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posted by cmn32480 on Monday June 22 2015, @01:54PM   Printer-friendly

On Friday [June 19, 2015], Microsoft described a way for anyone to get Windows 10 for free: activated, genuine, and updated forever. We wrote at the time that we expected the company to do a volte-face and back away from this promise. Lo and behold, it has come to pass.

Since Friday, the blog post describing the changes to the Windows Insider preview program has been silently updated. Previously it said that signed up members of the Insider Program running a preview version would "receive the Windows 10 final release build and remain activated." Now it says only that they will "receive the Windows 10 final release build." The activation wording has been removed. The company has also added a "clarifying" sentence: "It's important to note that only people running Genuine Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 can upgrade to Windows 10 as part of the free upgrade offer." This is in contrast to what the company said on Friday, when Microsoft's Gabe Aul confirmed that upgraded preview copies would be Genuine.

So what does this all mean? The main thing it means is that we're not expecting clear communication from Microsoft about licensing any time soon. We don't imagine that there will be any technical difference: we expect that as previously described, Windows 10 installed via the preview will activate and show as genuine. It should be fully functional (no "non-genuine" watermark on the desktop or anything like that), and essentially indistinguishable from any other Windows 10 installation.


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  • (Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:14PM

    by Marand (1081) on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:14PM (#199860) Journal

    Nice, thanks. Last time I looked was around the 10th year, maybe 6-9mo before the 2012 one, so I guess I just missed the updates. The 2003 stuff I'd seen but was too soon after the change for what I meant.

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