Should I press the button? It would be kind of hard to resist for any significant period of time when itll always be there in view...

EDIT: Well more like 'pre-emptively sign up for pre-emptive installation of some files when we have enough upload bandwidth to send them'

It's just a reservation. It won't actually upgrade anything for a couple more months.

I'm guessing that Microsoft A) hopes to estimate a minimum amount of people that plan on upgrading and B) hopes to get people's email addresses when users see the box asking for email in order to receive notification that the upgrade is ready.

But submission of an email address is optional (I'm sure I'll get a notification within Windows itself anyway), and even though I don't mind downloading it as soon as it's available, I absolutely do not plan on installing it immediately, so that kinda weakens the value of both objectives. But statistics might mean that my behavior will be sufficiently rare such that both objectives are still achieved to Microsoft's satisfaction.

I'm registering on a virtual machine and using a masked/disposable email address.

I'm hoping that way I can potentially get any benefits without also risking a real machine or a valuable email address. If they decide to spam I can dump the disposable email, and if they do something odd to the machine it is on a VM so I can kill it or roll it back, as I see fit.

I'm registering on a virtual machine and using a masked/disposable email address.

I'm hoping that way I can potentially get any benefits without also risking a real machine or a valuable email address. If they decide to spam I can dump the disposable email, and if they do something odd to the machine it is on a VM so I can kill it or roll it back, as I see fit.

But Microsoft won't just randomly update your computer without asking? Will it?

But Microsoft won't just randomly update your computer without asking? Will it?

The update itself will start only at your request, though they will download files so theyre already present before the update if you have reserved an update for yourself. Based on some news article I quickly took a glance at, all this might be to distribute the network load of half a billion (ok maybe not that many...) people downloading the OS over a longer period of time (as well as making the update process itself quicker for the user)

In any case, are they not already randomly updating your computer once in a while? Well probably theres a way to not have that happen and Im just too ignorant to care x)

I will upgrade to Win 10 in eight to ten years ... or when I absolutely have to.

If I had a choice in the matter, I'd still be using Win Xp

So can you guys confirm for me what I believe I am reading elsewhere. I have licensed 8 laptop. So if I upgrade to 10 during this "offer period" then it will be free and l will then continue to get updates for free for ever after?

Is it really that simple? What about all the different versions of 7, home, premium, all that? Do they all just morph into the same package when people take the free update?

I also intend to wait a good few months before I update, since this is my work and play machine and want to see what others think first, just trust you guys interpretation of the situation a bit more than these tech sites and wanted to clarify the situation

Thanks.

So can you guys confirm for me what I believe I am reading elsewhere. I have licensed 8 laptop. So if I upgrade to 10 during this "offer period" then it will be free and l will then continue to get updates for free for ever after?

Is it really that simple? What about all the different versions of 7, home, premium, all that? Do they all just morph into the same package when people take the free update?

I also intend to wait a good few months before I update, since this is my work and play machine and want to see what others think first, just trust you guys interpretation of the situation a bit more than these tech sites and wanted to clarify the situation

Thanks.

Theres a 'pro' version as well, which you get if you take the free update from a 'pro' (pro/ultimate/whatever) version of 7 or 8.

So its basically either windows 10 home or windows 10 pro which you get.

Im not sure why microsoft offers a free update though... Maybe theyre hoping to get people use windows store, thus offering it free to windows 7 users, but also windows 8 because only offering it to 7 wouldnt really work would it.

Im not sure why microsoft offers a free update though... Maybe theyre hoping to get people use windows store, thus offering it free to windows 7 users, but also windows 8 because only offering it to 7 wouldnt really work would it.

The ongoing theory (I am not a MS employee) is that this is the last major version of Windows and they want to get people onto it as quickly and painlessly as possible so that they only have one platform to keep updating over the years rather than several. Especially since moving to this OS also (mostly) dumps IE for a new browser that doesn't have to deal with all that legacy junk.

I don't really see any reason NOT to update to 10 unless you're running some ancient software that didn't follow MS's guidelines. (I.e. most "enterprise" software) All reports I've seen seem to indicate that everything works just fine in the new OS.

Of course, it's perfectly reasonable to wait a month or four so they can shake more of the bugs out ;)