Topic: Windows 10 to be free upgrade for Win7/8 owners

[idolminds]

Lucky you.

Terry Myerson just announced on stage that, for the first year after Windows 10 launches, any device running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, or Windows Phone 8.1 will be able to upgrade to the latest version of MIcrosoft's OS — for free. How exactly this program will work isn't clear just yet — it'll certainly be subject to some hardware requirements, particularly for older machines running Windows 7. But a simplified upgrade path will likely do a lot to help Windows 10 adoption — rather than dealing with a number of different versions of Windows and different upgrade costs, most consumers will simply take this free update and enjoy running Microsoft's latest.

Well, time for me to get a cheap Win8 key.

[W7RE]

Lucky you.

Well, time for me to get a cheap Win8 key.

I'm gonna need one too. I looked around and didn't find anything.

[scottws]

Cool.  I'm using retail Windows 7 at home.

[Quemaqua]

After everything I've read about Windows 10, I want nothing to do with it. Most especially the extreme focus on "Windows as a service". Windows 10 sounds like a shit-ton of bloat that I don't need or want on my system. I'm seriously wondering whether or not I can bite the bullet, give up most of my game library (or at least just dual boot and deal with segregating it), and switch to Linux.

[Cobra951]

After everything I've read about Windows 10, I want nothing to do with it. Most especially the extreme focus on "Windows as a service". Windows 10 sounds like a shit-ton of bloat that I don't need or want on my system. I'm seriously wondering whether or not I can bite the bullet, give up most of my game library (or at least just dual boot and deal with segregating it), and switch to Linux.

I saw this yesterday, and I agree completely.  No way am I on board with turning Windows into a service like Xbox Live. Not only is the user paying constantly for what used to be a product, but he also loses control of his system and much of its contents.  (Don't like a new update we want you to sit through?  Tough shit!  Not even Office will work anymore without it.  Mwahaha!)   Windows 7/8 forever, or time to finally get into Linux.  Bye bye permanently to AAA PC gaming too, since DirectX will be part of what gets held hostage by the new "service".  I'm still using XP on this PC, 8 years after the introduction of Vista, so I'm not a stranger to bucking trends for the long haul.

[scottws]

I'm pretty sure everyone interpreting "service" as "pay monthly" are wrong and it's going to be more like Mac OS X, where it is just constantly updated for free.

People afraid of updates and that refuse to install them are a problem, because such things fix major security issues.  You're more likely to be part of a botnet and used as an attack platform against other targets.  Cobra, you definitely just need to go on to Linux.  You're using an operating system that hasn't had security updates in nearly a year.  I don't know if you ever even finally installed at least SP2 or if you still stubbornly cling to the completely insecure SP1.  If you go to Linux, you'll be able to get something that's modern, secure, and is completely under your control.  Valve's also been making an effort to improve the Linux gaming scene, but it seems like you use the Xbox 360 for gaming anyway.

I'm jumping on Windows 10 pretty much as soon as I can.  It's an improvement over both Windows 7 and 8.1.  There are literally no downsides that I can see, unless it does end up being a for-pay subscription service as some fear.

[Quemaqua]

I'm not afraid of it going for pay, I just don't like the mentality behind it all, and every new feature they've been advertising is utterly worthless to me. I agree with scott in terms of security and such ... it's kind of rough since the computing world is so filled with skullduggery. Nonetheless, I'm having a very hard time justifying the existence of Windows 10. Oh, I know, it's better, blah blah blah ... but it's just continuing to take further steps in a direction I don't want to go. I'll be holding onto Windows 7 likely until it isn't supported or I'm forced to figure something else out. For now it's a moot point as my old system might not tolerate Windows 10 to begin with, or not without issues.

[Cobra951]

I'm pretty sure everyone interpreting "service" as "pay monthly" are wrong and it's going to be more like Mac OS X, where it is just constantly updated for free.

People afraid of updates and that refuse to install them are a problem, because such things fix major security issues.  You're more likely to be part of a botnet and used as an attack platform against other targets.  Cobra, you definitely just need to go on to Linux.  You're using an operating system that hasn't had security updates in nearly a year.  I don't know if you ever even finally installed at least SP2 or if you still stubbornly cling to the completely insecure SP1.  If you go to Linux, you'll be able to get something that's modern, secure, and is completely under your control.  Valve's also been making an effort to improve the Linux gaming scene, but it seems like you use the Xbox 360 for gaming anyway.

I'm jumping on Windows 10 pretty much as soon as I can.  It's an improvement over both Windows 7 and 8.1.  There are literally no downsides that I can see, unless it does end up being a for-pay subscription service as some fear.

I have SP2, and a simple-rule whitelist firewall below the internet protocols (nothing in or out without explicit permission), and NoScript on all my browsing (whitelist-exception script blocking), and I keep tabs on my network traffic.  If anyone is using me as an attack vector, they surely have earned it.  We've had this conversation before.  Thanks for the friendly warning, but this old PC is never seeing another OS.  It's simply not worth it.  It's an RDRAM Intel i850 motherboard with the original P4 slot and pre-PCIe expansion slots and AGP video slot--an absolute dead end.  If I were to spend any money at all on moving forward, it would be something like what I got my mom: an inexpensive 64-bit Windows-7 system with 4-8GB RAM and integrated everything.

I hope you're right about Windows 10.  There are some really intriguing things coming along with it, like integration with and into the Xbox One environment.  There's also that Holo Lens "augmented reality", but that's most likely pie in the sky at this point.

[scottws]

I'm not afraid of it going for pay, I just don't like the mentality behind it all, and every new feature they've been advertising is utterly worthless to me. I agree with scott in terms of security and such ... it's kind of rough since the computing world is so filled with skullduggery. Nonetheless, I'm having a very hard time justifying the existence of Windows 10. Oh, I know, it's better, blah blah blah ... but it's just continuing to take further steps in a direction I don't want to go. I'll be holding onto Windows 7 likely until it isn't supported or I'm forced to figure something else out. For now it's a moot point as my old system might not tolerate Windows 10 to begin with, or not without issues.

If your system runs Windows 7, it should run 10 no problem.  That said, Windows 7 will receive security updates until early 2020 (slightly less that five years from today).

[PyroMenace]

I updated to Windows 8 fairly early and the complaints for it were valid. However now with 8.1, I've been able to avoid a lot of the unnecessary metro UI stuff and even been able to set things up back to where I'm working with it comfortably like Windows 7.

10 doesn't look scary to me, the whole Xbox integration they have been attempting to do for awhile with almost nothing useful coming out of it will probably continue to be useless and for the most part unnoticeable. That Holo lens however looks waaaay too ambitious for its own good, down right crazy with some of the things they were saying. I'll upgrade to 10 when its available and just use it like I do every Windows OS.

[scottws]

Yeah, the hate for Windows 8 is valid, but 8.1 is a great OS.  I still don't like the Start Screen, but instead of searching for program tiles on the screen I just push the Start button and start typing (performing a search) and then hit Enter.  I own a license for Start8 and could install it on my work 8.1 machine if I wanted to, but 8.1 solved basically all of the major 8.0 problems except the Start Screen.

[Cobra951]

I updated to Windows 8 fairly early and the complaints for it were valid. However now with 8.1, I've been able to avoid a lot of the unnecessary metro UI stuff and even been able to set things up back to where I'm working with it comfortably like Windows 7.

10 doesn't look scary to me, the whole Xbox integration they have been attempting to do for awhile with almost nothing useful coming out of it will probably continue to be useless and for the most part unnoticeable. That Holo lens however looks waaaay too ambitious for its own good, down right crazy with some of the things they were saying. I'll upgrade to 10 when its available and just use it like I do every Windows OS.

Well, for Xbox One users, it should not be nothing.  For one thing, you're supposed to be able to stream Xbox games to Windows 10 systems.  I can see a lot of remote connectivity happening here in the future, both ways.  I can already see into my mom's shared folders with the Xbox, and play content directly from there (images, music and video).  Now, if both systems get the same OS and the same universal apps, much more would be possible.

I'm very skeptical about that HoloLens gadget too.  Look how laggy and dodgy Kinect turned out, and that thing is nothing compared to the touted capabilities of this head gear.  I'd love for it to work as promised, though.  That would restore some of my long-dashed illusions about the new century.

[Cobra951]

ArsTechnica gets hands on the HoloLens.  Or should I say head?  It seems like the same demo that Wired got.  That's two reputable publications declaring this thing real.  I so hope it can leave the lab and get practical for consumers.

The tech seems to be more than the typical stereoscopy.  If it involves actual holograms, the visuals should integrate into the real surroundings much better, since it's not just a matter of 3D and position, but viewer focus as well.  They would seem much more real by themselves as well if focal length matches their virtual positions in 3D space.  To go along with this piece, I watched a video earlier where an engineer said it was one of the hardest things he'd ever worked on, because they were smacking into the laws of physics on what can be done with light.  That too sounds like a lot more than stereoscopy.

The sub-title is what I was imagining when I first learned of this thing: "2015: The year that sci-fi becomes real."  That would be awesome.

[W7RE]

I expect something similar to Kinect. It was announced in mid 2009 and no one could believe it was real. Press tried it and said it was real and was amazing. It got into consumers hands and it was barely usable. In late 2013 a more refined and better working version was released (with Xbox One), but for most people is just used for voice. I wouldn't be surprised if it's 3-5 years before we see a consumer version that works right, and it will probably be a little less impressive than what we're seeing now. Of course, by then we'll be used to it being subpar and we'll just be glad it works.

[Cobra951]

I expect something similar to Kinect. It was announced in mid 2009 and no one could believe it was real. Press tried it and said it was real and was amazing. It got into consumers hands and it was barely usable. In late 2013 a more refined and better working version was released (with Xbox One), but for most people is just used for voice. I wouldn't be surprised if it's 3-5 years before we see a consumer version that works right, and it will probably be a little less impressive than what we're seeing now. Of course, by then we'll be used to it being subpar and we'll just be glad it works.

Yeah, Kinect is awful with motion control.  And I don't like talking to machines, so that's that.  I turned it off in the settings, but now I have this blurb permanently plastered on the top-right of the UI screen telling me to turn it on in Settings.  I think I may just pull the plug on it entirely.  I haven't done it already because I keep thinking it may still be of use somehow.  I don't Skype either, and it's in the wrong place for that anyway, because it needs to be at a distance, and I sit less than 2 feet from the screen.

I do hope the Kinect experience has propelled MS engineering forward.  This new gadget has to work much better than that, and be mass-producible for affordability, if they ever expect it to be the next big thing.

Scott,  why did you delete your post?  I've been thinking about replying since I saw it earlier.  Now it's too late to formulate a good answer to such a good question.  I need to go to bed.  What did people in the 60s imagine for the future half a century later, and what could they never possibly have?  As one of those people, I do have some things I'd like to say.  Smiley

Tomorrow!

So, it's tomorrow.  The Age of Tomorrow--that's the kind of hype we'd get in the 60s about the 21st century.  We were supposed to get all these wonders like flying cars and colonies on the sea bottom and on the moon.  2001: A Space Odyssey did a great job of depicting that wild optimism.  Much of it was supposed to be science-fact by now.  This is the kind of stuff I thought about, along with intelligent machines.  At the time, as a kid, I didn't understand that computers have no real intelligence at all.  It's all tiny bits of captured human intelligence, running at breakneck speed, with no possibility of self-awareness.  This awakening-machine fantasy was captured in Odyssey as well, in the form of HAL.


My first computer (programmed to count from 0 to 7, but those movable plastic noodles allowed a variety of simple programs).

And that's the direction I thought computers would take back then.  Always huge, and hugely expensive, but with unlimited potential for growth in intelligence.  It never occurred to me that they would be miniaturized into something with the complexity of a city in the area of a thumbnail.  In the mid-70s, when a college roommate told me that Texas Instruments had built an entire calculator on a single chip, I didn't believe him.  I thought he had to be wrong.  Moving the mind forward from certain hardcoded assumptions is not easy.  They block new possibilities from entering.

Isaac Asimov's positronic brains were too far-flung to attach to imagined future reality in my lifetime.  Imagining VLSI would be necessary to have the possibility of imagining the internet--which makes it unimaginable to the 2nd power.  While iPhones as computers were nowhere on the mental horizons, fully mobile portable picture phones very much were.  Dick Tracy had one on a watch band since decades earlier.

So, you're right, Scott.  I don't think any contemporary of mine could have imagined the state of computer tech this century back in our youth.  There are too many disconnects.  It's amazing we got any predictions right.

[Quemaqua]

I think for me most of this is that I just don't even want any of this fancy "tomorrow technology". It all seems like clutter and waste that won't really add anything to my life, only complicate it. I want efficiency and simplicity in all things, and having to put on holographic glasses just to make use of something that is basically guaranteed to be less efficient than what I normally use is not a pleasing prospect. I have no doubt things like that are almost always going to be super cool when they do what's intended, but they just don't excite me. At all. Especially given that they never work. My vision of tomorrow is one that iterates on today, providing an increased level of tight and functional engineering to accomplish tasks with greater fluidity and elegance. Rarely do we see stuff that comes along to actually accomplish that.

I know, plenty has been done in the past that seemed sci-fi at the time. I get that. And eventually no doubt amazing things will be done with all kinds of crazy interfaces, and certainly they have to start somewhere. But I'd rather wait until it's actually there. I have shit to do and not enough time to monkey around with that kind of thing.

[scottws]

I deleted my earlier post because it was too snarky.  Who am I to question a person who actually grew up in the 60's about what people were thinking in the 60's?

Que, in regards to your post, it reads to me like a "bah humbug" from some stubborn old man and it surprised me.  The Internet and mobile phones were both "tomorrow technology" at one point and they have absolutely revolutionized the lives and businesses of everyone in first and second world countries.  Flight was "tomorrow technology" at one point.

Who knows what discoveries lie in wait for mankind in the future?  I for one am excited for future generations that get to see them unfold.  But we probably need to figure out how to reduce our impact on the Earth or some of those discoveries will never happen.

[Quemaqua]

I know I'm in the minority when I don't stand up and cheer for the relentless march of progress like everyone else, but yes, I'm very much like an old man in that regard. Just because I'm young doesn't make people any more trustworthy with an overabundance of power. I don't trust a lot of technological advancement and I think most of it is taking us to worse places, not better. Cell phones are useful, but I hate them and the effect they've had on society. Just because something is "revolutionary" doesn't mean the quality of its effects aren't debatable. Given humanity's proclivities, I don't see the god of progress bestowing sci-fi wonders on all of us like movies and books have promised since forever. I think it's far more likely that we either destroy the planet or kill each other first. As you say, we have to reduce our impact on the earth (and that's really a ridiculous fucking understatement that in no way reflects the severity of the situation), and while that's certainly a big one for me, it's still only one aspect of many, and I have little faith that humanity will suddenly just up and get responsible about that or about anything else.

Obviously this has nothing to do with useless Windows holograms, so perhaps we've gotten a little far afield here ... and of course I don't think UI experimentation is evil or anything. But in this case, my expectation is that it will be pointless clutter that likely won't be any more efficient or useful than what we currently have until people fuck around with it for another decade or two. Either way, any integration of such features into a new version of Windows is just useless marketing bullshit to me. I don't like bloat, and that (along with most of the other stuff they're advertising) reads like yet more bloat, which is already something I've gotten sick of just in Windows 7, let alone 8+.

[Cobra951]

Streaming both ways in the works

[W7RE]

[youtube]


Streaming both ways in the works

They say that Game DVR will work with any game you play on Windows 10, but then they're browsing through games in the Xbox app that show achievement scores and such. Will it work for ANY game? What if I'm running a game through Steam, like H1Z1, and MS, Sony Online Entertainment, nor Valve have coded in support for the Xbox app on Windows 10? I really hope it'll still work. It's unbelievably convenient to be able to decide you want a recording of something right after it happens, instead of having to anticipate it or just record everything.

It's cool to see some of the cool features of Xbox One come to PC though. I tend to keep my Xbox One on next to my PC just so I can see what my friends are doing and get messages from them. This will allow me to do that on my PC.

[Cobra951]

After some thought, my speculation is that all of this is doable retroactively with mods to the system software alone.  When you say "Xbox, record that", it's a system command, not a game command.  So that's easy.  If Kinect or a microphone is not available on the Win10 device, then an equivalent button command could be used.  At first I was thinking that streaming gameplay would require game-code support for remote control, but not really.  Game input too can be virtualized by the system software.  As far as the game would know, it's still getting input from the controller.  This actually worries me a bit.  If they do it wrong, they could add a layer of lag even if you're playing on the Xbox itself.  I'm not sure about Xbox app support for PC games, and less sure about streaming PC gameplay the other way.  Lots of variables here, and I'm not visualizing a universal solution in the short time I've taken to think this through.

Yes, it's all very cool for those of us with XONEs and Windows devices.  Once both are on the same page, any back-and-forth stuff becomes possible, and good for MS business too (on both ends).

I deleted my earlier post because it was too snarky.  Who am I to question a person who actually grew up in the 60's about what people were thinking in the 60's?

I didn't think it was snarky.  I thought you just forgot you were talking to an old dude when you posted.  I guess then you remembered.  

[W7RE]

If Kinect or a microphone is not available on the Win10 device, then an equivalent button command could be used.

WindowsKey+G

http://youtu.be/RUCn_rvDU-A?t=5m40s


I'm pretty sure they do the voice recognition processing inside the Kinect (I think I've heard that somehwere, maybe multiple times), so I'm not sure just having a mic on your PC would be enough. Using the "Xbox record that" command is WAY more convenient than trying to do it with button presses and clicks though.

[PyroMenace]

I know I'm in the minority when I don't stand up and cheer for the relentless march of progress like everyone else, but yes, I'm very much like an old man in that regard. Just because I'm young doesn't make people any more trustworthy with an overabundance of power. I don't trust a lot of technological advancement and I think most of it is taking us to worse places, not better. Cell phones are useful, but I hate them and the effect they've had on society. Just because something is "revolutionary" doesn't mean the quality of its effects aren't debatable. Given humanity's proclivities, I don't see the god of progress bestowing sci-fi wonders on all of us like movies and books have promised since forever. I think it's far more likely that we either destroy the planet or kill each other first. As you say, we have to reduce our impact on the earth (and that's really a ridiculous fucking understatement that in no way reflects the severity of the situation), and while that's certainly a big one for me, it's still only one aspect of many, and I have little faith that humanity will suddenly just up and get responsible about that or about anything else.

Obviously this has nothing to do with useless Windows holograms, so perhaps we've gotten a little far afield here ... and of course I don't think UI experimentation is evil or anything. But in this case, my expectation is that it will be pointless clutter that likely won't be any more efficient or useful than what we currently have until people fuck around with it for another decade or two. Either way, any integration of such features into a new version of Windows is just useless marketing bullshit to me. I don't like bloat, and that (along with most of the other stuff they're advertising) reads like yet more bloat, which is already something I've gotten sick of just in Windows 7, let alone 8+.

I'm for the most part with you. There's been much negative impacts of technology but eh, I've been an active participant in it's benefits and it has shaped my life in some profound ways, some good and others maybe not as good. I still at least have some hope that we may hit a critical point with it's far reaching affects on the planet and maybe we find some good use for it to reverse it in some cases. I just can't sit around worrying we're all fucked all the time, as much as humanity can suck, I'm apart of it so maybe I'm living in an oblivious state of mind, but I at least try to look brightly on the horizon.

[Quemaqua]

No, that's entirely valid. I'm too much of a pessimist and always have been. And I'm pretty much in the same boat as you too ... I think it's just that lately in some ways I guess I've seen more and more the negative aspects of this stuff rather than the positive, and especially now having a more international mindset, seeing the effects of various things in other countries in different ways has gotten me thinking a lot more. I think technology is awesome and amazing and fascinating, but sometimes the potential (or even the actual usage when it comes to governments and such) is very scary, and I wish we sometimes as a species took a step back and looked at it with a little more of a critical eye instead of just getting excited about what might seem cool.

[Cobra951]

WindowsKey+G

http://youtu.be/RUCn_rvDU-A?t=5m40s


I'm pretty sure they do the voice recognition processing inside the Kinect (I think I've heard that somehwere, maybe multiple times), so I'm not sure just having a mic on your PC would be enough. Using the "Xbox record that" command is WAY more convenient than trying to do it with button presses and clicks though.

Yeah, I thought of that.  I was even going to speculate on Kinect speech-recognition emulation on PCs, but then I thought it would just clutter up the post with left-field suppositions.

Personally, I have the DVR functionality entirely shut off.  I did that when I learned that quite a few games constantly record shit otherwise.  That discovery happened when Forza Horizon 2 stuttered as I raced down the highway, and it informed me of the video capture.  (I still have that video clip too, with the game stutter in it.)  That got me looking things up, and I wasn't happy about what I learned.  It's apparently out of the user's hands entirely, and the only way to prevent it is to shut down the whole thing.

[W7RE]

Actually with Cortana coming to Windows 10, that's effectively the same as Kinect's voice features, but with a text to speech program to talk back at you. The voice recognition has to be there then, so a voice command for recording shouldn't be too hard.

As for the performance issues with recording on Xbox One, is that just when it's trying to save a clip? I've never noticed any issues, but don't think many of my games actually record clips on their own. Battlefield 4 and Peggle 2 come to mind. I don't have Forza Horizon 2 though. Also all of my games are digital, so I don't know if that would make any difference.

[Cobra951]

Digital and disc are exactly the same (for games available both ways).  The game image either gets fully installed from the disc, or gets downloaded.  This is the same process as the 360's except the discs are the much-larger Blurays.  The only difference from digital is that the disc has to be in the drive as copy protection.  I think you can even buy the digital version of an installed disc game, without needing to download it, because the image is already present and ready to go.  Only your licenses file should need updating, which would take seconds instead of hours.  It's probably worth doing when games get really cheap later on.  Best of both worlds.

FH2 is a dodgy beast.  When loading, for example, the animation on the loading screen stutters and freezes constantly.  I already posted at length about the pitch of the engine sound freezing and lagging out now and then.  It's all related to data streaming back and forth, and the shitty code taking care of it.  Here's a system with 8 CPU cores, and they can't keep disk I/O from trampling on the real-time audiovisuals?  Nonsense.  So yeah, a video recording knocks down this house of cards, and makes the action stuttery, which is unacceptable in a racer.  It may not affect other games, but I really don't want this happening in the background every time I do something that some game dev thought should be saved for posterity.  That should be my decision alone.

[W7RE]

Any game with auto recording should really have an option in that game to turn it off. Partially because of what you're experiencing, and also because what if you just don't care about what it wants to record? I record funny and epic moments in games, and certain games will toss tons of clips in there, and you're limited on space. If the cloud storage for your clips gets filled, clips will stop recording. (even though the toast for them still shows up)

[Cobra951]

Any game with auto recording should really have an option in that game to turn it off. Partially because of what you're experiencing, and also because what if you just don't care about what it wants to record? I record funny and epic moments in games, and certain games will toss tons of clips in there, and you're limited on space. If the cloud storage for your clips gets filled, clips will stop recording. (even though the toast for them still shows up)

Yes, that's it.  I read some threads while reading up on this stuff that some games really abuse it, recording a huge number of small clips.  There definitely needs to be a per-game option on the autorecord.  The other part of it, with me, is my sense that all system resources should be going to the game I'm playing.  It's part of being a programmer, I guess.  In addition to no DVR, I also manually quit out of every running app when I launch a game, and I have autoupdates disabled.  (Don't do anything other than run my game.)  I can also make exceptions to any of these when it makes sense, like if I want to record video of what I'm doing.  This is something I haven't thought much about.  Long ago, I used to run consoles through VCRs so I could record the gameplay.  I also had a video-capture card (still inside a dead PC--probably works, but is legacy 480i standard), and the software for that was my first DVR.  I'm not sure why I've lost interest in that.  I did watch the 5 clips that FH2 recorded without my knowledge, and saved 4 of them, so it's not like I don't care altogether.

[MysterD]

Since Windows 10 is out and all - did anyone decide to take the upgrade yet?

[Xessive]

Got it running on my Surface Pro 3. In fact I'm responding on it right now

Gotta say it's pretty sweet so far. I really, really appreciate the option to switch between Desktop and Tablet modes.

Overall it seems very efficient and having a notification manager is a welcome addition, finally.

I'm digging Microsoft Edge too. It's not so insanely revolutionary that it "killed" IE.. It's more like IE's legitimate offspring.

Strangely enough, the way the UI is smooth and informative, it kinda feels like I'm using a Mac. All app windows feel autonomous and can go fullscreen or stay windowed. Practically everything can be docked to a part of the screen too.

These are my early impressions but so far, so good.

[scottws]

I left my desktop behind at my house, so all I have is a Mac right now.  Well I have my work Win8.1 laptop, but I'm waiting for Win10 to appear in the Microsoft VLSC so I can get the Enterprise version.  Supposedly that will happen this weekend.

[MysterD]

Mozilla is not happy w/ Win 10 setting Edge as the default browser + with how you set & switch web browsers.

[MysterD]

I got the Win 10 64-bit version files downloaded yesterday with my Win 8.1 64-bit laptop (i.e. my non-modern gaming PC). Burned a bootable ISO DVD of the files, so I don't have to download the damn Win 10 installer files again. That was all easy enough.

If + when I do decide to finally test Win 10 out - I'll probably try it 1st on my laptop, before I decide to put it on my main Win 7 gaming PC (or not).

[Cobra951]

DX12 is supposed to be much faster--closer to the hardware.  I would have guessed that you'd be more interested in how it behaves with games.  The talk of a yearly fee for Win 10 seems to be false too.  If I had a Win 7/8 PC, I'd probably jump on it.  I won't bother my mom's PC with such a change.  It'd only confuse her.

Or can I use her PC to download a Win-10 copy to install elsewhere?   

[Xessive]

Or can I use her PC to download a Win-10 copy to install elsewhere?   

Yep, you can use a PC to download an ISO which you can use to install on another PC. You'll have to use the Microsoft Media Creation Tool.

Here's a quick guide with all the necessary links: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/media-creation-tool-install

[MysterD]

DX12 is supposed to be much faster--closer to the hardware.  I would have guessed that you'd be more interested in how it behaves with games.

Only problem is this: there are no games currently supporting DX12!
If you look around, people running DX11 and under games on Win 10 - they're running around the same.

The talk of a yearly fee for Win 10 seems to be false too.  If I had a Win 7/8 PC, I'd probably jump on it.  I won't bother my mom's PC with such a change.  It'd only confuse her.

I think if more games requiring Win 10 (which would make it DX12 exclusive) would cause me to jump from my Win 7 gaming rig.

About my Win 7 PC - I got lots of stuff there installed. I'd probably want to 1st back-up lots of Game-Saves, actual game-folders (so I don't have to do re-downloads on BIG files), and whatnot on my Win 7 PC - just in case something completely goes wrong; or b/c I don't like that some App or game just won't work w/ Win 10.

If you do take Win 10 and upgrade - once done, you got 30 days to decide if you want to roll back to whatever you had before (i.e. Win 7, 8, 8.1). After that - supposedly, you can't roll back.

Or can I use her PC to download a Win-10 copy to install elsewhere?  

You have to have Win 7, 8, or 8.1 to be able to take the free upgrade.

If you are offered the "Get Windows 10" icon (i.e. you'll have to do all the important Windows Updates before you can get that icon, more or less); turn on Windows updates to automatic; reserve the Win 10 download; wait for it notify you that you'll read to take the download; actually download the files on a PC supporting it; and then make a bootable ISO of the install.esd file.

More instructions here on how to do all of that -> http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki/windows_10-win_upgrade/how-to-create-a-bootable-iso-file-from-your/07590098-90a9-4c7e-b6fe-5ce1632daf4b
For ISO creating, I used Free ISO Creator -> http://www.freeisoburner.com/

That's as far as I went. Not going any further with it, at the moment. Will wait a little bit on Win 8.1 PC, before I do it there. Want to hear more impressions first + let M$ maybe iron out some things, before I take it. I don't have much to lose on my Win 8.1 laptop, namely b/c ain't much installed there and backing up won't be much of anything - since most of it's older games. Most of that stuff on my laptop, I basically already have on my Win 7 rig. If need be - I just port saves back and forth b/t the PC's (for any Non-Steam Cloud supported games).

What I do know from lots of reading + vid-watching:
You install Win 10.
Then at Microsoft activation time (to phone home to their servers), you will NEED to use your Win 7, 8, or 8.1 product key to activate Win 10.

If you don't know what it is (b/c a lot of new pre-installed Win 8 versions only usually actually give your Product ID, not your Product key). So, get a program to ID both Product ID + Product Key like BelArc Advisor:
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

[idolminds]

Guess there is a 90 day trial of sorts. Its the Enterprise version so it's missing some stuff, but it sounds like the stuff its missing is stuff I don't care about. I'm tempted to give it a whirl since I'm still on XP.

[MysterD]

Yep, you can use a PC to download an ISO which you can use to install on another PC. You'll have to use the Microsoft Media Creation Tool.

Here's a quick guide with all the necessary links: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/media-creation-tool-install

Wait - I thought those M$ Tools were for Win 10 only?
Meaning, if you want to make that ISO w/ those M$ tools - you'd have to jump to Win 10 and then use those.

Does Media Creation Tools work on Win 7/8/8.1?

[Xessive]

Wait - I thought those M$ Tools were for Win 10 only?
Meaning, if you want to make that ISO w/ those M$ tools - you'd have to jump to Win 10 and then use those.

Does Media Creation Tools work on Win 7/8/8.1?

Yep. That's how I installed it on my system early.

You can use the Media Creation Tool for two tasks: Upgrade the current PC to Windows 10 or Download to ISO for Storage Media (USB or DVD).

If you plug in a USB stick it can also download straight to it and automatically create a bootable USB installation for you. Pretty handy.