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Microsoft Stealthily Backs Away From Free Windows 10 Promise

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

darkfeline writes in with an article from Arstechnica:

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: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @06:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @06:53PM (#199544)

    In related news, users of FreeBSD 10.x will be given a, free of charge, upgrade when FreeBSD 11.0 is released (as will current users of any other OS). It will "remain activated" (whatever that means?) for as long as you like. It will be as genuine as you want to make it, and updated as frequently as you like, until your machine is older than dirt. If you don't like FreeBSD, just substitute Slackware, Arch, Ubuntu, OpenBSD or whatever because they're all offering the same deal.

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  • (Score: 2) by mtrycz on Monday June 22 2015, @07:29PM

    by mtrycz (60) on Monday June 22 2015, @07:29PM (#199558)

    I'm in! how much is it?

    --
    In capitalist America, ads view YOU!

    • (Score: 2) by VortexCortex on Monday June 22 2015, @09:10PM

      by VortexCortex (4067) on Monday June 22 2015, @09:10PM (#199590)

      how much is it?

      It's about 2.4 GiB for the DVD, or 653 MiB for the 1st CD to get you started.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @11:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @11:33PM (#199645)

    There is an OS which has an available mechanism to *assure* that state.
    Linux Genuine Advantage(tm) [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [linuxgenuineadvantage.org]

    Enjoy.

    -- gewg_