13 ms·

The final Windows 10 free upgrade nag will be full-screen

45 points by rosstex 10y ago

kijin 10y ago
I hope the "Do not notify my again" option really does what it says this time. Unfortunately, I doubt that Microsoft will simply stop nagging people after July 29. They'll either extend the free upgrade indefinitely, or change the pop-ups to read something like "Limited time offer, 80% off!"
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  Not to mention the trickery of putting it on the other side of the screen, in low-contrast text. Purple on purple? MS has no decency or plausible deniability here. They want to remove the end user's choice and rely upon trickery.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  Not to mention the trickery of putting it on the other side of the screen, in low-contrast text. Purple on purple? MS has no decency or plausible deniability here. They want to remove the end user's choice and rely upon trickery.
Kristine1975 10y ago
Microsoft must be really desperate.
dcw303 10y ago
They're going about this the wrong way. The little use my Windows 7 PC gets is for games. I have zero incentive to upgrade to Windows 10 as everything still works fine. They should take their win10 advertising budget and throw it at a popular games studio to make an exclusive for the new OS. That'll have a much bigger impact on conversions.
- ferbivore 10y ago
  Please never say that again. It's bad enough that all the Xbox ports are Windows 10 exclusive.
  - masklinn 10y ago
    AoE3 outright refused to install on Windows 2000, required WXP. Put me off for a long time (though turned out I hated AoE3 when I tried it).
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      I seem to recall Just Cause 2 required either Vista or W7.
- MrFlynn 10y ago
  I think Microsoft Studios announced somewhat recently that all future games would come to Windows 10.
- kbwt 10y ago
  Microsoft had a deal with Motiga to make Gigantic a Window 10 exclusive. It backfired big time with the community when a lot of Alpha/Beta testers refused to switch away from Windows 7. They ended up signing a new deal with Perfect World Entertainment and Gigantic will now not be a Windows 10 exclusive after all. The two most recent blog posts at https://www.motiga.com/ https://www.motiga.com/ show a nice contrast: https://www.motiga.com/blog/studio/motiga-announces-microsoft-partnership https://www.motiga.com/blog/studio/motiga-announces-microsof... https://www.motiga.com/blog/studio/perfect-world-partners-with-gigantic https://www.motiga.com/blog/studio/perfect-world-partners-wi...
- ladzoppelin 10y ago
  The problem is Apple does the exact same thing if not more frequently. So what options do you really have. Ubuntu, which is good but not sure if runs the games you need. Keep in mind Windows 10 is a better operating system than Windows 7.(SSD, filesystem, Hyperv, and soon WLS) I can see how the upgrade window is aggressive but this is the last version of Windows.
malka 10y ago
Well, I guess Microsoft does not have any more consumer trust to lose, so they may as well go at full speed to try and promote Win10 that way.
intoverflow2 10y ago
Wondering what Windows 7 users are going to be using 4 years from now.... can't hold back the flood forever so not sure why they're still so insistent about it when MS has made their intentions so clear.
- CSDude 10y ago
  My father still uses winxp laptop to play dosbox games so I think people will be fine.
- jon-wood 10y ago
  They'll be using ever more malware infested Windows 7 installs.
- quickben 10y ago
  What is this urge to tell people what to do with their time and money?
- majani 10y ago
  I'll hold back for as long as my computer does everything I need it to do with no trouble. These forced upgrades is how arbitrary obsolescence is implemented.
- ManlyBread 10y ago
  My plan is Win8.1
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
kyriakos 10y ago
I think for Microsoft the cost of maintaining old releases outweighs the backfire caused by the forced upgrades.
- dsfyu404ed 10y ago
  This. As painful as it may be in the short term it will be beneficial in the long term. What MS is desparatly trying to avoid is having a critical mass of users who stick with win7 from here on out like what happened with XP. After dealing with that for years they want to cut off the appendix before it makes them sick this time around and who can blame them. When some big 0day hits 7 all those consumers and small/medium businesses who turned a surprise win10 upgrade into "well we may as well go with 10 on everything at this point" will probably stop complaining.
  - pdkl95 10y ago
    Microsoft's can wish that everybody updated to the current version, but fantasies that aren't based in reality usually remain a fantasy. There are a large variety of reasons to not upgrade, or upgrade later. Pretending these use cases don't exist or that they should ignore their own requirements just because Microsoft (or any other vendor) would find it convenient is a demonstration of how little they care about their users. This push to force everyone into a monoculture has been so successful (lol), it has increased[1] the market share of Windows 7*. > who can blame them Their customers that expected a well engineered product, but are instead handed an ultimatum to accept new features, new bugs, new incompatibilities, and an order to upgrade at the vendor's convenience. The point is to server the customer's needs, not the vendor's convenience. [1] https://www.netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=11&qpaf=&qpcustom=Windows+7&qpcustomb=0&qpsp=207&qpnp=3&qptimeframe=M https://www.netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=11&qpaf=&qp...
    - uola 10y ago
      The market is going towards increased sophistication and incremental updates for operating systems. At the same time you have to be able to compete with low cost or free alternatives. Pretending that you can do that, without limiting the number of versions you have to maintain, is worse in the long-term.
bane 10y ago
I'd actually love to be able to upgrade, but I use Windows 7 as a Virtualbox guest and all I get when I try to upgrade is "Unfortunately, this PC is unable to run Windows 10" due to the VirtualBox Graphics Adapter. I've gotten Win10 to install by forcing it a couple of times, but it runs like a dog and the guest extension don't seem to work.
- TorKlingberg 10y ago
  I run a Windows 10 guest in Virtualbox and it works fine. Well, about as fine as I expect from desktops in Virtualbox.
  - bane 10y ago
    Was it an upgrade from 7 or a new install? 7 works fantastic (been using it for a couple years). My brief experience with 10 as a guest was that VB was not ready for it and it was a buggy mess, screen glitches, couldn't get guest additions to support native resolutions, etc.
    - TorKlingberg 10y ago
      It was a new install. You have to tell Virtualbox which OS it is going to run, though I am not sure what it does differently. It seems you can change the setting afterwards. You may just have bad luck. It always takes me a day to get Virtualbox running correctly on a new PC, no matter how many times I have done it in the past.
frou_dh 10y ago
It's interesting that the big update to W10 ("Redstone") arrives a couple of days after the free offer ends. Perhaps they want the last minute rush of cajoled upgraders to be greeted with a known stable version, rather than the latest and greatest which could have issues to shake out.
- kyriakos 10y ago
  running a redstone insider build on my laptop right now. it seems more stable than their release branch and a lot of the UI inconsistencies were fixed. of course I cannot speak for every PC out there but I know of cases with the current stable build not working on some PCs which means that one is not a stability monster either. they should have either extended the free upgrade offer for a month or released Redstone earlier. it doesn't make sense to make someone upgrade today and then force them to re-upgrade to redstone a few days later.
- Lorkki 10y ago
  Or maybe it's just that maintaining the direct upgrade from Windows 7 is only going to be a bigger expense as the platforms diverge. I wouldn't be too surprised if they planned to retire that path completely and force people to install Windows 10 from scratch in the future.
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  The timing was originally intended to coincide (the version tag is 1607 as in this month), but was pushed back a bit. My impression is that they probably would have loved some of the upgraders to skip right along to the "Anniversary Update". (Running Insider Preview builds on one of my machines, it is a good polish update for Windows 10 in most ways.)
abricot 10y ago
Have they announced the price for upgrading after the deadline?
- bdz 10y ago
  £99/€135/$119 for Windows 10 Home or £190 for Windows 10 Pro.
TheRealDunkirk 10y ago
So if I've upgraded, and then downgraded (twice!), will Microsoft remember, and let me upgrade later, when 7 goes off support?
clarry 10y ago
I recently bought a Thinkpad with W7 Pro. I have no real use for Windows right now, and I'm thinking of wiping that disk to install a BSD on it. But things change, and I if I'm lucky, I may (have to) do a little bit of software development (porting at least) for Windows in a year or two. Most likely people will want Windows 10 support at that point. In my situation, would you recommend upgrading? EDIT: I've considered using a VM for Windows, but I don't know if it'll be painfully slow. And I'm not sure if I can get a copy of Windows for that purpose free of charge.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  Yup. Get the upgrade. Even if you uninstall immediately once you see Windows 10 is activated, getting the free upgrade now entitles your hardware to it for life. And UWP development does require Windows 10.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  I would recommend a VM, which is what I do for all systems I need to develop for but not use as my everyday system.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    Note that VMs often will not get the necessary IDs to entitle the PC itself to the upgrade. Switching between a VM and bare metal will change the entitlement as Microsoft sees it, and I'm not totally sure entitlements will work on VMs at all. Just in case, I'd upgrade the PC itself, even if you do it with a spare hard drive or something.
    - StavrosK 10y ago
      Hmm, you're right, I'm not sure what will happen to the license itself. It's just what I do when I need to develop for systems that I won't use for other things.

45 points by rosstex 10y ago

kijin 10y ago

I hope the "Do not notify my again" option really does what it says this time. Unfortunately, I doubt that Microsoft will simply stop nagging people after July 29. They'll either extend the free upgrade indefinitely, or change the pop-ups to read something like "Limited time offer, 80% off!"

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
MichaelGG 10y ago
Not to mention the trickery of putting it on the other side of the screen, in low-contrast text. Purple on purple? MS has no decency or plausible deniability here. They want to remove the end user's choice and rely upon trickery.
MichaelGG 10y ago
Not to mention the trickery of putting it on the other side of the screen, in low-contrast text. Purple on purple? MS has no decency or plausible deniability here. They want to remove the end user's choice and rely upon trickery.

Kristine1975 10y ago

Microsoft must be really desperate.

dcw303 10y ago

They're going about this the wrong way. The little use my Windows 7 PC gets is for games. I have zero incentive to upgrade to Windows 10 as everything still works fine. They should take their win10 advertising budget and throw it at a popular games studio to make an exclusive for the new OS. That'll have a much bigger impact on conversions.

ferbivore 10y ago
Please never say that again. It's bad enough that all the Xbox ports are Windows 10 exclusive.
- masklinn 10y ago
  AoE3 outright refused to install on Windows 2000, required WXP. Put me off for a long time (though turned out I hated AoE3 when I tried it).
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    I seem to recall Just Cause 2 required either Vista or W7.
MrFlynn 10y ago
I think Microsoft Studios announced somewhat recently that all future games would come to Windows 10.
kbwt 10y ago
Microsoft had a deal with Motiga to make Gigantic a Window 10 exclusive. It backfired big time with the community when a lot of Alpha/Beta testers refused to switch away from Windows 7. They ended up signing a new deal with Perfect World Entertainment and Gigantic will now not be a Windows 10 exclusive after all. The two most recent blog posts at https://www.motiga.com/ https://www.motiga.com/ show a nice contrast: https://www.motiga.com/blog/studio/motiga-announces-microsoft-partnership https://www.motiga.com/blog/studio/motiga-announces-microsof... https://www.motiga.com/blog/studio/perfect-world-partners-with-gigantic https://www.motiga.com/blog/studio/perfect-world-partners-wi...
ladzoppelin 10y ago
The problem is Apple does the exact same thing if not more frequently. So what options do you really have. Ubuntu, which is good but not sure if runs the games you need. Keep in mind Windows 10 is a better operating system than Windows 7.(SSD, filesystem, Hyperv, and soon WLS) I can see how the upgrade window is aggressive but this is the last version of Windows.

malka 10y ago

Well, I guess Microsoft does not have any more consumer trust to lose, so they may as well go at full speed to try and promote Win10 that way.

intoverflow2 10y ago

Wondering what Windows 7 users are going to be using 4 years from now.... can't hold back the flood forever so not sure why they're still so insistent about it when MS has made their intentions so clear.

CSDude 10y ago
My father still uses winxp laptop to play dosbox games so I think people will be fine.
jon-wood 10y ago
They'll be using ever more malware infested Windows 7 installs.
quickben 10y ago
What is this urge to tell people what to do with their time and money?
majani 10y ago
I'll hold back for as long as my computer does everything I need it to do with no trouble. These forced upgrades is how arbitrary obsolescence is implemented.
ManlyBread 10y ago
My plan is Win8.1
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

kyriakos 10y ago

I think for Microsoft the cost of maintaining old releases outweighs the backfire caused by the forced upgrades.

dsfyu404ed 10y ago
This. As painful as it may be in the short term it will be beneficial in the long term. What MS is desparatly trying to avoid is having a critical mass of users who stick with win7 from here on out like what happened with XP. After dealing with that for years they want to cut off the appendix before it makes them sick this time around and who can blame them. When some big 0day hits 7 all those consumers and small/medium businesses who turned a surprise win10 upgrade into "well we may as well go with 10 on everything at this point" will probably stop complaining.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  Microsoft's can wish that everybody updated to the current version, but fantasies that aren't based in reality usually remain a fantasy. There are a large variety of reasons to not upgrade, or upgrade later. Pretending these use cases don't exist or that they should ignore their own requirements just because Microsoft (or any other vendor) would find it convenient is a demonstration of how little they care about their users. This push to force everyone into a monoculture has been so successful (lol), it has increased[1] the market share of Windows 7*. > who can blame them Their customers that expected a well engineered product, but are instead handed an ultimatum to accept new features, new bugs, new incompatibilities, and an order to upgrade at the vendor's convenience. The point is to server the customer's needs, not the vendor's convenience. [1] https://www.netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=11&qpaf=&qpcustom=Windows+7&qpcustomb=0&qpsp=207&qpnp=3&qptimeframe=M https://www.netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=11&qpaf=&qp...
  - uola 10y ago
    The market is going towards increased sophistication and incremental updates for operating systems. At the same time you have to be able to compete with low cost or free alternatives. Pretending that you can do that, without limiting the number of versions you have to maintain, is worse in the long-term.

bane 10y ago

I'd actually love to be able to upgrade, but I use Windows 7 as a Virtualbox guest and all I get when I try to upgrade is "Unfortunately, this PC is unable to run Windows 10" due to the VirtualBox Graphics Adapter. I've gotten Win10 to install by forcing it a couple of times, but it runs like a dog and the guest extension don't seem to work.

TorKlingberg 10y ago
I run a Windows 10 guest in Virtualbox and it works fine. Well, about as fine as I expect from desktops in Virtualbox.
- bane 10y ago
  Was it an upgrade from 7 or a new install? 7 works fantastic (been using it for a couple years). My brief experience with 10 as a guest was that VB was not ready for it and it was a buggy mess, screen glitches, couldn't get guest additions to support native resolutions, etc.
  - TorKlingberg 10y ago
    It was a new install. You have to tell Virtualbox which OS it is going to run, though I am not sure what it does differently. It seems you can change the setting afterwards. You may just have bad luck. It always takes me a day to get Virtualbox running correctly on a new PC, no matter how many times I have done it in the past.

frou_dh 10y ago

It's interesting that the big update to W10 ("Redstone") arrives a couple of days after the free offer ends. Perhaps they want the last minute rush of cajoled upgraders to be greeted with a known stable version, rather than the latest and greatest which could have issues to shake out.

kyriakos 10y ago
running a redstone insider build on my laptop right now. it seems more stable than their release branch and a lot of the UI inconsistencies were fixed. of course I cannot speak for every PC out there but I know of cases with the current stable build not working on some PCs which means that one is not a stability monster either. they should have either extended the free upgrade offer for a month or released Redstone earlier. it doesn't make sense to make someone upgrade today and then force them to re-upgrade to redstone a few days later.
Lorkki 10y ago
Or maybe it's just that maintaining the direct upgrade from Windows 7 is only going to be a bigger expense as the platforms diverge. I wouldn't be too surprised if they planned to retire that path completely and force people to install Windows 10 from scratch in the future.
WorldMaker 10y ago
The timing was originally intended to coincide (the version tag is 1607 as in this month), but was pushed back a bit. My impression is that they probably would have loved some of the upgraders to skip right along to the "Anniversary Update". (Running Insider Preview builds on one of my machines, it is a good polish update for Windows 10 in most ways.)

abricot 10y ago

Have they announced the price for upgrading after the deadline?

bdz 10y ago
£99/€135/$119 for Windows 10 Home or £190 for Windows 10 Pro.

TheRealDunkirk 10y ago

So if I've upgraded, and then downgraded (twice!), will Microsoft remember, and let me upgrade later, when 7 goes off support?

clarry 10y ago

I recently bought a Thinkpad with W7 Pro. I have no real use for Windows right now, and I'm thinking of wiping that disk to install a BSD on it. But things change, and I if I'm lucky, I may (have to) do a little bit of software development (porting at least) for Windows in a year or two. Most likely people will want Windows 10 support at that point. In my situation, would you recommend upgrading? EDIT: I've considered using a VM for Windows, but I don't know if it'll be painfully slow. And I'm not sure if I can get a copy of Windows for that purpose free of charge.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Yup. Get the upgrade. Even if you uninstall immediately once you see Windows 10 is activated, getting the free upgrade now entitles your hardware to it for life. And UWP development does require Windows 10.
StavrosK 10y ago
I would recommend a VM, which is what I do for all systems I need to develop for but not use as my everyday system.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  Note that VMs often will not get the necessary IDs to entitle the PC itself to the upgrade. Switching between a VM and bare metal will change the entitlement as Microsoft sees it, and I'm not totally sure entitlements will work on VMs at all. Just in case, I'd upgrade the PC itself, even if you do it with a spare hard drive or something.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    Hmm, you're right, I'm not sure what will happen to the license itself. It's just what I do when I need to develop for systems that I won't use for other things.