Cost of Upgrade from XP to Win10Pro

Didn't support for v1511 end last month? Or did it get extended again?

NavyLCDR said:

Temporarily install 1703, make the Microsoft account. On the "new" computer you get temporarily install 1703, log in to the Microsoft account, use the activation troubleshooter to establish a digital license for it. Then go back to version 1511 and everything should continue to activate based upon the digital license. The digital license for Windows 10 is never created nor stored on the Microsoft account itself. The digital license is stored on Microsoft activation servers based upon computer hardware ID only. The link in the Microsoft account is just a shortcut to the physical computer that has it's digital license stored on Microsoft activation servers.

People like to complain about the advertising in Windows 10, but Microsoft is pretty much giving it away for free. Personally, though, for people like yourself, I think they should offer a slight higher priced license that is guaranteed not to have the advertising driven bloatware in it. But, to be honest, I run Windows 10 Pro always the latest released build and after a clean install I just either uninstall or unpin from the start menu everything I don't use and I never notice any adware after that.

Also build 1703 allows you to switch from the current branch of updates to the current branch for business which delays a lot of the updates until they are deemed ready to release to the corporate market. It also has settings that allows you to defer feature updates for up to 1 year.

This is a good last resort option, if a bit of a hassle, which is, I guess what MS prefers. My 1st option is to get one that runs SOME 10/7/8 Pro version in that order, which is less of a hassle.

Advertising is not the principal reason for avoiding anything after 1511. It is the fact that it adds nothing useful and only clutters the system with c..p that consumes resources for nothing. They also keep adding useless features and change settings and how things work. I am too old to tolerate this. I need a stable system that keeps working the same and I know "where everything is". I have no intention to adapt myself to MS that has become arrogant and inconsiderate of users. I will run what I want on my computers, and not what they force on me, which often bricks systems due to huge incompetence.

Had I been able to, I would have stuck to Win7. But the Win7 system croaked and the best hw replacement I found ran 1511Pro. It wasn't that hard to customize and optimize it to look like Win7 and remove the bloat, including Cortana and Edge. It also had options in Group Policies to stop auto upgrades. So that made more sense than downgrading to W7. In the process I collected a bunch of scripts, utils and methods to do all the customization and optimization that I can reuse on any new system I get that runs 1511, but is unlikely to work in later versions.

All those home users out there who run WP and games, are technically clueless and have no idea about what MS is doing have a herd mentality: whatever MS says it's the truth. If they say that it's dangerous not to have fixes and updates, then I must do what they say and let them control my systems. Then they pop up online and start spreading the MS propaganda warning everybody how they should not deviate from what MS says and "keep systems up to date", which these days is not less dangerous and disrupting than MS updates. Follow the history of Win10 and what MS is doing to systems to realize the damage they do.

An OS takes years to perfect and that is why win7 was--a perfectly good OS. There is absolutely nothing in all these continuous OS changes for the serious business users. It's all targeted at the herd. Perfection does not grow profits so that a CEO can continue to grow its millions--Nadella got 14mil last year--and so vendors constantly screw up their perfected systems for no value to users and use fear to upgrade. And the ignorance and herd mentality lets them get away with it.

If there were value in Win10, MS wouldn't have given it for free -- you get what you pay for. They realize that, which is why they strive to monetize differently -- by spying on you and sell your data, like everybody else. And to cut their development and support costs by forcing homogeneization on what people run. Despite all this, even for free the rate of upgrading is pretty anemic relative to what MS wants.

Users need to wake up and become knowledgeable and informed, or they're fodder.

DavidY said:

It's 1507 which is no longer supported as of last month. 1511 presumably has a few months to go yet.

Right. Thanks. :) (Can't seem to keep all these versions straight anymore...)