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Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Attempts To Clarify the Windows 10 For Everyone Rumor 96

Posted by samzenpus from the clear-as-mud dept.
Ammalgam writes: Over the weekend, Microsoft caused a web explosion by seeming to imply that they were going to relax their licensing rules and offer Windows 10 for free to everyone. This caused an uproar of controversy online that Microsoft had to address. The company issued a statement in an attempt to clarify the Windows 10 licensing situation. The language is still a little confusing so on Windows10update.com, Onuora Amobi tries to simplify the language and sort out the distinction between users on the Windows Insider Program and non Windows Insiders.
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Microsoft Attempts To Clarify the Windows 10 For Everyone Rumor More

Microsoft Attempts To Clarify the Windows 10 For Everyone Rumor

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  • Basically (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    If you have Windows 7 or 8/8.1 Genuine, you'll get an upgrade to retail Windows 10. If you have the Windows 10 Insider program, you'll get an upgrade to Windows 10 that gets early update releases (i.e. you'll be a public beta tester for future updates).

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      What still isn't clear is how much of the spying built in to the Insider Preview will remain. You can turn some of it off, but some of it like the app install reporting and file open reporting you can't disable. After launch day will those features remain? If so, suddenly this "free" copy of Windows is a lot less attractive.

      • Re:Basically (Score:5, Insightful)

        by wbo ( 1172247 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @07:55AM (#49969093)
        The whole point of the Insider Preview is to have people test alpha/beta releases that are under active development. Having extensive telemetry and reporting makes perfect sense in that context and Microsoft has been very clear from the beginning that they were collecting such data.

        After Windows 10 is released, the delopment of Windows 10 will continue and new development builds will be available to insider members. The insider program doesn't stop once Windows 10 is released.

        If you don't like the data collection, don't run the Insider releases and instead upgrade to the retail release from a Windows 7 or Windows 8 install after the Windows 10 release date.
      • If Microsoft had communicated more clearly, this discussion wouldn't be necessary. Microsoft is extremely badly managed. [slashdot.org]

        • To be fair, this may be largely due to the whole culture-change thing going on there at the moment.

          Times like this that I kind of miss Mini MSFT [blogspot.com]... yeah he works for the Borg, but his insights are pretty excellent.

    • See, you summed it up pretty clearly in two sentences. Why all the lengthy "attempts to clarify?" It's almost like Microsoft is not the paragon of honesty. Or maybe they're just panicky that nobody cares anymore. Either way (both) they remind me of myself 10 years ago making up an overwrought excuse for why I couldn't come to work.

  • I want to stick with 7. But MS seems intent to forcing 10 uppon us with windows update. First I had to remove and block KB3035583, yesterday I see this: KB3040272 in the list of updates which, according to MS, does this: "This update helps Microsoft make improvements to the current operating system in order to ease the upgrade experience to the latest version of Windows."

    Blocked that as well, you never know what they spam you with when they think almost everyone installed it. I don't even trust them not to

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nyder ( 754090 )

      I want to stick with 7. But MS seems intent to forcing 10 uppon us with windows update. First I had to remove and block KB3035583, yesterday I see this: KB3040272 in the list of updates which, according to MS, does this: "This update helps Microsoft make improvements to the current operating system in order to ease the upgrade experience to the latest version of Windows."

      Blocked that as well, you never know what they spam you with when they think almost everyone installed it. I don't even trust them not to call something like that a "security update" at some point.

      This is why I usually wait a month or two before applying windows updates, I get to hear the horror stories of problems people might be having and know what to avoid.

    • I decided to install the Insider Preview on my laptop, as a means to evaluate Windows 10 before the final version touches my desktop, and so far I'm liking it. It does have a couple of annoyances, but overall it's good, and the in-place upgrade was flawless for me.

      That said, to the point: I have a handful of updates in my WU that I decided not to install just yet. All of them popped up around the same time, and all of them are related to the upgrade process between Windows 7 and Windows 10. Once I decide to

      • Re:I DON'T want windows 10 (Score:5, Informative)

        by Somebody Is Using My ( 985418 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @08:15AM (#49969253) Homepage

        I decided to install the Insider Preview on my laptop, as a means to evaluate Windows 10 before the final version touches my desktop, and so far I'm liking it.
        I, on the other hand, did the same and detest it.

        The "returned Start Menu" is a joke, and seems more an insult to everyone who wanted a Start Menu than an honest attempt to meet their needs. You can't rearrange the items on the menu; it's all alphabetical. The text in "All Apps" section is huge and absurdly widely-spaced, making even a short list of apps go on forever. Even if you remove all the live tiles, the menu still takes up a huge amount of space. Its absolutely useless as a Start Menu. Sure, there are third-party alternatives like ClassicStart, but most people aren't going to be using those utilities and I'm going to have to support them.

        Then there's the fact that you search your files without the query being sent up to the Microsoft mothership. Searching for sensitive material you wisely stored locally? Microsoft is going to know about it. There are settings in the group policy editor to disable this, but - at least in the most recent preview - they don't actually work. Home versions of the OS don't ship with GPEdit either.

        Windows10 is still pretty pushy with getting you into its online ecosystem too, although I will admit it is toned down (ever so slightly) from Windows 8.1. It's slightly easier to notice that you can make a local account without using hotmail, for instance. But from its prominent app-store, to its OnDrive cloud storage, to its mail client that doesn't support POP3, Windows10 requires you to use Microsoft online services to make use of any of its newer features.

        Metro, of course, continues to be an abomination, made all the worse by the fact it still remains only half-heartedly integrated into the system. Dig one or two menus deep into the control panel (sorry, its called "Settings" now) and you'll be facing an old-style WindowsXP interface. The shift is jarring and likely confusing to many newer users, and more experienced users will dislike how all the superficial settings have been shuffled about and renamed for no apparent reason. Unfortunately, no third-party app can fix this.

        Then there are the niggling minor loss of features. I'm not talking the removal of significant apps - like Media Center - but just little features of the OS that used to be available in older versions of Windows that have been inexplicably removed in Windows10. The ability to uninstall most of the default apps (try removing the XBox app or OneNote; you can't) that come with Windows, for instance. Or control over whether or not to install updates, as another. Individually, these are annoyances but combined they are a headache.

        The back-end of Windows 10 seems reliable enough; it has the fast pseudo-start (really, just booting from hibernation since Windows hasn't do a clean shutdown since Windows8) that people like, and seems reliable enough (for Windows). But it doesn't bring anything interesting to the table, still has all the stuff I dislike about Windows 8/8.1 and adds a bunch of unwanted restrictions on top of that. I honestly would recommend Windows 8 over Windows 10 at this point (although if you had the option, take 8.1 or - preferably - Windows 7 if you can). At least with those your computer is still yours to do with as you like, and not as Microsoft thinks you might want to use it.

        • I'd mod you up if I could. You pretty much confirmed my fears that Microsoft basically wants to sell you on your PC being a phone that you have 0 control over and will probably lead to odious bullshit like this. They royally fucked up with Windows 8. They killed technet. Windows 10 is more of the same. I've been clinging to Windows 7 Ultimate on my primary desktop because games/drivers. I just hope Valve dumps enough money to make Linux a truly viable alternative.

        • Re:I DON'T want windows 10 (Score:4, Interesting)

          by bondsbw ( 888959 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @10:57AM (#49970579)

          You can't rearrange the items on the menu; it's all alphabetical.

          You can still pin items, in the tile area. They can be rearranged not only vertically (like in Windows 7) but also horizontally now.

          The text in "All Apps" section is huge and absurdly widely-spaced, making even a short list of apps go on forever.

          If you click on the headers (0-9, A, B, C, etc.) it will zoom out to show the full list of headers, and clicking on one can take you straight to that section.

          Even if you remove all the live tiles, the menu still takes up a huge amount of space.

          Incorrect. If you remove all live tiles, you can collapse the Start menu to a much smaller space than the Windows 7 Start menu. Or make it any size all the way up to full screen. Your choice.

          • Even if you remove all the live tiles, the menu still takes up a huge amount of space.

            Incorrect. If you remove all live tiles, you can collapse the Start menu to a much smaller space than the Windows 7 Start menu. Or make it any size all the way up to full screen. Your choice.

            I am not seeing the behavior you described in the lastest preview version of Windows 10. Having removed all the Live tiles, I am still left with an overly large - and empty - Start menu [imgur.com]. The behavior you describe - the Start Menu shrin

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by bondsbw ( 888959 )

              I'm running 10130 on two machines and it works on both. It's not an automatic resizing. You just have to remove all your tiles, then it will allow you to manually resize it down. When tiles exist, it requires at least enough space for one tile group.

              • I stand corrected. The functionality there is exactly as described [imgur.com].

                I will argue that this is in no way intuitive; I don't consider myself a novice to computers or Windows but I like to think I generally know my way around PCs. But manually changing the width of a menu is so rarely done that it didn't even occur to me that it was possible (actually, that's not completely true; I know I tested it on an earlier version of the preview and it didn't work then. I didn't bother - or remember - to try on build 1013

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by bondsbw ( 888959 )

                  Windows 10 offers me nothing I want and a lot I don't want. I see absolutely no reason to upgrade from Windows 7, even if it is nominally "free".

                  That's up to you. But I'm surprised you find nothing good about Windows 10 when compared with 7. Better performance, virtual desktops, Cortana, notifications, improved Snap, quick settings, Edge, Store apps, improved interaction with the command prompt, streaming from Xbox One, DirectX 12, native video/game capture, and several other things I'm sure I missed... I'm not surprised you don't care for some of those, but I am surprised you don't want any of it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sneeka2 ( 782894 )

      Stances like yours really make me wonder why you stick with Windows then. No, I'm not trying to wave any particular other persuasion in your face here. But being paranoid about my OS and the motivations of the company behind it is simply the last thing I'd want to spend my time with. I'd either choose an OS which I don't have to wrestle with about upgrades, or one which I'm confident enough about that I don't mind the upgrades. Not having either option and still sticking with it seems extremely unproductive

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by johanw ( 1001493 )

        Well, Linux has its own quirks - the "change the GUI for the sake of change itself" virus has not escaped them too. Neither has the forced cloud invasion (Ubuntu search). However, if this is the direction Windows is going to, I will switch to Linux as main OS.

    • "Blocked that as well, you never know what they spam you with..."

      At present, the best way to update Windows 7 is to use Autopatcher [autopatcher.net]. The Autopatcher group helps everyone avoid Microsoft's anti-customer "updates".

      Microsoft's updates are usually poorly described. The business rules Microsoft has made for itself do not include being honest or complete in describing the control Microsoft wants over computers.
    • As a gamer, I absolutely want Windows 10 for DirectX12. I'm curious, other than the usual "I'm afraid of change", why do you not want Windows 10?
  • I wonder how many ads will be tucked into places so they can have a stream of money to pay for development?
  • If i got this straight, microsoft will push the OS upgrade through windows update, and after the installation will check for a valid 7/8/8.1 licence key and activate Win10 with that. So, if i need to do a vanilla installation of Win10, will i be able to download the iso and use my valid 7/8/8.1 licence key without any problems? Or is it a one way path where you need to do a vanilla of 7/8/8.1 and then do an OS upgrade through winupdate?

  • PLOT TWIST (Score:4, Funny)

    by idbeholda ( 2405958 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @08:31AM (#49969387) Journal
    Windows 10 is free, now you just have to pay for downloadable content.

  • Simple yes or no question (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @10:44AM (#49970485)

    I have a licensed copy of Windows 7. Will I retain all the rights and accesses I have with this copy when upgrading to the Windows 10 license?

    It is a very simple question. You may choose to answer "yes" or "no". No buts, no ifs, no legalese bullshit. There are two legit answers to this question and no others are accepted as valid input.

    • Sadly the answer is "we do not know yet"
      Everyone is asking about what happens to your retail key. Will you keep the same product key? Will they give you another? Will you be able to change your motherboard? Will you need to update for your product key to "transform" and work as Win 10 retail from now on? For us gamers, these are the questions.

      • We don't know yet? We're supposed to make a decision concerning our OS and don't even get told what the licensing terms will be like, but we're supposed to buy it and hope for the best?

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