Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, Flying Fox, Ryu Connor
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.
GrimDanfango wrote:selling all the personal data they collect through Cortana, etc.
odizzido wrote:If they're on W10 they can runs ads
Chrispy_ wrote:I bought an Atom Tablet for the same price as a W10 license, and it came with a W10 license.
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.
curtisb wrote:Besides the ads for promoted apps in the lock screen and Start tiles, plus the freemium apps installed automatically,I've not seen a single ad in the operating system. In apps? Yes. From the OS? No.
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.
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.
GrimDanfango wrote:If you didn't purchase the product, you are the product.
curtisb wrote:The Windows 10 license is free to OEMs for devices with less than a 9" screen.
bfg-9000 wrote:Besides the ads for promoted apps in the lock screen and Start tiles
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plus the freemium apps installed automatically
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there are ads in Windows Explorer, pop-up taskbar, and action center notification ads for Edge
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and this really odd popup ad for Microsoft's shopping assistant for Chrome
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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.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).
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.
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+++
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.
GrimDanfango wrote:The proof is simple - did you *pay* for Windows 10? (A product that likely cost 100s of millions to develop)
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.
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.
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!
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
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and this really odd popup ad for Microsoft's shopping assistant for Chrome
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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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.