Its official, Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for all Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 computers for a year after its release. Obvious exception is if your computer has outdated hardware/software.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2873214/windows-10-will-be-a-free-upgrade-for-windows-7-and-8-users.html

Apparently Microsoft hasn't decided what to do after that year is up so its still possible that they are going to charge for the upgrade, but in all honesty i don't see them charging anything considering MOST people will just upgrade while its free, so they won't be making much off of it anyway.

While i'm extremely excited for Windows 10, i'm also still a bit nervous since once you upgrade, your stuck with Windows 10 which i may or may not actually like.

So, what is everyone else's take on Windows 10?

Well, i might consider upgrading my windows 95 to 98 but i'm not sure yet, so i'm definately gonna wait a while until stepping over to windows 10 (may take a few years (+-23)).

Its official, Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for all Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 computers for a year after its release. Obvious exception is if your computer has outdated hardware/software.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2873214/windows-10-will-be-a-free-upgrade-for-windows-7-and-8-users.html

Apparently Microsoft hasn't decided what to do after that year is up so its still possible that they are going to charge for the upgrade, but in all honesty i don't see them charging anything considering MOST people will just upgrade while its free, so they won't be making much off of it anyway.

While i'm extremely excited for Windows 10, i'm also still a bit nervous since once you upgrade, your stuck with Windows 10 which i may or may not actually like.

So, what is everyone else's take on Windows 10?

Windows 10 seems like an great improvement over windows 8. I may switch from win7 to windows 10 9 months after release.

they did this, or stupidly cheap upgrades for EVERY windows release so far btw...

they did this, or stupidly cheap upgrades for EVERY windows release so far btw...

 

Right... because paying $100+ for a new OS is "cheap" when you can get other OSs like Linux for free...

Well, i might consider upgrading my windows 95 to 98 but i'm not sure yet, so i'm definately gonna wait a while until stepping over to windows 10 (may take a few years (+-23)).

lmao nice one.

Windows 10 seems like an great improvement over windows 8. I may switch from win7 to windows 10 9 months after release.

Same. I don't feel like installing a potentially buggy OS when i know Windows 7 works perfectly fine. I'm personally just gonna wait a few weeks and let other people install it and see what they have to say.

Not that i expect anything to go wrong, i installed the insider preview on a second HDD and everything worked almost flawlessly - even graphics drivers.

my vista to 7 update was $10...

my 7 to 8 update was $15...

both coz of offers in the "first year" after release of the new OS...

my vista to 7 update was $10...

my 7 to 8 update was $15...

both coz of offers in the "first year" after release of the new OS...

Regardless of the 1 year discount, its still more expensive than free linux OSs.

Well, I've just upgraded to the newest preview build and i'm a bit disappointed.

The new build features Cortana but she doesn't work 80% of the time so shes more of a taskbar space hog than anything else. There doesn't seem to be a way to get rid of her and the search box on the task bar unless you use the small icon option which REALLY sucks.

As for the start menu, it looks like crap in comparison to the original one and now you can't make the menu bigger for some idiotic reason. You also have to hover your mouse over the apps section of the menu and scroll up or down to navigate the menu which may not sound like a bad idea at first but if you use a crap load of apps like i do on my tablet your going to be scrolling through that start menu a lot. All around, its step backward in just about every possible way.

Windows 10 now has a half-ass decent control panel(YAY!) but it feels like it limits you on what you can actually do. I guess the new control panel is OK if your an 80 year old grandma who doesn't know crap about computers, but if your someone who does, this new control panel is a disappointment and a slap in the face.

And last but certainly not least, DIRECTX 12 IS FINALLY HERE - kinda of. While dxdiag reports DirextX 12 being installed, i personally doubt that its the final build that will ship with the final version of Windows 10.

Just for the hell of it, i installed L4D in Windows 10 and i did see a slight increase in FPS which is probably because the OS is lighter on resources than Windows 7.

EDIT: Oh, almost forgot. MS's new web browser engine is also included in the new build. It doesn't play very nice though with some websites just yet. Its slightly faster than the current IE engine.

I didnt expect it to be great, but putting windows 7 aside for a minute, its a improvement on windows 8 right?

I didnt expect it to be great, but putting windows 7 aside for a minute, its a improvement on windows 8 right?

Eh, I wouldn't really know since the only Windows 8 device I have is the HP Stream 7 tablet.

However, Windows 10 does fix some of Microsofts screw-ups that people complained a lot about, like having to navigate through 3 different applications just to change some basic system settings and not having a start menu for desktop users.

Here are some pictures:

New control panel main menu:



New start menu:



New Store app - currently in beta



Full desktop:



The giant search area next to the start button is actually cortona.


 

lol, well it does look "better"

Still seriously lacking though

Theres a whole bunch of things that require multiple app "surfing" (i like to call it) on win 8, that just makes no sense

well, keep trying it, and let us know performance wise how it turns out for you

well, keep trying it, and let us know performance wise how it turns out for you

Well, my ram usage in Windows 10 is 2.5GB while in Windows 7 its 3.5GB, so if you are using a windows 7 computer with 2 or 4GB of ram your going to  see a huge increase in performance without a doubt.

Tried a few more games... almost all of them perform better in Windows 10 than they do in Windows 7 and once the OS releases officially GPU manufacturers will create OS specific drivers that might increase performance even more - but we most likely won't see them until the OS actually releases.

Microsoft has also launched a recovery website for Windows 7 users who accidentally updated to Windows 10. Basically you enter your recovery key and they'll provide you with an ISO that you can use to reinstall the OS.

It looks like Microsoft plans on using Windows Update to offer Windows 10 to Windows 7 and 8 users which makes the whole install process quick and painless.

I bought my laptop almost 2 years ago with Windows 8 and still have that version (even with a lot of reminders for update to W8.1 )

So, when Miscrosoft Released W10 oficially, I'm gonna update W8 to 8.1 and then to 10, a few weeks after of course.

So you will get windows 10 through windows update? If you don't need anything else in order to upgrade thats awesome.

no youll need to install it purposefully, it wont be a "auto" update

The auto updates will just be security fixes and things that are "also" in win 10, so youll need to chose to install win 10 itself yourself