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Only for end-users with OEM licences, and only limited amount (10 licenses max? Or so). For corporate and government, it was not free. And these are where the

• usrusr 5y ago
  But aren't those usually on a subscription anyways? Could still be a factor, in theory: they might pull an Oracle pushing all their subscribers onto 11 unless they upgrade to the golden account tier that still receives updates. They actually did this, I think, with 7, but I assume not at a scale that could bring the pattern anywhere close to being a central motivation.
  • vetinari 5y ago
    They are mostly on subscription; but what is the rationale for subscription? The right to upgrade, and the ability to have all machines running the same version. Remember, that in order for subscription license to be valid, it is usable only for machine that came with OEM license in the first place. I once worked for a corp that didn't have subscription. The rationale was, that is was not important who was running which version at their computer, and the subscription was thus a cost on top of OEM license that didn't bring any value. Since the computers were refreshed every 4-5 years anyway, they always had a supported Windows version.