Microsoft Store Offers Free Laptop If They Can't Upgrade Your PC To Windows 10 (microsoft.com) 126
Microsoft is now promising that their Microsoft Store employees "will give you a free Dell laptop if the staff can't do a same-day upgrade on your eligible PC by close of business," reports new Slashdot submitter Pritam Dash. To be eligible for the Dell Inspiron 15, the PC must meet Microsoft's upgrade requirements -- and be checked in by noon -- and in a further effort to boost adoption for their of the Windows 10 operating system, Microsoft is also announcing that "If your PC isn't compatible with Windows 10, we'll recycle it and give you $150 toward the purchase of a new PC." (This second offer is limited to PCs already running Windows 8). Both offers are valid until July 29th, "while supplies last."
Meanwhile, the U.S. army is "half a year behind the January 2017 deadline to adopt Windows 10 set by Defense Department Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen," and has hired Microsoft engineers to assess their 1.1 million devices and legacy systems.
Meanwhile, the U.S. army is "half a year behind the January 2017 deadline to adopt Windows 10 set by Defense Department Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen," and has hired Microsoft engineers to assess their 1.1 million devices and legacy systems.
The U.S.A. army? (Score:1)
If the U.S.A. army runs Windows 10 does that mean the other countries will be able to spy on them easily?
MS Muthafuctchas REALLY Want You To Do This! (Score:5, Insightful)
If they are spending several hundred on a user to go to Windows 10, what make you thing there's ANYTHING to your advantage in doing so?
"Take our Futching Trojan Horse operating system, kiddo! It's not JUST FREE, we will PAY YOU to take it!"
This is not good. Trust me. It's not good at all.
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You're a loon.
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Accusing other posters of being loons is exactly something a loon would do.
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What the fuck are you talking about?
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Desperate time calls for desperate measures.
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If the U.S.A. army runs Windows 10 does that mean the other countries will be able to spy on them easily?
The US army isn't switching to Windows 10. They are switching to something that looks like Windows 10, but supposedly has certain features removed or disabled. Of course, re-enabling them is just a software patch away, either from official sources or not.
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" battery must hold charge and not be required to be plugged in to operate, and be in fully functional, working condition without broken/missing components, cracked display/housing, liquid damage, modification(s) or have device warranty seal broken to be considered working. C"
So...not like the average Windows laptop I see these days ("So what if the J key is missing! I hardly ever have to type a J, and if I do I can always copy and paste.")
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How about undetectable modifications, such as a bit of code injected into BIOS firmware designed to target the Windows 10 installer or bootloader and trigger a reboot once detected, or slowdown, so the install process times out or takes longer than 8 hours?
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Simple, reinstall win8.1 fresh from media, take ownership of everything on the drive and NTFS compress the whole drive, run system cleanup to be sure it's as small as possible, and set the page file to 0, and disable hibernation (powercfg -h off). Image the partition. Put it back on the drive with 1MB free, but only after you've used MHDD to ATAPI permanent-resize the drive to the minimum required LBA blocks.
You don't want to play their game though, it's done through one of those trade-in recyclers that res
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Turkeydances,bring it in 5 minutes before store closing time= FAIL lol got to read the fine print
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bring it in 5 minutes before store closing time
profit!
I'm pretty sure it's already planned and it's a trap. Something like triple time for the employee that do overtime to upgrade your machine and a setup to do update real quick.
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Welcome to Slashdot, no one reads the summary these days, never mind the article
"Eligible PC" (Score:1)
Darn, there goes my plan to trade in an old PowerBook or Centris. "Eligible" likely means one that can run Windows 10, so it's a guarantee they'll get it done same-day by close of business. So get in just before closing, but make sure the replacement Dell is comparable in features to the machine you brought in.
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What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
there’s no way to turn off some of the telemetry data Windows 10 collects about your system and beams back to the mothership. Microsoft executives don’t consider this a privacy issue. If you do, Windows 10 isn’t for you.
Now let's put this on 1.1 million military systems.
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Windows got retrofitted with this telemetry stuff via Windows Update. Not as if you could avoid it on any Windows PC now.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Funny)
Windows XP didn't get retrofitted with this telemetry stuff. Neither did Windows 98SE.
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All Windows Versions prior to WIndows 7, that includes XP and 98SE, don't get any Updates anymore.
False. Vista is in extended support for another year, Server 2008 until 2020.
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BS. Just don't install the updates. They are only recommended.
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Telemetry in Windows 7 and 8 is still optional and easy to disable:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/2981947/microsoft-windows/the-truth-about-windows-7-and-81-spy-patches-kb-3068708-3022345-3075249-and-3080149.html [infoworld.com]
Re:Actual DoD statement on the subject (Score:5, Interesting)
http://iase.disa.mil/Pages/ind... [disa.mil] has 3 relevant rules for Windows 10. It must be deployed by January 2017, Domain-joined systems must use Windows 10 Enterprise Edition, and Windows Telemetry must be configured to the lowest level.
It's right there. DISA is the DoD cyber rule maker, and you don't have to be military to read or use their guidance.
There is no special build. And apparently basic telemetry is fine.
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I don't think the "Enterprise Edition" has this telemetry. Corporations won't allow it. Neither would DoD.
It does. Contrary to popular belief you can't disable telemetry on Enterprise. You can only set it to a lower level:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/configure-windows-telemetry-in-your-organization [microsoft.com]
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This I would like to know. What is a MS machine is not connected to the Internet - will it eventually grind to a halt ?
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Re: What could possibly go wrong? (Score:2)
If the telemetry says only things like "10 days since last crash" or "browser was switched from Edge" then I struggle to see any privacy or security issues.
If the telemetry is "this software was installed and these apps have crashed" then I certainly hope the IT managers are collecting this telemetry and it's up to them to figure a secure way to do it, maybe with Microsoft maybe without, as they see fit.
If the telemetry is "this sequence of keystrokes was pressed" then there are obvious security and privacy
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Dude, shit, like compulsory upgrades. Don't rabbit it on about what it currently seems to do when that can change at any second and you have agreed to that change. Probe doesn't go deep enough, you have agreed to a longer probe, probe doesn't shake out enough data, you have agreed to have a vibrator added, probe doesn't see where it needs to see, you have agreed to a bend to the right and corkscrew if necessary. Windows anal probe 10, it is bad now and it will only get worse, much, much, worse. For nerds o
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Keep in mind that consumer editions cannot go below Basic telemetry. The default is Enhanced, which includes more than the list below.
From Microsoft directly (reformatted and edited for brevity since Slashdot hates multilevel lists):
Re: What could possibly go wrong? (Score:2)
I don't think I care of they get their notice as "Edge writing home about how lonely Edge is now that you don't use Edge anymore (sob emoji)" but I do care if it's "W10 sending notice to MS that you switched to Pale Moon 10 days ago."
However, the first is only if it was done as an opt-in, or an explicit condition of making the browser free.
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So explain this to me. Office 2013 is a step back in usability for keyboard jockeys. There are things I cannot do without either using a mouse, or hitting TAB a bunch of times. And TAB doesn't go in any sensible order. And the whole OS is heading that way.
Won't telemetry data help Microsoft figure out how people use things? When submitting a request via Connect.microsoft.com or whatever, they will actually have data that yes, people use it that way, and they should fix it.
The super telemetry data is ov
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The military systems that matter have no connectivity to the public internet.
If internet-connected machines were a concern, the perimeter firewall could mitigate the issue entirely.
The DoD runs its own WSUS repositories, so their servers and workstations would have no need to connect to Microsoft anyway.
NOT worth it! (Score:3, Funny)
Either you lose a perfectly good PC and get a junk Dell that has Windows 10, or you have a perfectly good PC ruined by having Windows 10 installed!
In what way is either of these better than having a PC that works well with Win 7 or better yet Linux on it?! Its NOT WORTH IT!! Just say NO!!!!!
Will the new laptop ... (Score:5, Funny)
Hmmm (Score:1)
2) Get free laptop
3) Profit
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Microsoft is a global company that don't give half of a shit for the US government... unless well paid.
The telemetry is most likely used to determine the brand of toothpaste you use, rather than your sensitive data.
Creepy (Score:1)
Microsoft has gone into Gollum mode with Windows 10
Re:Creepy (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft has gone into Gollum mode with Windows 10
Nothing creepy at all . . . it's simple greed. The new Microsoft CEO, Satya Nutella, obviously has a bonus tied to Windows 10 installations.
Just wait until December. Microsoft will be sending out folks to your home, to give you a free PC with Windows 10 installed on it. Just to boost the installation numbers over the goal line for Satya Nutella.
That's the gag with Windows 10 Telemetry . . . Microsoft can always know how many PCs are running it. So Satya Nutella can't fudge the numbers.
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I'm sure Nadella is getting some bonuses cause CEO, but even aside from that there's plenty of (greedy) reasons for MS to want to push Windows 10:
1) They get little to no revenue from upgrade installs at the best of time. The vast majority of people "upgrade" their Windows the day their PC dies and they have to buy a new one. So at the very least, they aren't losing much with the push.
2) It saves them having to maintain Win7 and Win8. For some reason, MS still takes the flak for bugs in their system even
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The computers have to be compatible with Windows 10 in order to be eligible for the upgrade. If your system can't be upgraded for whatever reason, it is by definition not eligible, I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't exclude all custom systems, upgraded systems and any system that doesn't have a Windows 8 sticker on it. It's a nice little marketing scam.
If you own an Acer G73j... (Score:3)
...let me save you some time. Don't bother updating the laptop to Windows 10. It has driver compatibility issues [notebookreview.com] that cause the laptop to freeze minutes after you boot the machine.
My mom has one, and I spent six hours over the 4th of July weekend trying to upgrade it. After a bunch of searching online, I came to the conclusion that some geeky workarounds like disabling the network port and using unsigned drivers was just not the right solution for mother. Instead, I just installed an SSD into the spare drive bay and installed a fresh copy of Windows 7. She says it runs like a brand new laptop. I figure that will buy her another two, maybe three years.
Will it run Linux? (Score:2)
Headline: Microsoft offers free new laptop if your computer can't run Windows 10!
"Will it run Linux?", getting out my pen knife......
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That's not Linux, it's a GNU and Ubuntu userland on a Linux emulation layer.
So day to upgrade (Score:2)
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I would hope that if you're running a business on the machine, small or otherwise, you have a better plan than waiting for MS to upgrade it for you, where you have no control over the process (and has a good chance of involving FORMAT C: if the upgrade install doesn't work first try.)
I'm sure someone somewhere will do this and then get pissed off when "within a day" doesn't somehow magically mean "within 10 minutes" but lets hope that's not the majority. There will probably be far more people bitching that
VIA/S3 Unichrome Pro Integrated Video Adapter [BIO (Score:2)
As the upgrade push continues .... (Score:2)
I'm interested to see just how motivated Microsoft is to get everyone upgraded to Win 10. The pressure they've been putting on everyone to upgrade before August, when the free upgrades from 7 or 8 expire has been tough for a LOT of people to refuse. But it hasn't been all that realistic for corporate users.
For example, where I work, we had all of our Windows users on Windows 7 Professional. We took a pass on Windows 8. Now, we're ok with making the move to Win 10, except the Microsoft upgrade process isn'
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Our biggest problem with in place upgrades (other than drivers) was that they tend to toast roaming profiles. In the end we juat learned to delete the server and workstation copies of the profiles and start from scratch, and that largely seemed to fix it. All in all it has worked out reasonably well, though setting up the training lab computers was a real challenge, and even with mandatory profiles the Windows 10 start tiles (which are stored in the local app data store) seem to have a mind of their own. An
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Zero reason to use Windows 10 in business? (Score:2)
The mentality that there's NO reason to upgrade to 10 in a business setting reminds me of the nay-sayers who never wanted to move off of Windows '98, back in the day. Sure, MS put out a lousy OS (Windows ME) as the next part of the upgrade path, just as Windows 8 was a pretty bad attempt at improving 7. But by the time XP came out, it made LOTS of sense to move to it.
I think that's where we're at with Windows 10 now. What do we gain as a company from moving from 7 to 10?
Off-hand:
- Options for full disk encr
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Apart from that, some of your claims are doubtful at this point of time. Most applications do not take into account high DPI screens yet (too much baggage on the software side, not OS). I find it strange you are not outraged by the fact that new HW does not work with old
re: new hardware not working with older OS (Score:2)
I find that annoying or irritating, sure ... but not to the point of outrage. In particular, the Surface Pro 4 is actually made by Microsoft, so why wouldn't they design it to help push their latest OS instead of encouraging people to stick with the older stuff they'd like to move away from? That's just good business logic from their perspective.
(And really, it's no different than Apple's business model all along, as a provider of both the hardware and the OS.)
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Primary reason is EOLs. Many of our workstations were running Vista, and it made no sense to hit 7 at this point. Yes, 10 has ample challenges and is a pain in the ass, but most the problems are dealt and we are now not facing a major upgrade for several years.
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Nice! (Score:2)
So i can drop off all those machines, where clients request that upgrade, to that shop and they will do the work for me?
And instead of getting badmouthed myself when the upgrade ain't possible, I'll get a free laptop to shut them up with?
And I just have to temporarily buy the machine, Nice!
Two problems and one solution (Score:2)
The solution's right there: Army drops off 1.1 million laptops at store before noon. Upgraded before 4pm.
It's almost like even the /writer/ didn't RTFS.
Free laptop comes at a price .. (Score:1)
Shame I don't have ... (Score:2)
... my old Cyrix 200+ with 75Mhz Motherboard running Windows 3.11 and DOS 5 around anymore. Dang, missed a free laptop. ...
However; I do have my Sharp PC 1403 lying right here, strip-printer, datasette and all. I wonder it that counts. It *is* a PC - as in Pocket Computer - but a PC none-the-less. It's got kick-ass multimedia capabilities too - as you can see here [youtube.com]. I'd be impressed if they get Windows 10 running on that.
But I'll also take the free Laptop, thank you.
Why offer this? (Score:2)
Why make this offer? Just for publicity? Or could it be that many people have trouble upgrading and MS needs to counter the chatter by giving the press something? I've never heard of such an offer before.
Read the small fine print (Score:1)
Ok so most old computers are outted.
Right, so basically if it can run Windows 8, it most likely can also run Windows 10
So which is it? (Score:2)