7 pricing and it is the SAME as Win 8.1. 6 year old OS .... smh..

  • And you call your clients "users".

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • At the end of the day, we're all whores. So "users" isn't an incorrect statement.

        There's only two industries that call their clients "users" - and prostitution isn't one of them. So no (speaking for myself).

        If M$ want's more users they should consider making that first taste free - perhaps go back to the "give it away to schools" model.

        What am I doing? Need. More. Coffee.

  • I don't think so - they WANT Win7 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dbIII ( 701233 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @10:33AM (#50025531)
    No. I think they are doing what I'm doing and buying Win7 for people's PCs because they want people to have Win7 to give them a desktop instead of a block puzzle with hidden offscreen controls.

  • KMS (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    nuff said.
  • From what I understood - Microsoft wasn't going to outright "sell" Windows 10 - but it was going to be available on a per-year licence type of deal. If this is true - it would mean that these aren't "free" upgrades after all - but maybe a trap in which you'd be required to buy a "subscription" down the road...
  • ...that Microsoft is even offering free upgrades to Windows 10 for pirated Windows 7 versions. http://arstechnica.com/informa... [arstechnica.com] Although, this makes one wonder if this is an attempt to find pirates and prosecute them....

    • You can't prosecute someone for possessing/using an authorized copy. You can sue them, but that costs more than you would collect, and in many cases you'd be trying to get blood from a turnip.

  • Or perhaps people are buying copies of Windows 7 because it's better on PCs than Windows 8 and because Windows 10 is still an untested commodity? The article seems to take for granted that "everyone knows" the larger the number, the better the product. That's not necessarily the case.

    A wholesaler with whom I do business still has a few copies of Win 7 Pro. I picked up another one recently for a system I might build in the fall. I didn't do it because I'm salivating over Windows 10, or because I'm trying

  • Just get it for free (Score:3)

    by ZxCv ( 6138 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @01:23PM (#50026769) Homepage

    If you join the Windows Insider program (insider.windows.com) and install the Windows 10 Preview, your preview copy will be updated to the full thing when the GM is released. http://www.redmondpie.com/get-... [redmondpie.com]

  • More Than ONE Reason (Score:3)

    by 4pins ( 858270 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @03:41PM (#50027805) Homepage

    I have been reading all the signals from Microsoft (free upgrade, last version, free for life) as them moving to: a subscription model, a hardware tie in model, or both. While I recognize I could be wrong, this has lead me to telling people to cling to their Windows 7 licenses. Get them before they are gone. Just in case!

  • Of course, I'll be upgrading a fresh Win 7 install on an entirely different disk, then probably keep using my original install.

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