Clarified:the free upgrade offer to Win 10 is ending July 29th, really

BunnyJ · 20 Jul 2016

orlbuckeye said:

The problem Linux is free after you purchase Windows. Although Linux is available on PC's it's not advertised heavily and the OEM's don't want to support it.

You can buy a copy of Linux burred on a DVD from various distribution sites. SO that shouldn't be a major issue and if one buys a new PC it has a copy of windows on it so all that's required is downloading and putting the ISO on a USB flash drive or DVD.

And Linux is a great alternative to Windows if one doesn't want to be tied to a large cooperation, like MS.

Edit: and here's a site where anyone can get a DVD for a few bucks.

OSDisc.com - Buy Linux CDs, DVDs, USB Flash Drives, Books, Software Repositories - Your source for open source.

alphanumeric · 20 Jul 2016

orlbuckeye said:

The problem Linux is free after you purchase Windows. Although Linux is available on PC's it's not advertised heavily and the OEM's don't want to support it.

Not if you build your own PC, or order one with no OS installed. Or its a device like a Raspberry Pi, etc.

BunnyJ · 20 Jul 2016

alphanumeric said:

Not if you build your own PC, or order one with no OS installed. Or its a device like a Raspberry Pi, etc.

+1.. And you can get a DVD with a copy on from here: OSDisc.com - Buy Linux CDs, DVDs, USB Flash Drives, Books, Software Repositories - Your source for open source.

orlbuckeye · 20 Jul 2016

BunnyJ said:

You can buy a copy of Linux burred on a DVD from various distribution sites. SO that shouldn't be a major issue and if one buys a new PC it has a copy of windows on it so all that's required is downloading and putting the ISO on a USB flash drive or DVD.

And Linux is a great alternative to Windows if one doesn't want to be tied to a large cooperation, like MS.

Edit: and here's a site where anyone can get a DVD for a few bucks.

OSDisc.com - Buy Linux CDs, DVDs, USB Flash Drives, Books, Software Repositories - Your source for open source.

Yes but 80% of the people with computer upgrade by buying a new computer. Most don't upgrade to another Windows version let alone Linux. The normal computer user won't buy a PC with Windows and install Linux especially when there are like 100 Linux Distros. I do upgrades but i'm a computer professional. I use Mint Linux but in VM's. Also laptops passed desktop in sales over 10 years ago so most PC the number of people that build there own PC's is even smaller then the ones that upgrade on their own.

COMPUTIAC · 20 Jul 2016

Why post a link to a site where you have to pay for a Free copy of an Open source OS ?
What is Linux? | Opensource.com

Justin Case · 20 Jul 2016

BunnyJ said:

No.. we're not. They made the statement clear and precise at the beginning of the Windows 10 program. IMO, no matter how many statements they make there will be individuals that will not believe it or want to.

With well over 300 Million users of Win10 it would be suicide if they did start to charge for anything related to Win10.

If you're an I.T. professional and have 50 workstations and only a year to upgrade them then you feel the pressure to "get on with it" rather than having the luxury to wait it out and see. Only after beginning this task have I realized how very persistent (virus-like) that some of Microsoft's apps are. 1) Log in as the user on a Windows 10 computer to see that Xbox and Solitaire are apps, 2) right-mouse click Solitaire and choose to Uninstall it, 3) try the same with Xbox to find that there's no such feature, 4) research, 5) use PowerShell as Administrator to delete *xboxapp*, 6) notice that it still persists for the user, 7) use PowerShell as the user to delete *xboxapp*, 8) logout/login as the user to notice that it's back, 9) research, 10) user PowerShell as the Administrator to delete it again out of the app space and the app repository...

As an I.T. guy I find this pretty frustrating. Users here goof off way too much anyway. What's going to happen when an automatic Windows Update happens and Microsoft wants to re-install Xbox and Store since they provide such revenue opportunity to them?

Note that I just went through a recent situation with Microsoft. We signed up a year ago for the Office 365 Mid-Size Business subscription. Fast-forward a year later and Microsoft doesn't offer that subscription anymore, offering instead Office 365 Premium Business. You may think that it's not a big deal but it means that whoever's driving their marketing and sales decisions at Microsoft doesn't feel the need to keep the status quo. "Contract? CONTRACT!!! We don' need no stinkin' contract..." /accent

orlbuckeye · 20 Jul 2016

We have an Enterprise license for Windows 7. We have been purchasing Surfaces and the Surface 3's came with Windows 8.1 which worked pretty good connecting to our network. We have received some Surface Pro 4's and they only come with Windows 10. So we are testing the new Surfaces. Maybe the Enterprise would have been better for you organization. We don't allow connection to the store and control that in Group policies. We have google mail and apps now and moving to MS 365. We have 3000 pc's, 300 servers and 300 databases.

Justin Case · 20 Jul 2016

ARC1020 said:

Well, this post went on much longer than I intended. :)

I read it, at least.

Of the Apple/Microsoft/Google juggernaut, Apple has the best vision, Google has the most momentum and Microsoft has the most control right now of the market. Google is investing heavily into the open source browser programming world in such a way that they intend to circumvent Microsoft. Apple's users seem to trust and like them the best, Google's next and Microsoft gets the trust they've earned from the past few decades, to be honest. Anyone as old as I am knows that Bill Gates didn't write MS-DOS or the BASIC language or the boot loader for the original IBM PC, he bought them at the last moment and showed them to IBM. They liked it and the rest is history.

HoloLens or Google Glass? I'm guessing there's some big money at stake here. Microsoft can't even get a sample in their own stores and Google is shipping theirs to developers as well as the cardboard version.
iTunes or Windows Store or Google Play? Apple, of course
iPhone or Android or Windows Phone? iPhone
Digitally-signing an app for each? Apple=$99, Microsoft=$20 and Android's developer certificate is free, meaning that they're going for momentum

Justin Case · 20 Jul 2016

alphanumeric said:

Not if you build your own PC, or order one with no OS installed. Or its a device like a Raspberry Pi, etc.

Personally, I just change the partition size and then set things up to dual boot to either the original OS and Ubuntu, for example. I will say that the VM environments are getting to the point where they're almost as fast to spin up.

Justin Case · 20 Jul 2016

orlbuckeye said:

We have an Enterprise license for Windows 7. We have been purchasing Surfaces and the Surface 3's came with Windows 8.1 which worked pretty good connecting to our network. We have received some Surface Pro 4's and they only come with Windows 10. So we are testing the new Surfaces. Maybe the Enterprise would have been better for you organization. We don't allow connection to the store and control that in Group policies. We have google mail and apps now and moving to MS 365. We have 3000 pc's, 300 servers and 300 databases.

Unfortunately we don't have that kind of money at this place. There's no I.T. budget, believe it or not. We do have Office 365, however, and that's working out for us.

I can't say that I love the trend to do everything in PowerShell as an Administrator. I'm a old batch file guy from the last thirty years and you can't just easily run PowerShell scripts due to security concerns, otherwise I'd like it better.