Renzatic on 3/6/2015 at 12:52
You can choose how close to the cutting edge you want to be from the settings menu by selecting which upgrade ring you want to hop onto. Like the Windows Insider program will still continue even after Win10's official release. People on that get access to the fastest upgrade ring, which gives them the latest and greatest untested, straight from MS. They're perpetual beta testers. After that, you have the fast and slow rings, each one representing a different level of testing. Being on fast sends you patches and updates that passed muster from the Windows Insider people, and slow are for updates that have been run through the ringer, and guaranteed to work worry free (or as close to it as MS can get). On top of that, you can queue up patches, or even opt out of them entirely.
It's not all that different than things are now, really. Just a little more efficient and piecemeal. Really big updates, ones that add more hardware support or big new features, come to you in fancy named releases that get sent down the pipe about once a year. Like there's one already planned for 2016 called Redstone that'll do a bunch of something or others. They're bigger than the usual patches, but not quite as big as the old version number bumps.
When you get right down to it, Windows is a lot more like Linux now. Instead of a big flurry of changes that get foisted on you all at once, it all gets slowly refined over time.
Quote Posted by bob_doe_nz
So what happens to your old serial key for your current Windows installation?
Is is permanently disabled? What if I don't like Windows 10 and want to downgrade?
I don't know the official stance on it, but from my experiences, your old keys still work.
Tony_Tarantula on 3/6/2015 at 14:06
If anyone's done it I'd love to hear what they have to say about performance. My secondary(note taking) laptop is very underpowered, as it was bought for note taking/excel and not that much else. I am still keen on Cortana and the interface changes.
However folks I'd also fight like hell to stay on Windows 7 if you're doing any kind of security-sensitive work. Windows 8 is full of deliberately designed security holes designed to support Microsoft's TPM(and allow backdoor NSA access). Some of those are known to hackers and if you work in a field like law, consulting, or finance it's a non-trivial risk.
Stingm on 9/6/2015 at 20:11
Well I have never gotten a new windows os before its been out at least a year for bug fixes. But I got the windows 10 icon on my laptop and after reading these posts, I reserved my copy. As long as my games work I'm a happy camper. Thanks for the information everyone.
bjack on 9/6/2015 at 20:45
There has been a big shift in how software works over the past few years. Companies like Microsoft really hate it when you buy a hard copy of MS Office and use it for 10 years without paying them any more money. By using an older version, you run the risk of bugs, security holes, planned obsolescence, etc. Try sending out an IT resume in *.doc format. That will date you quite a bit. MS really does not like providing updates to things like Office 2003 to enable it to create docx, etc. Other vendors don't dig people burning CDs or DVDs and "sharing" unlock keys.
As most of you know, MS is really pushing subscription-ware, such as Office 365. It costs you about $100 for a year, but every year you get the latest greatest. In the old days, you would spend $300 for Office that would be obsolete in 3 years or so. So what really is the difference between paying $300 up front for 3 years of product, or $300 over 3 years for a subscription? Well, I am one of those clowns that likes to "own" my software and have disks for it. I do not enjoy having to be connected to a cloud just to make my system function, or at least have functionality reduced when I am disconnected.
Try to buy hard copies of anything anymore. Nearly everything is a download and much of it is now timeout-ware. They want to get you on the comeback. ;)
Otherwise, Win10 is an advancement over Win8. If you are using Win7 though, I would not bother upgrading, unless you get a new hard drive and keep the old one just in case. Also, if you do run older software and are happy, why change? Unless there are some new features that are must haves in Win10, or some wiz-bang software comes out that only runs on 10, there is no compelling reason to switch yet - other than to just do it for fun. That is your call.
For me, I will probably buy a second drive, install Win7, then upgrade that new drive. My Win7 system has cold swap trays, so no biggie. I'm already running Ubuntu and Win7 on it, so what's another OS?
Renzatic on 9/6/2015 at 21:00
Quote Posted by bjack
As most of you know, MS is really pushing subscription-ware, such as Office 365. It costs you about $100 for a year, but every year you get the latest greatest. In the old days, you would spend $300 for Office that would be obsolete in 3 years or so. So what really is the difference between paying $300 up front for 3 years of product, or $300 over 3 years for a subscription? Well, I am one of those clowns that likes to "own" my software and have disks for it. I do not enjoy having to be connected to a cloud just to make my system function, or at least have functionality reduced when I am disconnected.
I prefer to think of Office 365 less as me paying $10 a month for Word and Excel, more me paying $10 a month for beaucoup tons of online storage, with Office thrown in as an added bonus.
bjack on 10/6/2015 at 01:03
How secure is that storage though? A 1 TB drive is only about $45 in the states on sale. Granted it is only a 5400 RPM SATA drive, but that is not shabby. I guess you can argue though that the online storage is available for more than just one machine. It can be a bitch to lug around a USB hard disk while traveling (let alone a SATA drive with no enclosure), but then who really needs a TB on the road? It must be that I am really old fashioned. I like my music on physical disks (vinyl or CD) and data on hard drives, CDs, DVDs, and thumb drives. If I get bored with what I am carrying, I turn on the local radio to see what is popular. That is so 8 years ago, I know... :cheeky:
Renzatic on 10/6/2015 at 01:39
I've got a 3TB USB 3.0 external drive for about $110 last week. Still, as bad as my experiences with harddrives have been, I like having everything backed up in more than one place. Hell, you should see all the thumbdrives I have. :P
Plus I have the added bonus of being able to send people a lot of large files, and, like you said, access them from anywhere I want. It comes in surprisingly handy.
faetal on 10/6/2015 at 05:10
The mild concern is whether or not Microsoft will start to slowly move the fader up on prices once people have transitioned to subscription software. For now I don't mind it though.
Renzatic on 10/6/2015 at 06:24
That's the general concern about this whole software as a service movement. Right now, I'm getting Photoshop for $10 a month. That's pretty cheap. But what's to stop them from jacking up the price a year from now? And the worst thing is, there's nothing anyone can do except pay it if they want to continue working as usual. Unlike Office, nothing else can open up a PSD files entirely intact.
In some ways, you're held hostage to their ongoing good will.
heywood on 10/6/2015 at 11:08
With Microsoft, I'm not as worried about the good will as the execution. Like when Office 2007 came out and it was full of bugs and backwards compatibility problems. It took about two years and two service packs before I was willing to move up from 2003. Windows XP was a disaster at the start, but eventually became a good OS. Vista never did.
