Remember when Microsoft said everyone would get windows 10 for free, even users of pirated copies? Yeah – no, ain’t going to happen.
Microsoft and our OEM partners know that many consumers are unwitting victims of piracy, and with Windows 10, we would like all of our customers to move forward with us together. While our free offer to upgrade to Windows 10 will not apply to Non-Genuine Windows devices, and as we’ve always done, we will continue to offer Windows 10 to customers running devices in a Non-Genuine state. In addition, in partnership with some of our valued OEM partners, we are planning very attractive Windows 10 upgrade offers for their customers running one of their older devices in a Non-Genuine state.
Communication has never been the company’s strong point.
> Communication has never been the company’s strong point.
At least they got rid of the suits at E3. So they have improved a bit in connecting with their audience.
Poor users of pirated copies will have to install pirated Windows 10 as well. I guess this wouldn’t be a big deal for them if it wasn’t before.
FWIW if Microsoft would indeed state that users of “pirated” Windows would be allowed to upgrade to Windows 10 free of charge, that would effectively make Windows 10 freeware. And Microsoft can’t afford to do so at this stage.
Yeah, they’re not rich and powerful enough, Facebook and Apple could. Microsoft is even partnering with King to bundle Candy Crush with every Windows 10 to attract some attention and generate some revenue. That’s a low move.
Edited 2015-05-16 06:55 UTC
I can’t tell if this is sarcastic or not.
I think anyone who underestimates Microsoft’s power is doomed to ignore history. MS still have, what, 85%+ of all new desktops/laptops? OFfice is still a cash cow. They must love the perception that they’re not powerful anymore, keeps the regulators off their backs.
They could wipe out piracy tomorrow, instead they are gonna shoot themselves in the face and risk Win 10 become the third fail in a row!
All they need to do is offer Windows 10 Home for $25, or $50 for a triple pack…that’s it. As Gabe Newell said “piracy is a service problem” and the problem here is MSFT charges too damned much for the Home Editions! You know how many Core 2 Duo and Athlon X2 system I stripped out when XP died that had nothing wrong with them? How many C2Qs and Phenom I X4s? Its because MSFT prices the cost of Windows Home too high to make it possible to upgrade it and break even.
Lets face it nobody goes out and buys a copy of Windows for a new PC as it already came with one, they buy it for their current PC to upgrade. With this bonehead move MSFT just assured that Win 7 will stay up past XP levels of users (because most users are happy with machines that came out in the last 8-9 years, remember that quads have been around since 2007 and C2D was IIRC 2006) and the pirates already have a perfectly working Win 7 that passes WGA. They need to get those pirates switched so that Win 10 doesn’t end up another fail, so what they need to do is offer Win 10 Home at a cheap enough price to make piracy simply not worth the effort.
“All they need to do is offer Windows 10 Home for $25, or $50 for a triple pack…that’s it.”
Many people won’t even pay $5 to get a legal copy.
So that is why Valve is bankrupt? Oh wait, they have doubled their revenue 7 years in a row. What about netflix, are they under because of all the pirate video sites? Nope they are making money hand over fist.
There is gonna be a small group that never pays a dime for anything, that group is already lost. The group you need to worry about is the group that would pay if the price was right because THAT is the larger of the two and you actually can convert those to paying customers, again look at Steam.
In my area the year that MSFT sold Win 7 Home for $50? Piracy all but dried up, it just wasn’t worth the effort when they could get a legit boxed edition for $50, the second that they went back up to $100+ my local Craigslist was filled with Win 7 Ultimate running on $50 computers, as was every flea market and swap meet. As Steam and Netflix have shown there IS a price point where you will grab the most money off the table, and $100+ USD for Home? Ain’t it by a long shot.
MSFT has never made more than a few percentage points off of those upgrading home systems anyway, so to be greedy in this market, where you can just go to TPB or grab a Chromebook? Its not just stupid, its downright suicidal.
“So that is why Valve is bankrupt? Oh wait, they have doubled their revenue 7 years in a row. What about netflix, are they under because of all the pirate video sites? Nope they are making money hand over fist.”
Another poster who assumes everybody is a middle class American geek.
In many places $15 is still considered a substantial amount of money. [A senior high school teacher in India ears about USD300 per month.]
The vast marity of people have never bought a copy of Windows (it was bundeled with thir computer). They are not going to take lightly to paying for something that was always “free”.
I have Windows 7 on my laptop (dual boot Linux) and I can assure you I won’t pay $1 for Windows 10.
Bought 2 OEM copies of Win 7 Pro x64 for an Atom 330 and a E350. Each for $40. Full worth the price. Not going to “upgrade” to Win 10 since these boxes works perfectly the way they are. My old C7 is still running under Win XP without a fail.
What are the main improvements that requires “upgrade” ? A new theme (Luna -> Aero -> Metro) ? No way guys…
Have you tried the Insider Preview of Windows 10? Even in preview state, I’m already starting to like it better than 7 on a day to day basis. There are some broken bits, of course; it’s beta (or still pre-beta?) after all. But it’s a hell of a lot faster than 7, fixes some legacy issues 7 brought over from XP (on 7, enter a folder, leave it, and then try to delete it, chances are you can’t because it’s still using the desktop.ini file; on 10 preview it doesn’t happen), and overall seems more in line with what I expect from a good desktop OS.
Cortana is interesting but still gimmicky right now. The notifications feature is really nice, and Task View is done well; those may be rip-offs of recent OS X features but at least they are also improvements over Apple’s attempts. The Start menu feels right, and is what we should have had in 8/8.1 instead of a workflow-breaking jump to a completely out of place start screen.
I definitely don’t like associating my Live account with my PC account; I realize this is part of Microsoft’s grand plan and it works great in some specific use cases, but generally I like for my PC to be a silo, separate from my online personas. I don’t mind personas on my mobile device so much, I just wish it were easier in Windows 10 (and 8.1 for that matter) to use the OS without signing in everywhere.
But all in all, 10 feels like the natural evolution from 7 that 8/8.1 never was. I suggest giving the preview a shot before dismissing 10 out of hand, you might be pleasantly surprised.
@Morgan
Does Win10 take entire minutes to do updates, like every Windows version since Vista? We were promised a faster update in Win8.x, but it’s even slower than Win7’s.
Edited 2015-05-17 23:40 UTC
It seems pretty fast compared to previous Windows versions. Granted, it’s still pre-release software so things could change, but so far I’ve seen in-place updates (those not requiring a reboot) install much faster than on Windows 7. Of course, I’ve also seen the update manager crash repeatedly mid-update, so it’s difficult to give any real comparison until RTM.
Be aware of the Windows 10 nagscreen. It probably has already found it’s way into your computer (KB3035583).
Since Microsoft has been suspiciously silent about the nature of that particular update, we can’t know whether the users of Windows 7 Extreme Edition will find themselves pelted by nagscreens saying something like: Microsoft wants to liberate you from those evil counterfeiters and give you an upgrade to Windows 10, for the low price of X dollars. Upgrade now, operators are standing by, limited time offer!
What the hell is a “Non-Genuine state”?
Hi,
I assume it’s where you haven’t entered a valid “Windows product key” (e.g. the 20+ random characters on the CD or stuck to the computer’s case), and Windows whines about it periodically.
– Brendan
Either that or a PC that’s not Windows certified and locked to Windows only.
There is KMSpico and that is not stoppable without making Windows Enterprise unusable.
Microsoft seems to have change but have they? This Windows as a service thing is a joke – it’s just rolling fat releases with minor version numbering instead of major version numbering.
Still 90’s thinking.
It’s like that South Park song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yADrtfAmLTo
Free Windows is one of those pink flying unicorns that you might think are real during a dream when dozing off after a few barrels of salvator doppelbock – nice and lovely and joyful and magic and whatnot, until you wake up and laugh your ass of of the whole idiotic idea.
I put my bet on skeptical comments on the March 18 news.[1] How can I cash in?
[1] Especially this one: http://www.osnews.com/thread?607321
I thought the “free” offer was valid for China only.
Everytime I look at chinese government (and also corean for that matter) I really think they are actually thinking with their heads not their wallets.
Investing in their own version of Ubuntu (yes officially supported by chinese government) can be nothing more than beneficial.
Actually if I recall, they used to have a Government sponsored version of Red Hat (Called Red Flag). Microsoft made Windows so cheap there to try to prevent such madness….
Frankly, it would have been smarter for Microsoft to just give Windows 10 away for free to anyone who wants it, including pirates. Let’s face it, Microsoft doesn’t make any money off of Windows; Office is its cash cow. Giving Windows away makes a lot of sense because presumeably all copies of Windows in operation would then be receiving security patches and updates which would minimize versions that have been pirated and modified surrupticiously to be spam bots or directed to other nefarious uses. It will be only a matter of time before pirates figure out how to circumvent Windows 10 activation features and modify the OS to continue their malicious plans.
Have they done this with Windows 8? I remember it getting to a point where pirating Windows just wasn’t worth the hassle anymore, thanks to WGA. Even if you did manage to get a pirated copy that was ‘genuine’, there was never any guarantee it would stay that way.
Gather it’s easier to pirate now and you’d think they’d just let anyone who wants 10 and not care either way. Suppose, perhaps, any monies from windows will come from the ‘tax’ on new machines and if they allow anyone to have 10 on demand then maybe builder will have less incentive to pre-install.
Yep they use volume license keys, same as with Windows 7. MSFT can’t block it because it would screw up tens of thousands of OEM installs. Look up “Windows (insert 7 or 8 or 8.1) all versions pre-activated” on TPB if you want to see for yourself.
Not really, Microsoft still makes a boatload of money off windows. That’s why they’re screwed in the long term, they’re stuck in a Faustian bargain.
Microsoft does not make enough money from Windows and it’s not that their entire existence rely on it. There are so many technologies raised under their umbrella that give it way more money than this but let’s not forget about OEMs.
They just love to sell you a shiny computer with their unique essence installed (for more money). Keeping it up to date and supported is no easy business.
Even if Microsoft might go for a “core” edition that will only receive updates for most critical issues OEM flavours will make this task difficult enough.
Problem is we live in a world where people don’t regularly update their software (even companies for that matter).
Look at Google not giving any wits about OEM Android updates and how good it is doing in the mobile segment.
“Remember, it’s still Windows!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-2C2gb6ws8
I’m glad Microsoft is thinking of the botnets. Someone’s gotta think about the botnets.
Microsoft already said a couple of months ago that non-genuine users would be able to upgrade to 10 for free, but would remain non-genuine. All they’ve done is clarify a little what that means, and all of a sudden half the news sites are saying they have ‘backtracked’ on the statement about pirated users being able to upgrade.
Yes, the line I’ve heard is for pirated versions can be upgraded to Windows 10 but will stay as none genuine. They will pay for a CD-Key to become genuine. Since Microsoft was still doing this, and not offer Windows as a freeware, Linux on the desktop is still very relevant.
Yes, it could somehow stop Linux on the deskop even more if Microsoft will offer Windows free.