Question About Free Upgrade To Win10

Hey Mystere, I wrote what I think is poor business planning. For you to have written so much while skipping over the premise for the whole statement kind of nullifies the point of the rest of your response.

Where did you get the idea that upgrading a component would expire your license?

"For the life of the machine" means that the license is dependent upon the machine that receives it. When a license is tied to core hardware, changing that core hardware should make the license serial not work on a new installation. It has been my understanding that this is traditionally the case with Windows licenses that are received when Windows comes preinstalled on a new PC.

Beggers can't be choosers... it seems all too many people want to spit in the face of MS for not being generous enough.

Who's begging? Your stance seems more to be that beggars can't be discerning, as you're not willing to analyse and understand exactly what is involved in this offer from MS, and what it means to a person who accepts it. You must not be very responsible with the things that you own.

Delicieuxz said:

"For the life of the machine" means that the license is dependent upon the machine that receives it. When a license is tied to core hardware, changing that core hardware should make the license serial not work on a new installation. It has been my understanding that this is traditionally the case with Windows licenses that are received when Windows comes preinstalled on a new PC.

Actually, the product key is in the BIOS. If the hard drive crashes, you get to buy a new hard drive and reinstall Windows, which will pick up the key from BIOS. If the graphics card (which may be ) separate from the mobo crashes and burns, you replace it and Windows will pick up where it left off. Same for RAM and the Processor. Yes, you may be asked to reactivate Windows, in which case you will probably have to call Microsoft on the phone (I've had to do it, and have never had a problem with reactivation).

Now, if the mobo crashes and burns, then yes, you can pretty well rest assured that the PC is "dead according to Microsoft", although you can install a new motherboard. You just have to buy a new copy of Windows if it's either a free upgrade or an OEM. Not even an identical motherboard will prevent your having to buy a new copy of Windows 10.

So then you upgrade from Windows 7 for free. Then say 6 weeks later your MOBO goes bad. No more Windows 10? They had better allow a return to Windows 7 if something like this were to happen. My PC is 4 + years old.

Nothing is set in stone, but I think, your MOBO goes, good bye free 10. They are giving the free as a sample so that you see how great it is and you buy in the future.

Gary said:

So then you upgrade from Windows 7 for free. Then say 6 weeks later your MOBO goes bad. No more Windows 10? They had better allow a return to Windows 7 if something like this were to happen. My PC is 4 + years old.

I would think that would depend on what version of 7 your using. IMO if it's a OEM or a system builder's version you'll probably have to by a new copy of Windows.

Winuser said:

I would think that would depend on what version of 7 your using. IMO if it's a OEM or a system builder's version you'll probably have to by a new copy of Windows.

It is retail, I purchased it

Wynona said:

Gary, the same would apply if you were still on Windows 7. The mobo goes, so does the OS. No one is going to warrantee your computer for four years. Most are one year only.

But I would be able to install the Windows 7 I bought on the new MOBO.

I want to strongly refute the often-arising notion that this maneuver of offering Windows 10 as a free upgrade is a generosity from Microsoft. This is a business strategy, and it is being done because Microsoft's traditional business strategy failed for their previous OS release - and because that one largely doesn't seem right to most people, a lot of whom only upgrade after being strong-armed by Microsoft into doing so.

Further, the roots of this strategy come from its pioneering by other developers, most notably in the gaming industry - and so whether Microsoft is doing well or not with the strategy is well open to critique and discussion, and there is lots of reference material to make evaluations based off of.

Microsoft are not originators of this strategy, and so anyone who attempts to brush aside the scepticism and prying of others is not easily justified for doing so, and such efforts seem naive in the context that there actually is context to compare this effort of Microsoft's to.

If Windows is some people's brain candy and personal hobby, and so hearing of a free upgrade makes them giddy, then they should appreciate their own satisfaction and not over-extend their personal disposition to suggesting how someone who is not them ought to perceive the "free upgrade" and react to it.

To other people, an OS is a purposed piece of functional software, upon which much other owned and future software is conditionally-dependent, and the matter of upgrading is an issue that involves practical considerations. I think most people see a Windows 10 more in such practical terms, and will want to scrutinize the big decision of a one-way upgrade that effects all their software, their work, their lives, and possibly they finances.

In short, viewing the Windows 10 upgrade offer as "free" is unsubstantiable as of this moment, and viewing it as generous is goofy and ignorant of the state of the software industry, what strategies are currently making the most money, and the reality that the cost of use is not vanished, but shifted into different strategic revenue streams.


And I maintain that MS should handle this upgrade in a clean manner, making it easy to upgrade and forget about it, leaving a user not wondering about the future security of their information station, but only looking forward. MS' current position looks a little to me like one-foot-in, one-foot-out - and from that perspective, this upgrade plan actually looks possibly greedy, and a scheme to move unwitting customers into a place where they eventually will be coerced into paying for Windows 10.

And anyone who thinks that's tough and so what for the people who didn't research - think of the hypocrisy of criticising those who are trying to get to the information that makes it clear right now. Also, someone who thinks it's just too bad for those people probably does not have much experience in the real world, outside of a bubble in their computer room - because reality is that most people don't know the details, and also don't know that they don't know the details. And MS knows that this is the case - so their ambiguous wording seems to be somewhat of a consumer trap, done with the knowing that it'll put people in a tight spot down the road.