Ed Bott says, for sure, that you can reserve your Win10 upgrade

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Ed and I had a twitter exchange about it. I remain skeptical – I used terms like “loophole” and “trick” — but, hey, Microsoft reads Ed’s stuff intent
[See the full post at: Ed Bott says, for sure, that you can reserve your Win10 upgrade]

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I don’t like to be negative, but aren’t we going around in circles? It was just last year that people were trying to get rid of the Windows 10 files. Who wants 6GB+ of files on their hard drive doing nothing? That’s why Josh Meyerfield put the option to delete the files in GWX CP.

IF I decided to go to Windows 10 (and it’s a big if) I would get Windows 10 Pro, and I would get the flash drive version. Yes, I know that I could upgrade from Windows 10 Home, but I wouldn’t want to go to all that trouble.

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If you’re willing to buy Win10 on a flash drive – $119 or $199 for a product that’s currently free – you’re fine. The point here is that you don’t have to store anything. It’s a quick round trip to Win10-land, back to where you started, and then you have a free license forevermore.

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I agree with Allan.

I don’t want this nasty, privacy-shattering THING ( 😉 )
and I don’t feel like I’m leaving anything on the table if I do not spend a lot of time (because for me it would be a big learning curve) doing fancy computing footwork in order to save the mere option of owning something that I’ve been battling against for a year.

Besides, I am not quite sure that all the parts and stuff of my computer would entirely be up to supporting windows 10. Not to mention some other programs that I paid for and still rely on, some of which are many years old now. I don’t know how all that interacts, but I expect that some things would be too outdated for 10.
…Aargh, no, just sounds like a big hassle, I see no reason why _I_ would want to do this.

BUT I can understand why others would want to do it, and why they might well wish to have, and even massively enjoy having, Windows 10 in the future, but just not right now for various reasons of their own.

—–
…They definitely tapped into a powerful type of incentive when they decided to offer something “worth $119-199” for free, but with a limited offer period. People find it hard to pass up the opportunity of a freebie, even if they’re just going to let it metaphorically gather dust in the corner. 🙂

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I agree with Allan.

When (and if) I buy a new Windows PC in a few years time, W10 will be pre-installed and optimized for that system. I will be looking for new features that only W10 exploits and will be of value to me. W10 on my existing PC offers me nothing over W7.

If the new technology coming out in the next few years is only going to be available to Enterprise users, I will stay with W7. In 2020, if this Windows class system continues, I will get a new PC with Linux pre-installed. I have used Linux, so I know what to expect. I’ll get a Chromebook for Grandpa as he only surfs the internet and does email.

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I bet MS will use the numbers of people who do this to up their bragging rights – even the people are NOT USING Win10. “We got Win10 on a billion devices!”

And who’s to say they won’t find a way to weasel out – “your i7 processor is no longer supported by Win10 as of Jan 2017”

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The same can be said about Windows 7. Why would anyone use any Home edition when Pro and in particular Ultimate are the real thing? And Home is still in wide use for a variety of reasons.

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If you don’t want to upgrade to Windows 10, and if it’s not because you’re lazy or undecided, then there’s no point in registering for a free copy of an OS you know you won’t use.

I’ve talked with, read many users describing the same scheme of their computing environment which is : no upgrade to Windows 10, computer remains with Win 7/8.1 until end of cycle, after which a new computer with Windows 10 or a shift to Linux, shift quetly prepared within the 4+ years remaining.

Not everyone is eager to have the last technology when another way of seeing things is a relaxed approach with a computer+OS running fine, with security patches, that we appreciate and which fulfills are requirements in our given context. From there on a new OS would need to be so appealing that we’d really widh to move on to it, not because it’s the latest technology but because what we learn and hear about it is appealing! And Windows 10 is not, definitely not appealing, to put it extra-mildly!

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Any idea why there are blank sections in the link you have provided, the same in safari.
I have adds blocked in Firefox so use safari to save having to reset Firefox twice.

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I don’t mind paying $200+ to avoid problems. What if the computer crashed reverting to Win 8.1? Yeah, I know, backup, backup, backup, but it’s a pain. I just like things to work.

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Woody, have you heard of folks having trouble with their screen savers not working on Win10? Not sure if it’s Windows or updated Nvidia drivers?

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I haven’t heard….

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So let me understand this…

People are supposed to take the time to install a whole new operating system THEN roll back to the prior operating system, just so their computer will be “on the list” in the future?

Let me get this straight…

Take a WHOLE DAY or more to download gigabytes of stuff, go through all the pain of an “upgrade” to an OS we don’t even want JUST IN CASE it turns out they improve it so significantly at some date in the future that we really do want it?

And what are the chances that Jo Public is going to be able to accomplish a “roll back” successfully? Get back EVERY SINGLE THING he/she had before.

All this to save $200 on an OS that *might* become useful one day?

Think, people, what is your time worth? What is the integrity of your current setup worth?

-Noel

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You don’t need to do in-place-upgrades and rollback when using the method with gatherosstate.exe.

https://www.google.com/search?q=gatherosstate.exe+genuineticket.xml

All you need is a spare HD for the temporary Win10-installation.

Can be done in an hour.

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Why was the first thought that popped in my head as I read ‘Win 10-land’, ‘Never Never Land’? I am trying just to think happy thoughts about w10.

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Agreed. I get the impression that many of Woody’s readers are non-techies (as I am). I can not foresee any circumstances when I would need Windows 10. My PC will use W7 until it becomes unsupported at which time there may be much better alternatives, currently in development. I certainly don’t want to risk stuffing up a perfectly-working system to save $119 on an upgrade I am unlikely to ever need.

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For some people who have enough time on their hands, $200 might be a lot. For other people, for who their time is more valuable and make money easier, let’s say IT contractors, it can be worth 1-2 hours of their time or less. However, even for the last category, is there any guarantee that after paying the money for the full product, the installation will be completed smoothly?
I think the whole exercise of installing, roll-back, imaging, restoring can be seen as an investment in education and this cannot be easily quantified in an amount of money.
Those who will keep using Windows, will upgrade one day to the last Windows version which according to Microsoft is Windows 10, even if now they would say “never”. For this category, the experience is valuable and it is highly advised to go through the process although it looks now like a waste of time.
There is another category for who Windows 7 is the last version of Windows used by them, after which they will move to something else. This category is certainly in minority among those reading this site, regardless of what most think or claim now when Microsoft is testing their patience. It is simply too hard to switch from one platform to another.

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Yep. If you have a spare HD…

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I’m reading all the comments here and they corroborate what I read/hear a bit everywhere and not only on the Web.

And there is the communication aspect. Microsoft once again did it all wrong. The company could have adopted seductive poser to create desire, instead it chose to axe their strategy on a blend of racket and trickery as if it had in mind “Windows 10 is so great, it is free, so you have to choose it, an offer you cannot refuse” and when we do, whatever trick to bypass the user’s free choice. This behavior is that of a total scorn for users. Maybe does the intelligence of the new MS team suffer of what is often symptomatic of high IQs which is to consider the masses as fundamentally ignorant when not plain idiot and able to swallow whatever force-feed. If so this is a main mistake for which MS is already paying the price.

Microsoft could have tried to elaborate on the qualities (from its point of view as it seems) of its new OS, instead it ambitions to force-feed. This attitude, this strategy means either two things : or the company doesn’t believe itself in the qualities of Windows 10, or the company is totally disconnected from people which is, in terms of communication, the signature of plain stupidity.

I remember Microsoft when Bill Gates, when Steve Ballmer, and I just cannot believe they would have operated in such a way. Another era, Microsoft nowadays has but the name of its beginnings. As for myself I have no longer the slightest confidence in this company which has become from my point of view an entity to be most suspicious of.

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More carrot. Less stick.

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“I think the whole exercise of installing, roll-back, imaging, restoring can be seen as an investment in education[…]”

But on the basis of what is the user of a computer explicitly or implicitly destined to consider a tool (the computer and the Web) as areas of knowledge?

“Those who will keep using Windows, will upgrade one day to the last Windows version which according to Microsoft is Windows 10, even if now they would say “never”.”

I wouldn’t be so affirmative. Some will, but how many? The 1st big milestone is the 1-year free upgrade zone, so important that MS does all it can to push recalcitrants. After that 1st period starts the twilight zone, so uncertain that MS might very well extend the 1-year free upgrade. Twilight zone, that of uncertainty where the recalcitrants might very well start thinking of an elsewhere. And my bet is many will.

The point is Microsoft is loosing its bet with Windows 10. It’ll never even approach the 1 billion users. How will the company move from there on? In last resort a reconfigured Windows 10, ready for use, clean, polished, eradication of extensive data-collecting telemetry, and one of those “We’re sorry” Americans are so expert at. Then, maybe, will the recalcitrants reconsider their position. Maybe.

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Like always. If the carrot is good or not is another problem. Advertisement as an art triggers a try, then the try carries on or not. But you do need an incentive.
I’ve noticed that when the stick replaces the carrot quite often the product, be it political or commercial, is of poor quality.

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Sounds like a great idea, but I don’t see the current crew doing anything like that.

Sad, but true.

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Not for now anyway.

We’ve seen more than one big company laying their apologies for either a misconduct or a mistake (the latter most often when a misconduct is always a mistake but when a mistake may be perceived or correspond to a plain error). In last resort, when a company’s destiny is in the balance, we know that it would beg for pardon. Normal when business is more important than pride. Like when having been unfaithful to a wealthy (non) beloved spouse. Also, if some users who claim “never!” are bound to change their mind, same applies to companies swearing they’ll never move from their original speech content and yet they do, when obliged by the circumstances.

But before this happens all will have been tried and, lesser the success of Windows 10 greater will be the enforcement of the developer. I’d say to all of us who haven’t and intend not to upgrade to Windows 10 : get ready for the battle 🙂

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I have a highly reliable workstation with which I do critical work. I’m not in the habit of taking it apart and plugging new disks in and out (which is one of the reasons it remains reliable), so even a “use an alternate disk drive” approach (which I actually did a while back on another system) is unacceptable to me.

Maybe I just don’t have a whole lot of hope that Microsoft is likely to turn Windows 10 into anything good, anyway, but this just seems like a lot of wasted effort.

That being said, if even there is a small chance of wanting to move to Win 10, it’s probably worth considering. And hey, I can take the opportunity to clean out the dust…

-Noel

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Windows 8 was a $10 upgrade, windows 10 is free, maybe they will pay us $10 to upgrade to windows 11?

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I think it is like Woody says, it will not happen. And Microsoft will keep being in business and Windows 10 will be adopted as is with minor tuning as much as Windows XP was or Windows 7 is now. Time will tell.

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So I fell for it. Ed, bless his heart, made it sound so easy, only ten minutes to lock in my copy. I installed all those updates I had been avoiding on Windows 7 Home and pressed the button for Windows 10. It never installed. The download stopped. No explanation. A little text file in the $file it created noted several errors. When I went to the Microsoft site attempting to fix them I got a survey asking what type of laptop I plan to buy and when. After three hours of fiddling I ran the .bat file to clear the Windows 10 related updates. That machine will remain on 7. So good to be typing this from my trusty Debian Linux install! I only keep Windows around to run my old scanner. It may be time for a new one anyway. Windows 7 was the best OS ever 2010-2015. Now, not so much. I can’t help thinking Windows 10 is certainly for someone’s benefit… but not ours. I appreciate your good info Woody!

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I think you’re right. For those who understand what they’re getting in to, willing to put up with its foibles, Win10 is really a very good operating system.

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So you squirrel away a copy of W10, which is tied to your current PC and is non-transferable, to avoid paying for a new license.

I guess this is how squirrels think – got it for free, not sure if it is a tasty treat or poison but will know when bitten into later, will use the usual save and retrieval method and hope it works again when it is time to dig it up.

No risk in that. Then there is the trust issue – nah!

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When you reserve the upgrade to Windows 10, it means your current license is eligible to Windows 10.

If you have an OEM license, it is tied to your hardware. However Microsoft lets you activate exactly one virtual machine with it too. (the second time you will have to call MS to explain the significant hardware change etc…)
When you successfully activated the virtual machine installation with your OEM key, you can upgrade that one to Windows 10.

If you have a retail license, you can do the install-activate-upgrade process on any computer (including virtual machines).

Note: Pirated Windows 7 activators obtain OEM licenses.

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I’m not at all sure that pirate copies of Win7 get Win10 licenses at all. Do you have a reference for that?

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If you have an OEM license, it is tied to your hardware.

This depends. If you are on one of the major brands, Dell, most HP or Lenovo, then there is a “universal” key for each of those brands, hard-coded in the BIOS. This applies to Windows 7 only. I know that the implementation has changed after that because of the UEFI, but I don’t know much about how the newer one for Windows 8 and 8.1 is done.
So for one of those brands, from the factory there is the universal key which is applied in the image, a different one between brands and between editions, but the same for the same brand and same edition.
At the same time, there is a sticker with a key on each computer which can be used as well and only that key is tied to the hardware in the activation process, if it is used while reinstalling and not reinstalling from the factory image or not knowing about the universal key.

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OEM Windows 8.x (part of which has a requirement from microsoft to ship with UEFI and secure boot) has an embedded product key which (sometimes) is automatically used by the DVD when you install (if not use the generic product key that represents which windows 8 edition came with your system Core/Pro, then install the embedded key via slmgr.vbs /ipk )

You can get the embedded OEM windows 8.x / 10 product key via:
wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey

I recommend adding the key getting online and activating AFTER installing the all the drivers provided by your OEM.

Also select the option “Never install driver software from Windows Update.”, unless you want windows to install drivers (some good, bad, same) whenever it wants, sometimes replacing an OEM driver with a generic (as in screen doesn’t work anymore on an AiO pc, etc..)

Good luck to you if you run into to the ” with Bing” SKU, and want to do a clean re-install. Apparently there is no DVD/ISO since no-one will ever need to do a clean install (microsoft logic).

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