General Discussions

I don't think there is a special motive with those details other than they want to streamline the upgrade process. That just happens to be a side effect.

So as long as pirates will update within the 1st year period they will get a free legit win10 copy but after that year they wont be able to get the update if they want to perform a fresh win7 installation even if they got the update before, yup this is probably a side effect.

Why would I want to pay a subscription fee? They're not providing a service, they're selling a product. I don't want something I don't actually own running my computers.

Technically how the licensing is, you still don't own Windows. They can flag your product key as invalid at any time per their discretion. If you want something you described, you need to be on Linux, not Windows.

[Edited by moderator Neo7, 3/20/2015 7:54:28 AM]

WGA is program to detect if their is a valid key or not installed on the system and can take different actions based on what it is. There is a proof of concept built into Windows 8.1 as if you've noticed, the product keys for that and Windows 8 are different. If WGA had detected your Windows 8 key was invalid, it wouldn't let you install Windows 8.1 at all. If it was, the Store issued you a brand new key.

I suspect that if WGA detects a bad key (or none at all) for Windows 7/8/8.1 to Windows 10, it will reset it back into the 30 day grace mode and not issue a key (which is actually standard for Windows installations as a fresh install is legit for the initial 30 days regardless of whether you have a key or not).

[Edited by Neo7, 3/20/2015 7:53:50 AM]

I never said anything about you, or anyone else, having to pay subscription fees for Windows. I said I would like for that to happen because not everyone has west world's salaries and can afford to pay $500 or $1000 for a simple, 5-use, Windows disc/key.

I'm already paying $30 a year for my AV software and I have no issues paying $50-60 a year for an OS.

And as Neo7 explained right under your post, even if you buy Windows you still don't own them. You merely paid for the privilege to use the OS.

P.S. Apologies for going off-topic.

[Edited by LordVenator, 3/20/2015 2:31:02 PM]

Build 10049 is active and includes the Project Spartan web browser. Thus far it is very bare bones in just being a window into the web with very little support for anything else. This has a side effect of feeling very light (as is with most vanilla browsers) so it's nothing more than a first impression.

Speed is pretty good although IE11 was something to give other browsers a run for their money already. What makes Spartan unique is that it is a Modern/Universal App (although it feels like a traditional app with it's own unique Modern styling) making it's architecture very different from other browsers.

Also included in this build but not advertised are new preview versions of the next redesign of Music and Video apps. Haven't had time to play with these though.

Microsoft says open source Windows is "definitely possible":Link