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Full disclosure: I work at Microsoft but outside of Windows. > poor upgrade/reinstall behavior resulting in lost licenses I have never experienced this. If yo
by mynameisvlad 11y ago
Full disclosure: I work at Microsoft but outside of Windows.
> poor upgrade/reinstall behavior resulting in lost licenses
I have never experienced this. If you bought Windows 10 straight up (or your computer came with one) then you have a product key you can use, just like before. If you upgraded from 7/8 or are in the Insider Program, then you get a digital entitlement to your Microsoft account which gets restored automatically when you next sign on. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/activation-in-windows-10 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/activation-in-...
> overly complicated licensing structure
There are two editions for consumers: Home, and Pro. With the differentiator being fairly clear from the name alone (home is for home users, pro gives you things you aren't going to ever use at home but might at work, like AD join). There are other editions like Enterprise and Education, but an end user will never even see them.
> forced integration of unrelated products
Cortana is a part of Windows. It started as a Windows Phone feature, and got brought over to desktop. There's nothing unrelated about it. Bing is integrated to Cortana because that's the backend powering it. It's like how Ok Google uses Google on Android. Using a third party provider would not give nearly the amount of insight it currently has, since the two teams can work together to improve results and the overall experience.
> integration of advertising into the OS (lockscreen and wallpapers)
Spotlight has shown one ad that I am aware of (Tomb Raider). Otherwise, it gives you curated images rotated every so often. Your wallpaper does not change, that is not a feature of Spotlight. It's also completely disableable; you just set your own image.
- tdkl 11y ago> It's also completely disableable How about being opt-in? Can we please just give you money and have a edition of Windows 10 LTSB for consumers where you don't have to wrestle with all this crap? Also will this "surprise motherfucker" style of updates continue when the free update period runs out in July 2016 and MS starts charging money? Because if it won't, get prepared for some heavy legal action.
- mynameisvlad 11y agoI believe Windows 8 introduced the group policy to set a default lock screen image (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/whats-new/windows-spotlight https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/whats-new/...). Since Enterprise is the only LTSB SKU, I would assume some sort of group policy is also being deployed. Wouldn't be too hard to set that policy up, which disables Spotlight automatically.
- cm2187 11y agoAnd ads in the start menu http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-disable-windows-10-start-menu-ads/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-disable-windows-10-start... Why would I want this in a software I am paying for? Particularly the Pro version!
- jzwinck 11y agoI upgraded three computers to Windows 10 a few months ago. One each from Vista, 7, and 8. All three had showstopper problems. One would never again resume from sleep and had to be downgraded (HP laptop). One encountered a permanent boot error on the second boot into 10, and had to be completely wiped to make it work (Lenovo desktop, only a year old). And the third required purchase of a new graphics card, because acceleration which worked in Win7 does not work in Win10 if you have older Intel integrated graphics. These free upgrades cost me about 15 hours of lost time, $80 in hardware, and a lot of goodwill. Or I guess I should say, two upgrades, since one had to be undone.