Full Windows 10 - Free [microsoft.com]

Allyall

Seems it's not going to be free from fresh install after all. It's not yet clear if it was a mistake, or if MS have decided it has the potential to lose them a bucketload of cash.
From the blog:

Microsoft have updated their announcement to explain that this concerned only those with Windows 7 / 8.1 official license. It is therefore not possible to obtain a license by passing through the Insider program.

Clarification on the update of Microsoft's announcement:
In defense of Devhunt, originally in the post from his blog, Gabe said well "As long as you are running an Insider Preview build and connected with the MSA you used to register, you will receive Windows 10 final release build and REMAIN activated " but this has now been corrected and" REMAIN activated "has been removed."
____________________

If you have a PC without a Windows license, install the latest beta/tester/preview of Windows, and you can migrate to the full release version for free as a normal purchase.

**This is not about having to upgrade from windows 7/8/8.1/8.7 to Windows 10 (which there is information about in the links) but a free license to Windows 10 without requiring any license before that . **
Terms:
- You must be a member of the "Windows Insider" by installing Windows 10 on your PC
- You must have connected with Microsoft account on the PC in question

Steps:
- Join Windows Insider: https://insider.windows.com/
- Download Windows 10: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ie/windows/preview-iso
- Install Windows 10 as the main OS to the desired PC, not an upgrade but a complete installation.
- Log in with your Microsoft account (the one used to register the Insider program) on Windows 10.

Please note it appears that the validity is linked to the Microsoft account and the PC, so will be valid only on that PC.

Source: http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/06/19/upcoming-changes-to-windows-10-insider-preview-builds/ (Official Microsoft Blog) and http://liliputing.com/2015/06/windows-10-is-a-free-for-anyone-testing-the-insider-preview-builds.html

The license will be a valid LIFETIME licence, once obtained and not just for 1 year.
Normal Windows 10 is not free, it will cost approximately €100 to €150 depending on the version. (Free for those with a license 7/8)
Windows Hacked/Cracked/illegal 7/8 versions can be upgraded to Windows 10, but will not get a valid license and will only be on a trial version of it.

Update: Aul has updated his blog post to clarify that in order to upgrade from a Windows 10 preview to a final build of Windows 10 with a valid, activated Windows license you’ll need to be signed into the same Microsoft Account that you used with Windows 7 or 8.1 when you downloaded the Windows 10 preview ISO to perform a clean install.

That seems to suggest that you can’t just perform a clean insta of a Windows 10 Insider Preview build on a PC that was never running a version of Windows that qualifies for a free upgrade and then get a free uograde anyway.

https://twitter.com/gabeaul

long_b

Fair play OP. Spent about an hour last night reading opinions about this last night.

You know it's Microsoft when you can't understand the licencing conditions.

There was a misunderstanding a few months ago where a Microsoft employee hinted that Windows 10 legitimise any non genuine Windows install into a fully genuine copy but that rumour was debunked.

imitation

Its gonna bit a busy few weeks then, installing Windows 10 on my collection of Junk PC's with XP and Linux licenses !

vectra

Hmm.
I have an older Acer laptop that a family member bought a few years ago.
It ran Vista but the battery died and it got very slow so she got a new laptop and gave me this one to play around with, trying Linux etc.
I upgraded it to 2gb ram and put a new battery in it.
Installed win 7 and it runs away fine, it is only a spare,
I wonder should I put this on it? Is 10 any heavier / lighter than 7 to run?

Thanks OP.

TheDriver

vectra wrote: »

Hmm.
I have an older Acer laptop that a family member bought a few years ago.
It ran Vista but the battery died and it got very slow so she got a new laptop and gave me this one to play around with, trying Linux etc.
I upgraded it to 2gb ram and put a new battery in it.
Installed win 7 and it runs away fine, it is only a spare,
I wonder should I put this on it? Is 10 any heavier / lighter than 7 to run?

Thanks OP.

If it ain't broke then don't fix it??

coroner29

Nice if it worked but I do not see any mention of that you won't need to buy a licence. It's only saying that you're gonna get a final build. And that's different to "a final build with licence".

Allyall

coroner29 wrote: »

Nice if it worked but I do not see any mention of that you won't need to buy a licence. It's only saying that you're gonna get a final build. And that's different to "a final build with licence".

I updated the OP.

soirish

Download and install the preview only if you

Want to try out software that’s still in development and like sharing your opinion about it.

Don’t mind lots of updates or a UI design that might change significantly over time.

Really know your way around a PC and feel comfortable troubleshooting problems, backing up data, formatting a hard drive, installing an operating system from scratch, or restoring your old one if necessary.

Know what an ISO file is and how to use it.

Aren't installing it on your everyday computer.

Don't think it's suitable for end users.

Slutmonkey57b

Excellent move from MS, it offsets the frankly mental consumer pricing decision.

As posted above though, it shows how bad MS still are at communicating this stuff. Leaving out obvious "what about" questions in the first place now leads to contradicting FUD everywhere.

I'm going to install in a VM and see what happens on 29th.

Simi

Mr.S wrote: »

It's pre-release software, so you'd be a bit silly to rely on it.

That said, i've been using it and have come across no major issues.

I've been using it since last year on both my laptop & desktop. It's been tough going sometimes. Build 10074 got corrupted on both somehow. So I needed to do a fresh install on both (refresh didn't work).

It's still not really stable imo. I'd wait until at least, the next build before switching permanently. Your experience really depends on your hardware configuration. Newer hardware will invariably work better than old. Saying that it's yet to fail to find some sort of working driver for all my components.

Bayberry

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

Excellent move from MS, it offsets the frankly mental consumer pricing decision.

I imagine that a lot of the consumer editions of WIndows are bought by Mac users who need Parallels or Bootcamp to get work done. Ordinary users don't buy Windows, they buy computers with Windows installed, and the tiny share of the market that is technical people who build their own machines used to buy MSDN licenses or used alternative means of acquiring a license. I imagine that MS has gathered enough information over the years to have a fair idea of what the most efficient price for a consumer license is.

As posted above though, it shows how bad MS still are at communicating this stuff. Leaving out obvious "what about" questions in the first place now leads to contradicting FUD everywhere.

It doesn't matter how clearly MS communicate this stuff (though I agree that this particular issue seems to have been "fluid" for too long). You will have bloggers and self-styled "tech-journalists" interpreting the hell out of anything MS says, and making a balls of it, and the general public will never know what MS actually said. Just look at the confusion over "free for the first 12 months", even though MS were quite explicit about what that meant from the very first announcemnet of that policy.

Bayberry

soirish wrote: »

Don't think it's suitable for end users.

End Users can either upgrade their existing Win7/Win8 machine, after July 29th, or pay for a Win10 license.

This post is for people who have spare hardware lying around that doesn't currently have a Win7 or Win8 license - it says they can get a Win10 license for that machine by enrolling in the Insider program now, and installing the Win10 preview on that hardware before July 29th.

Bayberry

How is this expired?

Never mind, I see that the original post has been updated to indicate that this was just another misundersanding.

chris1970

I have machine that started with Vista, installed a paid for version windows 7 home, then upgraded to the 14.99€ windows 8 offer, two years ago, how much will windows 10 cost me, unclear to weather it's free or not,? Cheers

Bayberry

chris1970 wrote: »

I have machine that started with Vista, installed a paid for version windows 7 home, then upgraded to the 14.99€ windows 8 offer, two years ago, how much will windows 10 cost me, unclear to weather it's free or not,? Cheers

You will be eligible to upgrade your current Windows 8 installation to Windows 10 for free.

If you want to do a clean install, you will have to do the upgrade first, to "activate" the free Win10 license for that machine, and then you should be able to do a start over and do a clean install.

I have absolutely no doubt that there will be hundreds of blogs detailing exactly that experience within hours of Win10 being released

Slutmonkey57b

Bayberry wrote: »

I imagine that a lot of the consumer editions of WIndows are bought by Mac users who need Parallels or Bootcamp to get work done. Ordinary users don't buy Windows, they buy computers with Windows installed, and the tiny share of the market that is technical people who build their own machines used to buy MSDN licenses or used alternative means of acquiring a license. I imagine that MS has gathered enough information over the years to have a fair idea of what the most efficient price for a consumer license is.

It doesn't matter how clearly MS communicate this stuff (though I agree that this particular issue seems to have been "fluid" for too long). You will have bloggers and self-styled "tech-journalists" interpreting the hell out of anything MS says, and making a balls of it, and the general public will never know what MS actually said. Just look at the confusion over "free for the first 12 months", even though MS were quite explicit about what that meant from the very first announcemnet of that policy.

In this case, the spokesdude from Redmond explicitly answered the " fresh install " question with a yes, so there's no interpretation issue on behalf of the bloggers.

Mac users are far too small a market to account for consumer windows sales, even smaller when you account for how many have a requirement to dual boot. The majority will be build your own enthusiasts or manual upgraders. Since the only people upgrading manually are XP/vista users and pirates, the exact demographics Microsoft need to exterminate, their consumer pricing makes no sense.

Inquitus

So in my case I have a valid Win7 install on an Asus laptop, license key but no disks to re-install, it needs a re-install, if I use the ISO I got from this program and do a fresh install of windows 10, will I be all good going forwards or shafted?

Bayberry

Inquitus wrote: »

So in my case I have a valid Win7 install on an Asus laptop, license key but no disks to re-install, it needs a re-install, if I use the ISO I got from this program and do a fresh install of windows 10, will I be all good going forwards or shafted?

Once you upgrade that machine from Windows 7 to WIndows 10, using the upgrade process that Microsoft released through Windows Update, that machine will have a valid Win10 license. At that point, you should be able to do a clean install of Windows 10, by downloading the ISOs from Microsoft.

At this point, though, nobody has done that yet, so that's still (informed) speculation. I expect that you'll get much more specific answers starting on Augus 1st.

vectra

Bayberry wrote: »

Once you upgrade that machine from Windows 7 to WIndows 10, using the upgrade process that Microsoft released through Windows Update, that machine will have a valid Win10 license. At that point, you should be able to do a clean install of Windows 10, by downloading the ISOs from Microsoft.

At this point, though, nobody has done that yet, so that's still (informed) speculation. I expect that you'll get much more specific answers starting on Augus 1st.

I had win7 on an acer laptop
I followed op's instructions and downloaded the iso
Put it on a usb stick and did a fresh install on win 10.
All seems fine so far.

Bayberry

vectra wrote: »

I had win7 on an acer laptop
I followed op's instructions and downloaded the iso
Put it on a usb stick and did a fresh install on win 10.
All seems fine so far.

Did you Upgrade the Windows 7 istallation, or did you do a fresh install of Win10?

You were entitled to a free upgrade from Windows 7 after July 29th already. If you blew that Win7 install away, and replaced it with the Win10 Preview, then you might get a free upgrade to the released version of Windows 10. Or you might not. Nobody seems to actually be sure. If I were you, I'd restore that Windows 7 build, and just wait for July 29th.

There is absolutely NO POINT in installing the preview on a machine that is currently running a valid copy of Windows 7 or Windows 8, unless you desperately want to try out a preview version of Windows 10. Just wait until July 29th and you'll be eligible for a free upgrade (and you have 12 months to decide whether you want to take that free upgrade or not)

If you only have an XP machine, or a Vista machine, or some hardware lying around that doesn't havea Windows license, then installing the preview now might get you a free upgrade to the released version, but there still isn't clear, unequivocal language from Microsoft on that point, just twitter posts from Gabe Aul indicating that all preview builds that are being run with a registered Insider account will get the RTM build on July 29th, and blog posts saying that you won't be licensed to do the upgrade unless you have a Win7 or Win8 license. Many people are assuming this to be a "You can but you may not" kind of situation, where the preview build will upgrade and be activated, but not technically be licensed, but it's hardly surprising that Microsoft isn't confirming that to be the case.

vectra

Bayberry wrote: »

Did you Upgrade the Windows 7 istallation, or did you do a fresh install of Win10?

You were entitled to a free upgrade from Windows 7 after July 29th already. If you blew that Win7 install away, and replaced it with the Win10 Preview, then you might get a free upgrade to the released version of Windows 10. Or you might not. Nobody seems to actually be sure. If I were you, I'd restore that Windows 7 build, and just wait for July 29th.

There is absolutely NO POINT in installing the preview on a machine that is currently running a valid copy of Windows 7 or Windows 8, unless you desperately want to try out a preview version of Windows 10. Just wait until July 29th and you'll be eligible for a free upgrade (and you have 12 months to decide whether you want to take that free upgrade or not)

If you only have an XP machine, or a Vista machine, or some hardware lying around that doesn't havea Windows license, then installing the preview now might get you a free upgrade to the released version, but there still isn't clear, unequivocal language from Microsoft on that point, just twitter posts from Gabe Aul indicating that all preview builds that are being run with a registered Insider account will get the RTM build on July 29th, and blog posts saying that you won't be licensed to do the upgrade unless you have a Win7 or Win8 license. Many people are assuming this to be a "You can but you may not" kind of situation, where the preview build will upgrade and be activated, but not technically be licensed, but it's hardly surprising that Microsoft isn't confirming that to be the case.

I did a fresh install.
It is only a spare laptop I have lying around, I only installed it to get the feel of it as I hated Win 8 and would never had upgraded to it. I would have went linux mint instead or something along those lines.

Bayberry

vectra wrote: »

I did a fresh install.
It is only a spare laptop I have lying around, I only installed it to get the feel of it as I hated Win 8 and would never had upgraded to it. I would have went linux mint instead or something along those lines.

If you like it, you might want to put Win7 back on it, if you can, so that you can get a legit upgrade to Win10 after July 29th.

Unless there's a clear and unequivocal statement from MS about whether Insiders will get a free license for their preview copy.

vectra

Bayberry wrote: »

If you like it, you might want to put Win7 back on it, if you can, so that you can get a legit upgrade to Win10 after July 29th.

Unless there's a clear and unequivocal statement from MS about whether Insiders will get a free license for their preview copy.

It seems a bit nicer than win8 for what I saw of that.
You mean to uninstall now and put win7 back on and wait until July 29th?

Bayberry

vectra wrote: »

It seems a bit nicer than win8 for what I saw of that.
You mean to uninstall now and put win7 back on and wait until July 29th?

I've gone back and re-read some of the various articles covering this issue the weekend. My understanding of the situtaion is if you've registered in the Windows Insider program, and install Windows 10 Preview, and log in to the machine running Win10 Preview with the same Microsoft account that is registered on the Insider program, then the RTM build will download and install on July 29th, and will activate properly. What seems to be the case is that, from a purely legal point of view, whether it's a licensed copy of Windows or not depends on whether you had a valid license for Windows 7 or 8 on that hardware before. It sounds like you did have a copy of Win7, so your copy of Windows 10 will be fully licensed.

The key point is that this "license" is purey a legal thing, it's not linked in any way to whether or not Windows will actually work or not. For an individual home user, licensing is effectively irrelevant - you're not going to be audited. So for a hobbyist who joined the Insider program and is running Win10 Preview in a VM or on an old Vista laptop, their Preview version will upgrade to RTM and wil keep running, though from a purely leaglistic point of view, it won't be properly be licensed ("You can but you may not"). It's unlikely that anyone at Microsoft will officially state that they will be turning a blind eye to these situations, but that's what seems to be the situation.

For a business, on the other hand, there can be substantial penalties for running unlicensed software, so this "technical loophole" doesn't provide a means for a business to either upgrade their own hardware or sell machines that they build with a free Win10 license.

http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-subtly-updates-blog-post-creates-windows-10-licensing-hysteria

http://winbeta.org/news/microsoft-clears-confusion-reaffirms-free-windows-10-insiders

Note that if you have a machine running Windows 7 or 8, there is no need for this ambiguity - just wait until July 29th and you'll be entitled to a Win10 upgrade, free and clear. This whole confused mess is really only relevant for someone who doesn't have a Win7 or Win8 license for the hardware that they want to put Win10 on.

Slutmonkey57b

Which means that somebody in Microsoft needs to have a hard word about why the original blog post was necessary at all, because now the truth is out it's a total non event and affects nobody.

degsie

https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/4257/guys-seriously-pirates-are-still-not-getting-windows-10-for-free

worth a read...

Bayberry

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

Which means that somebody in Microsoft needs to have a hard word about why the original blog post was necessary at all, because now the truth is out it's a total non event and affects nobody.

For better or worse, I can see why nobody at Microsoft is going to come out and say "this is a loophole - because we allowed you to install the Insider Preview from ISOs, we can't tell which PCs running Preview have a pre-existing qulifying license, therefore we're going to let you upgrade your Preview to RTM even if you don't have a qualifying license for it".

The problem isn't with the various blogs and clarifications this week - the problem happened because Micorosft didn't get their act together last October when the first Insider Preview builds rolled out, and specify exactly what Insiders would get for their particpation., or what they would have to do to qualify for a free copy). It doesn't matter what they say now, there'll be howls of outrage from one quarter or another.

Bayberry

degsie wrote: »

https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/4257/guys-seriously-pirates-are-still-not-getting-windows-10-for-free

worth a read...

Typical Thurrott clickbait. Strident headline, and then in the comments he admits that he doesn't actually know what will happen to Preview builds:

Paul Thurrott Mod mjw149 • an hour ago
I don't think so, actually. I think what you're activating is an eval version with a timeout.

imitation

I think its a sign that there is some confusion within Microsoft about how to effectively counter Android and Chrome OS, they have obviously agreed that the free upgrade is the way to go, but I get the impression they are teetering on the brink of making it outright free for consumers with this confusion and with the free upgrade for pirated versions, that is still not "genuine". I guess they are afraid it might impact on the cash cow that is corporate licensing if consumers are getting it for free, and of course the fact they can charge oem builders €100 a go for licenses.

Slutmonkey57b

I think if they don't start cutting the OEM price then their laptop sales are finally going to tank altogether. Chromebooks and tablets are making major inroads into the casual computerphobic market, and enthusiasts aren't being offered reasonable quality laptops at decent prices in the Windows space; stuck with substandard TN screens with miniscule resolution, no SSD and anaemic battery life. Take $75 out of an OEM's costs for Windows and suddenly they'll be able to provide much better quality kit.

Bayberry

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

I think if they don't start cutting the OEM price then their laptop sales are finally going to tank altogether. Chromebooks and tablets are making major inroads into the casual computerphobic market, and enthusiasts aren't being offered reasonable quality laptops at decent prices in the Windows space; stuck with substandard TN screens with miniscule resolution, no SSD and anaemic battery life. Take $75 out of an OEM's costs for Windows and suddenly they'll be able to provide much better quality kit.

??? Windows 8 with Bing has been free for OEMs for about a year now. That's why you can buy a Windows 8 tablet for as little as €100.

And Dell aren't paying $75 for a copy of Windows.