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ludi
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Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Sun Apr 15, 2018 1:00 am

Not to get anyone's hopes too high, because officially Microsoft doesn't support this upgrade path anymore, but I just picked up a derelict Dell E5420 laptop (mobile Sandy Bridge-era CPU) from the discard pile at the offiice, and it had a Win7 Pro key inside the battery compartment. I upgraded it to an SSD and installed Win7 using a Dell recovery disk, and naturally, it activated automatically. I then inserted a Win10 USB drive and ran setup. It detected Pro, installed Win10 Pro, and activated that automatically.

Granted, this is a machine with a BIOS-level Windows key, so YMMV, but it looks like there are still in-place upgrade options available if you have a valid Win7 (or presumably, Win 8.1) system in play.
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Sun Apr 15, 2018 1:31 am

Windows 10 is a free operating system. Microsoft are just pretending that the offer ended, but their business model entirely depends on getting Win 10 onto as many machines as possible, and selling all the personal data they collect through Cortana, etc. I mean, even better for them if a bunch of people have theoretically exploited a loophole to upgrade, then they can hardly claim to have any right to privacy. Half the world already pirated Windows, they've just worked out a system to encourage that and make all their money from it.

Those loopholes will never go away.
 
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Sun Apr 15, 2018 1:44 am

MS gains nothing by having people on W7/8. If they're on W10 they can runs ads and all that for extra cash and it costs them nothing.
 
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Sun Apr 15, 2018 2:45 am

I think they definitely just don't care about that kind of stuff and just leave the keys usable, possibly forever, until it changes otherwise.

As for Windows 10 and privacy/selling of your data... hrm, I swear I've heard this too many times. Sounds like one of these things that keep being repeated while being misleading...

Especially when OEMs still need to pay, and we still need to pay for new copies (non-upgrades). *shrug*
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Sun Apr 15, 2018 3:59 am

Hopefully no more auto, or forced, updates?
 
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Sun Apr 15, 2018 7:08 am

Windows 10 is free. Anyone buying a license for it these days is a sucker.

Hell, I bought an Atom Tablet for the same price as a W10 license, and it came with a W10 license.
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Sun Apr 15, 2018 7:55 am

Chrispy_ wrote:
Windows 10 is free. Anyone buying a license for it these days is a sucker.

Hell, I bought an Atom Tablet for the same price as a W10 license, and it came with a W10 license.


It technically is and isn't for DIY builds though. Is, since technically there's nothing stopping you from just using Windows 10 without any licence; is not, since that watermark can get annoying pretty fast.

Not that it really matters outside of new DIY, though
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Sun Apr 15, 2018 10:21 am

GrimDanfango wrote:
selling all the personal data they collect through Cortana, etc.

So tired of seeing this FUD. Provide one shred of proof that it's happening.


odizzido wrote:
If they're on W10 they can runs ads

I've not seen a single ad in the operating system. In apps? Yes. From the OS? No. You think OS X, iOS, Linux, or Android are any better from that perspective? Not even close.


Chrispy_ wrote:
I bought an Atom Tablet for the same price as a W10 license, and it came with a W10 license.

The Windows 10 license is free to OEMs for devices with less than a 9" screen.
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Sun Apr 15, 2018 9:28 pm

GrimDanfango wrote:
Windows 10 is a free operating system. Microsoft are just pretending that the offer ended, but their business model entirely depends on getting Win 10 onto as many machines as possible, and selling all the personal data they collect through Cortana, etc. I mean, even better for them if a bunch of people have theoretically exploited a loophole to upgrade, then they can hardly claim to have any right to privacy. Half the world already pirated Windows, they've just worked out a system to encourage that and make all their money from it.

Those loopholes will never go away.

MS has nearly 10 exabytes of customer data in their internal storage system. The OS is going to be free forever, that customer data is worth far more to them than a few tens of dollars per user.
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ludi
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Sun Apr 15, 2018 11:29 pm

Yeah, by now I think we all (should) know that Microsoft wants to be the next Facebook or Google, and has gotten as far as collecting and storing a massive amount of Windows and user analytics. Hopefully we can avoid another massive thread derail arguing about the evils of Big Data. It's already here and it knows where you live. If you can't live with it then you're already on Linux. Everyone else (including me) is condemned by the two word phrase "revealed preference."
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Mon Apr 16, 2018 1:16 am

curtisb wrote:
I've not seen a single ad in the operating system. In apps? Yes. From the OS? No.
Besides the ads for promoted apps in the lock screen and Start tiles, plus the freemium apps installed automatically,
Image
there are ads in Windows Explorer
Image
pop-up taskbar and action center notification ads for Edge
Image Image
and this really odd popup ad for Microsoft's shopping assistant for Chrome
Image

I do not believe Apple or Android would dare to litter the OS with ads this way. Nadella is truly pushing the limits of what people will tolerate to monetize a captive audience. Imagine when they start with paid targeted ads based on your browsing history and the contents of your documents, instead of just pushing video games and MS products.
 
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Mon Apr 16, 2018 4:55 am

curtisb wrote:
GrimDanfango wrote:
selling all the personal data they collect through Cortana, etc.

So tired of seeing this FUD. Provide one shred of proof that it's happening.

The proof is simple - did you *pay* for Windows 10? (A product that likely cost 100s of millions to develop)

So they make their money somewhere. No for-profit multinational corporation switches to giving software away for free unless they've already established a more lucrative business model to replace straight software license sales.
If you didn't purchase the product, you are the product.

I'm tired of people making out that this notion is some kind of crazed conspiracy theory. It's not, it's simply how business works in the modern age. It's very basic common sense.


Provide one shred of proof that Microsoft (forced/tricked people into installing) gave away 100s of millions of copies of its most important product, and is *not* making its money back somewhere else.
 
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Mon Apr 16, 2018 5:15 am

curtisb wrote:
I've not seen a single ad in the operating system. In apps? Yes. From the OS? No. You think OS X, iOS, Linux, or Android are any better from that perspective? Not even close.

None of my Linux apps show me ads. :wink:

GrimDanfango wrote:
If you didn't purchase the product, you are the product.

Most desktop Linux distros excepted. It's not for lack of trying though (e.g. Canonical's experiments a few years back with their "search lens" online shopping thing).
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Mon Apr 16, 2018 6:12 am

curtisb wrote:
The Windows 10 license is free to OEMs for devices with less than a 9" screen.


10.1" tablet, 4C Atom, 2GB RAM, 32GB eMMC.

Microsoft may make statements like "Windows 10 licenses is free to OEMs for devices with less than a 9" screen" but it's most commonly seen on 10" tablets or larger, It comes free on devices with 13" 128GB drives, and I've even seen it on a £108 14" laptop. It's absolutely obvious that whatever their original statements were at the launch of W10, they don't care what device gets a free copy of Windows 10. I wouldn't be surprised if they're actually subsidising some of these manufacturers to prevent people from buying Android tablets and Chromebooks.

Microsoft don't care; They want you to install Windows 10 and don't care how you do it either.

It's now their business model to saturate the market with a free OS that allows them to monetise their online services via subscriptions.
Microsoft is losing market share at an alarming rate to their competitors' OSes, all of which are free!
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Mon Apr 16, 2018 6:18 am

bfg-9000 wrote:
Besides the ads for promoted apps in the lock screen and Start tiles

<image snipped>

plus the freemium apps installed automatically

<image snipped>

there are ads in Windows Explorer, pop-up taskbar, and action center notification ads for Edge

<image snipped>

and this really odd popup ad for Microsoft's shopping assistant for Chrome

<image snipped>


That's great! I'm bookmarking your post to show the non-believers, and this is why I'm recommending the LTSB to anyone that is getting overly annoyed with Microsoft's incessant installation of all these intrusions, especially after they get reinstalled with every update despite being uninstalled.

In an ideal world, we'd get the LTSB as a paid option, and the "please harvest my data and bombard me with adverts" as the freemium version. Sadly, everyone gets lumbered with the freemium rubbish even if they don't want it and paid for their OS.
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Mon Apr 16, 2018 9:18 am

just brew it! wrote:
curtisb wrote:
I've not seen a single ad in the operating system. In apps? Yes. From the OS? No. You think OS X, iOS, Linux, or Android are any better from that perspective? Not even close.

None of my Linux apps show me ads. :wink:

GrimDanfango wrote:
If you didn't purchase the product, you are the product.

Most desktop Linux distros excepted. It's not for lack of trying though (e.g. Canonical's experiments a few years back with their "search lens" online shopping thing).


Well yes, as I've said elsewhere before now - Linux in general doesn't factor into these sort of discussions, as most Linux developers aren't shareholder-backed profit-hungry corporations, and they aren't actually interested in the supposed holy grail of "market share" that most people seem to hold as the only true measure of worth. This is why the free-open-source community goes to lengths to differentiate the term "free", as their version is a completely different notion to "free" software as a business model. I wouldn't exactly describe the typical Linux distribution as a "product" at all in that sense.
I'm refering exclusively to "gratis", not "libre" :-)

And as you point to - when a Linux dev like Canonical try to push across that divide, they rapidly lose the credibility and trust that Linux trades on and are in danger of becoming just another minor market-share statistic as they try to make their money alongside the heavyweights.
 
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Mon Apr 16, 2018 9:34 am

Chrispy_ wrote:
In an ideal world, we'd get the LTSB as a paid option, and the "please harvest my data and bombard me with adverts" as the freemium version. Sadly, everyone gets lumbered with the freemium rubbish even if they don't want it and paid for their OS.


It's pretty clear at this point that far from considering offering it as a consumer option, Microsoft wish the LTSB would just wither and die without anyone noticing it even exists. They already routinely steer even enterprise customers away from it for any use besides fully automated systems. I fear over time they'll do their damnedest to squeeze its role down to a level where it's untenable as a desktop OS. They already started chipping away - you can't install the desktop version of Skype on there any more. (According to the installer at least - a very thinly veiled lie as it turns out - you can just set the installer to run in <=Windows 8 compatibility mode, and it'll let it install and run just fine!). I'd expect more of that to be on the way though... maybe they'll withhold the next version of DirectX or something.

A shame, because I agree entirely... LTSB is the only usable, productive, and genuinely great version of Win 10. It's what it always should have been - Windows 7+++
 
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Mon Apr 16, 2018 9:41 am

GrimDanfango wrote:
Chrispy_ wrote:
In an ideal world, we'd get the LTSB as a paid option, and the "please harvest my data and bombard me with adverts" as the freemium version. Sadly, everyone gets lumbered with the freemium rubbish even if they don't want it and paid for their OS.


It's pretty clear at this point that far from considering offering it as a consumer option, Microsoft wish the LTSB would just wither and die without anyone noticing it even exists. They already routinely steer even enterprise customers away from it for any use besides fully automated systems. I fear over time they'll do their damnedest to squeeze its role down to a level where it's untenable as a desktop OS. They already started chipping away - you can't install the desktop version of Skype on there any more. (According to the installer at least - a very thinly veiled lie as it turns out - you can just set the installer to run in <=Windows 8 compatibility mode, and it'll let it install and run just fine!). I'd expect more of that to be on the way though... maybe they'll withhold the next version of DirectX or something.

A shame, because I agree entirely... LTSB is the only usable, productive, and genuinely great version of Win 10. It's what it always should have been - Windows 7+++


I know, right?!

We changed our enterprise tenant in December last year, and under the new one, I no longer have official access to LTSB any more. I mean, I can still get it through unofficial channels and our VLKs from the previous tenant are still valid, but they're definitely attempting to kill the only modern version of Windows that's worth installing.

Perhaps if Microsoft do kill the LTSB, people will start using pirated copies of Server 2016 in its place, an ironic return to people choosing the enterprise-oriented Windows 2000 over 98R2 or WinMe because the consumer versions were so bad.
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Mon Apr 16, 2018 10:39 am

GrimDanfango wrote:
Windows 10 is a free operating system. Microsoft are just pretending that the offer ended, but their business model entirely depends on getting Win 10 onto as many machines as possible, and selling all the personal data they collect through Cortana, etc. I mean, even better for them if a bunch of people have theoretically exploited a loophole to upgrade, then they can hardly claim to have any right to privacy. Half the world already pirated Windows, they've just worked out a system to encourage that and make all their money from it.


Microsoft is also a publicly traded company, and this new "revenue model" isn't reflected in their filings.

At all.

It's non-existent.

---

The goal with the Windows 10 thing is to make it so ubiquitous that android doesn't start encroaching into their safe spaces. This isn't remotely new, Microsoft was so terrified of Netscape eventually supplanting them that MS literally just made browsers "free": Netscape didn't have a record-breaking IPO in 1995 because they planned to open source it.

In other words, Microsoft is perfectly willing to "lose" money by what can be thought of as "price-dumping".

GrimDanfango wrote:
The proof is simple - did you *pay* for Windows 10? (A product that likely cost 100s of millions to develop)


The isn't proof. Millions and millions of people pay for Windows 10 every year. Microsoft makes billions on Windows sales:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data ... 171231.htm

That's, err, *real* proof?

The goal here to make sure people aren't buying Android tablets and realizing that maybe they don't really need windows at all. Microsoft understands, very well, that there is a "network effect" to Operating Systems. They've been milking it for hundreds of billions over the years, and while it isn't nearly as lucrative as it was because of fundamental consumer usage changes, making sure that I (because I literally did) buy a $90 Windows 10 mini-tablet instead of an Android tablet (because I could have) has value to them in-and-of-itself. The "copy" of windows on it didn't really cost them anything: It's software. It costs money to make and maintain(which they would be doing anyway), not to copy.

But I get familiar with android and less familiar with windows, that's part of their advantage leaking away by drips and drabs.

GrimDanfango wrote:
So they make their money somewhere. No for-profit multinational corporation switches to giving software away for free unless they've already established a more lucrative business model to replace straight software license sales.


False.

Microsoft made Internet Explorer free simply to kill off Netscape.

It basically worked. And it continued to work against any other serious competitor in that space for like a decade.

GrimDanfango wrote:
I'm tired of people making out that this notion is some kind of crazed conspiracy theory. It's not, it's simply how business works in the modern age. It's very basic common sense.


It mostly is a conspiracy theory. There is very little truth in it.

Chrispy_ wrote:
It's now their business model to saturate the market with a free OS that allows them to monetise their online services via subscriptions.
Microsoft is losing market share at an alarming rate to their competitors' OSes, all of which are free!


Right.

Outside of the "freemium" pre-installed apps and the suggest app store apps (both of which are negligible revenue sources) the other ads aren't advertising revenue because they are promoting MICROSOFT products: Who is paying Microsoft to promote the Edge Browser?

Who is paying Microsoft to push OneDrive subscriptions?

The goal is to keep everyone in an ubiquitous Windows 10 eco-system, to keep that "network effort" going and to try and get people to use Bing, OneDrive, etc... and other Microsoft services they will eventually cook up.

Meanwhile, just because ultra-low budget machines and people upgrading old machines are getting it "free" is sacrificing almost entirely theoretical "revenue": They get it for OEM and OEM Pro licenses, of which they continue to successfully sell millions and millions of.
 
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Mon Apr 16, 2018 11:12 am

I don't want to get involved in the rest of the Win10 debate going on here, but getting WAY back to the original post, @ludi - yes, I've found this as well, always with old Dell systems. I've tried with other machines and it hasn't worked. Also hadn't been able to do it with a few old retail Win7 keys I found but YMMV.

From what I understand, large OEMs were able to "opt in" or maybe "opt out" of the upgrade for their licensing. (I have no idea how accurate this is, but random posts on the internets all seem to indicate that some vendors did and some didn't).

Near as I can figure, Dell just opted in for all of their Pro licenses (dunno about consumer stuff, but all the Latitudes, Optiplex, Precision systems I've seen), so all of those older systems with Win7 Pro stickers on them can just have Win10 installed on them. You don't even need to install 7 and upgrade, you can just use the 7 key during the 10 install, or do the "I don't have a key" and then activate it after the fact.
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Mon Apr 16, 2018 11:22 am

This has worked since 1511? or whatever that release was that put in the home-to-pro easy upgrade.

It has also always been the best way to do a clean install with default 10 pro key (available on the microsoft site) and activate after.

Warning: do not plug in ethernet/activate wifi with 1709 installer until you make an offline account or you will get a ~24hour windows process bug that makes the system run like crap. No idea if fixed with 1803.
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Mon Apr 16, 2018 12:49 pm

bfg-9000 wrote:
Besides the ads for promoted apps in the lock screen and Start tiles plus the freemium apps installed automatically

<image snipped>

there are ads in Windows Explorer, pop-up taskbar, and action center notification ads for Edge

<image snipped>

and this really odd popup ad for Microsoft's shopping assistant for Chrome

<image snipped>

This still? Ugh. It's amazing how many of these "Win10 is spying on us" rants I see, which makes me wonder if they're aware of all the other equally offensive apps, like Chrome and FB to name a couple that nearly every human uses.
1) Right click the advert tiles in the startup menu and click "unpin".
2a) How dare MS promote other MS products inside its own OS!!! One drive is maddening, I agree, but....
2b) You know what else prompts to switch your default browser back to itself? CHROME
The one good thing about most of the Windows stuff is that you can disable it. As always, there's a fine line between data harvesting to generate useful/helpful guidance for a more convenient user experience, and using it to bombard people with adverts.

ANYWAY. On the OP topic. This is good news. Do you HAVE to install Win7 first though? It would be nice if Win10 just allows you to enter a Win7 key when you format a machine with Win10 only.
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Mon Apr 16, 2018 1:01 pm

DPete27 wrote:
ANYWAY. On the OP topic. This is good news. Do you HAVE to install Win7 first though? It would be nice if Win10 just allows you to enter a Win7 key when you format a machine with Win10 only.

According to some of the responses above, no, at least not if it's a Dell with a Win7 Pro key.
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Mon Apr 16, 2018 1:34 pm

DPete27 wrote:
The one good thing about most of the Windows stuff is that you can disable it. As always, there's a fine line between data harvesting to generate useful/helpful guidance for a more convenient user experience, and using it to bombard people with adverts.


I'm not even saying that Microsoft should have the right to do this, I certainly find it mildly annoying, but I am saying that is a complete misrepresentation to pretend that Microsoft's practice of promoting their own products and services, some of which are free, are indicative of how they are switching to a facebook/google revenue model where their users aren't their customers.

That's simply not true. The only parts they could conceivably be getting any revenue for are:

1) Those pre-installed freemium apps/games. However, since they are the same for everyone this isn't the facebook/google model. They aren't selling your information to advertisers that tailor their ads to you. And, more importantly, the practice of software vendors paying OEM/OS for pre-installation isn't remotely new: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-installed_software

Been going on for like decades....

Nor is it remotely unique to MS. I mean, my phone has stupid apps I can't uninstall. Thanks Verizon or Samsung, or whatever. At one point, OEMs were even going to charge their customers to *NOT* install stuff like this, and Microsoft has gotten so tired of even "bloatware" (OEM-provided utilities etc..) as opposed to "crapware" (outside vendors who presumably paid for pre-installation) that they've provided utilities to remove explicitly the former (which, being internal, weren't direct revenue sources).

2) The promotional suggestions. Since these all go back to the app store, we're still in Microsoft land primarily, and what I saw (before I turned it off) sure as heck wasn't remotely tailored to anything I'd ever done. I mean, yes, they could be getting paid for these, but it cannot be any serious amount of money and I sincerely doubt it is hooked into any sort of end-user data collection.

EDIT: Microsoft officially said that those promotional app things aren't paid for.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkell ... 20a5fe280f

In other words, we're venturing pretty deep into conspiracy land if you believe otherwise: they are in serious civil legal trouble from the FTC at a minimum if they are lying about that.

----

TL;DR: the only thing Microsoft could be getting paid for in any of those examples are those pre-installation programs... a situation which, however annoying, is decades-old.
 
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:23 am

To be listed in the Microsoft Store, apps must pay 30% of the sale price to the store, exactly the same cut and business model of the Google Play store. Post-purchase in-app microtransactions are free. The only difference is Google charges $25 to register while Microsoft charges $19 for individuals and $99 for companies. So these ads are indeed pushing products (both 3rd party + Microsoft) they expect to either produce profits or marketshare for Microsoft.

At least the lock screen ads aren't too tacky. While it's jarring to see an unexpected ad-related picture, the ad copy itself is pretty understated:
Image Image Image Image Image ImageImage Image
I think you can agree it's less annoying than an ad that pops up and must be dismissed. Note the examples I listed last time popped up when neither Edge or Chrome were even running, so they are definitely OS ads. Image
Microsoft has lately been removing longtime features from Windows in order to drive traffic to the store, pushing new replacement apps like Paint 3D, Sticky Notes or Windows DVD player, plus the old Windows games like Solitaire, Freecell + Minesweeper were replaced by freemium versions with microtransactions. This is an interesting reversal because it was adding free applications to the OS like a clock, notepad, calculator, media player, and defragmenter that originally helped drive the adoption of Windows OS in the first place--because you wouldn't need to purchase 3rd party programs for those anymore. While they were far from the best of breed, they were "good enough" and added value to the OS. They also about destroyed the market for pay 3rd party clocks and calculators but people did create better free ones.

The ads themselves are at present pretty dumb--every machine with a standalone full version of Office is still bombarded with offers for an Office 365 subscription, for example. Perhaps Microsoft sees subscriptions and microtransactions vs. ad-supported as the future. For example Solitaire and Minesweeper are now free with ads, or you could pay $19.98/year to avoid ads on both.
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BTW Dells that came with Win 7 were activated locally with a SLIC table stored in the BIOS. When installed with the OE media that had an embedded SLP certificate file, Windows was immediately activated with no internet required. This instant activation method was removed in Windows 8 due to rampant piracy.
 
sweatshopking
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Tue Apr 17, 2018 5:33 am

Just on the original subject, it isn't possible for them to stop this process of using old keys. Think about it.

Grab an original Windows 10 iso. Say you're offline. Put in a Windows 7 key. It'll accept it. There is no way for them to remove this. They'd have to then say "sorry the installer lied, this key is bad" once you're online which they're sure as heck unlikely to do. They could remove it from newer ISOs, but they haven't, and they almost certainly won't because of this very fact. Any Windows 7,8, or 8.1 key works to install Windows 10 and doesn't require an update. I've done it literally dozens of times across many different kinds of PC's. It's not going away any time soon.
 
Aranarth
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Tue Apr 17, 2018 7:03 am

Yes those ads are turned on by default, BUT you can turn them all off.

The nice thing about windows is you can customize it!

Stop being so easily offended and move on.
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Glorious
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Tue Apr 17, 2018 7:20 am

bfg-9000 wrote:
To be listed in the Microsoft Store, apps must pay 30% of the sale price to the store, exactly the same cut and business model of the Google Play store. Post-purchase in-app microtransactions are free. The only difference is Google charges $25 to register while Microsoft charges $19 for individuals and $99 for companies. So these ads are indeed pushing products (both 3rd party + Microsoft) they expect to either produce profits or marketshare for Microsoft.


But Microsoft isn't being paid to promote those particular apps in the app store, so there is no revenue from the advertising itself.

That is not a revenue model. The App Store itself is a revenue model, in which the user *IS* the customer because that 30% cut comes from end-users directly paying for software.

See what I am saying?

I think this is what curtisb was getting at, but he can speak for himself. In any event, -I- never claimed their weren't any "ads" in windows 10 or whatever. That wasn't what I was getting at.

bfg-9000 wrote:
At least the lock screen ads aren't too tacky. While it's jarring to see an unexpected ad-related picture, the ad copy itself is pretty understated:


They aren't being paid for those. Therefore it cannot be a revenue model.

This is definitional.

bfg-9000 wrote:
I think you can agree it's less annoying than an ad that pops up and must be dismissed. Note the examples I listed last time popped up when neither Edge or Chrome were even running, so they are definitely OS ads.


But who is paying Microsoft to promote Edge?

I'm not sure what you think we are arguing about, because I certainly don't need more pictures in which Microsoft promotes Microsoft products using its OS. I never disputed that, admitted it, etc...

My point is that such practices are not a revenue model, on the contrary, the user remains the customer because the user is the one who pays for apps in the app store, pays for onedrive, etc...

bfg-9000 wrote:
The ads themselves are at present pretty dumb--every machine with a standalone full version of Office is still bombarded with offers for an Office 365 subscription, for example.


Yes, so they obviously aren't collecting user data to sell to advertisers, as I said. I mean, sure, maybe they are collecting it, I don't know enough or whatever, but the end-result isn't targeted ads or anything of the sort, not even for Microsoft's internal products.

The only thing that seems to come close is that if you have/use chrome, it'll nag you about their browser or search bars or something. But even that doesn't require any sort of tracking, individual or otherwise.
 
ludi
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Tue Apr 17, 2018 9:56 am

sweatshopking wrote:
Just on the original subject, it isn't possible for them to stop this process of using old keys. Think about it.

Grab an original Windows 10 iso. Say you're offline. Put in a Windows 7 key. It'll accept it. There is no way for them to remove this. They'd have to then say "sorry the installer lied, this key is bad" once you're online which they're sure as heck unlikely to do. They could remove it from newer ISOs, but they haven't, and they almost certainly won't because of this very fact. Any Windows 7,8, or 8.1 key works to install Windows 10 and doesn't require an update. I've done it literally dozens of times across many different kinds of PC's. It's not going away any time soon.

Sure they can. They do it all the time. What happens is that WIndows installs, but activation fails and you get the instruction to call Microsoft for assistance.
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Waco
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Re: Win10 still capable of activating on Win7 keys, apparently...

Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:08 pm

ludi wrote:
Sure they can. They do it all the time. What happens is that WIndows installs, but activation fails and you get the instruction to call Microsoft for assistance.

Yep, they've done it in the past more than a few times.
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