I tried it out on my laptop and it's a nice OS. Does anyone know any info regarding clean installs? I'm guessing you'll still need to inevitably buy Windows 10 once it's time to change your motherboard. Considering I'm planning to upgrade soon, I probably won't see any benefit from a free version if that's the case

I know that Windows 8.1 has compatibility mode where you can set individual programs to run as if they were running on an older iteration of Windows. I've never had to do that so I don't have much experience with it, but I couldn't imagine this feature NOT being in Windows 10.

Also: Playability*

A year after Win 10 official launches, I will buy a new computer with it. My MS Surface is getting old, but I really would rather wait to see what I really want. Do I want a tablet? Do I want a laptop? Do I want another hybrid?

I have nothing against WIndows. Yes, Win 95 sucked, and then two generations after Win 2K sucked too...okay, yes, WIndows Vista was really hot garbage. But Win 98 was decent, Win XP was super, and Win 7 reliable for me. And, truth be told WIn 8 was not as bad as people say, oh it was super dumb, but it worked. Some of my favorite computer ran Win 98, XP, and Win7. In fact my favorite computer ever, was a 10" Samsung WinXP Netbook. What a rock solid, fantastic computer in terms of price and function that was....I miss it.

With that said, I'm a little leary of MS saying for years "Our OS is worth $100-$200...so buy it assholes!" to them now saying, "Well it is free for you guys..." I think Microsoft should just make their OS cost $20 for consumers and $12 for OEMs. That way nobody needs to steals it, people find it worthwhile to BUY a fresh copy for each device they own or upgrade, and everyone gets paid. Sure, it must cost billions to develop and OS, but they can make that money back just in having the OS volume priced for hundreds of millions of people.

I'm on Win7. I'll upgrade to 10 for free.

Hell no! I ran Windows 7 until a week ago. I suspect I'll be running Windows 8.1 until Windows 11 or whatever they call the next iteration. Though I might update sometime before you have to pay if it reviews well enough.

Also:

• weary = tired
• wary = cautious

Drives me bonkers!

Isn't it free (of course, depending on which windows you have currently)? I mean, yes. Why not?

I've already been testing the preview build on a secondary laptop and see no reason why I shouldn't upgrade my primary machine. I'll just do a full backup and do the upgrade. Easy peasy.

I'm reading that the free upgrade will likely be OEM in that it will be tied to your motherboard, i hope that's not true.

If you're upgrading an OEM or system builder's licence it will be. If you upgrade a retail licence I'm pretty sure it won't.

If that's the case, while I don't mind that much, I feel like they shouldn't place it on my desktop toolbar as an advertisement if they weren't just going to give it for free. This is all it says on the site:

Yes, free! This upgrade offer is for a full version of Windows 10, not a trial. 3GB download required; standard data rates apply. To take advantage of this free offer, you must upgrade to Windows 10 within one year of availability. Once you upgrade, you have Windows 10 for free on that device.

Windows 10 Upgrade Offer is valid for qualified Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 devices, including devices you already own. Some hardware/software requirements apply and feature availability may vary by device and market. The availability of Windows 10 upgrade for Windows Phone 8.1 devices may vary by OEM, mobile operator or carrier. Devices must be connected to the internet and have Windows Update enabled. Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 Update required. Some editions are excluded: Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 8/8.1 Enterprise, and Windows RT/RT 8.1. Active Software Assurance customers in volume licensing have the benefit to upgrade to Windows 10 enterprise offerings outside of this offer. To check for compatibility and other important installation information, visit your device manufacturer’s website and the Windows 10 Specifications page. Additional requirements may apply over time for updates. Security and features are kept automatically up-to-date which is always enabled. See the Windows 10 How to Upgrade page for details.

@sinusoidal: The thing to keep in mind is that if you want to be on DirectX 12, you'll need Windows 10. Windows 7 and 8 will be limited to DirectX 11. That is the only reason I'm considering upgrading to 10 at all.

@mb: Really now? This seems shifty on Microsoft's part..

@sinusoidal: From what I understand, it's because DirectX 12 is built into the new Windows 10 kernel. It isn't some separate thing that they can easily just flip a switch and have DX12 on Win 7 and 8, at least from what they're saying. Who knows if that is true or not, but there you go. If you ever want to use DirectX 12 - and you're going to - you will need Windows 10.

At least it's free for almost everybody with a legitimate copy of Win 7 or 8.

As I noted yesterday, I cloned my main OS drive with Win 8.1 Pro N on it to another partition and upgraded that one to the Windows 10 technical preview. I definitely can't use it yet, one of my devices doesn't work at all, and it looks like none of my existing Virtual Machines will run in Windows 10 either. I could probably spend the time and get things working, but I'm not going to bother with it right now.

I'll try again when the full release of Windows 10 comes out, but I think this is going to be another situation similar to the Windows 7 to 8 upgrade for me - I'll be waiting until everything is stable and working until I fully switch over. I'm probably an edge case though, I'm sure Windows 10 will be fine for most consumers.

Don't see any reason to avoid it, it's another update to the Vista kernel and it's been in open beta for ages so compatibility shouldn't be a problem.

I wish Microsoft would get away from all devices one operating system and use multiple operating systems with good interconnectivity. But oh well I am stuck using windows 7 and Linux at work.

And I will try windows 10 just see it, but I will probably just stay on 7 for now and hope that DX 12 appears after few months.

I'll probably upgrade on my gaming PC, but not on my laptop. I need my laptop for software for university work/applications, daren't take the chance that any wouldn't work.

I'm ready to make the jump, I didn't upgrade to 8 or 8.1 and have been rocking 7 for a good 5 years that I'd like a change.

I'll wait a month. I "upgraded" from 7 to 8, when it came out and rolled back the day after.

I'll wait to hear from people I trust. DX12 sounds good and the nuts and bolts of 8 was also great, it was just the horrendous UI. If thats sorted, i'm in.

I'm running the preview build now. Seems fine. I don't like that it had like 8 questions during installation that said "Hey, do you want to send your location and activity to us and our partners?" If you do "express" installation, they'll be allllll up in your shit.

Games work well, no compatibility issues at this time. I'll jump in right away upon its full release. The only issue I have is that Battlelog keeps defaulting to Project Spartan instead of Chrome.

Jumping from 7 to 10 yes. DirectX 12 is good enough reason to make the move.

Well that part is already well known since the Technical Preview has been available for months at this point.

Can't be much worse than 8, which is currently running on my laptop. And I like the remote play ability; I mostly play Xbox One, and I work really long hours, so when I come home my roommate is often already using our TV.

I have preview running off my ssd now and it's pretty good so far. Haven't tried many games but arkham knight runs the same (like shit) and still seems to have the memory leak. Not sure if it's just the ssd , windows 10, or both but it boots and runs super fast. The UI is pretty good, way better than 8 was.

I will.

Yeah I've been running on a partition for a while, it's good!

Not if this ad pushing thing, and the forced updates turns out to be a real thing. If it is then hell no.

holding off as im afraid it will top tunning many games i play as i enjoy lots of older pc games as well as new ones and at first was excited to hear windows 10 would be improving game performance then figured its probly mostly with xbox one games

I'll opt in early, but not specifically for gaming. I just want my traditional start menu back. :(

Going for it. It's free and worst case scenario is I put in my Win7 disc and downgrade if it's crap. For compatibility I always have VirtualBox to fall back on.

Nothing on my home PC is really too important, and I don't really lose anything but time by formatting the system drive. It's just a gaming box, after all.

I'll wait and see what the initial reactions are before jumping in myself. It's free and I don't really do any gaming on PC, so I won't exactly lose much when upgrading.

I only wonder if my upgrade windows 7 license qualifies. It's an upgrade from vista and currently on an unused laptop.

Considering that it's a free UG, why not? Everything I've read seems to indicate that it's mostly Win7 but snazzier and Dx12 is gonna matter in the future.

I'm using the preview build right now and I'm going to keep it until the final release is out. It's fully functional and everything works on it and it's a better experience than Windows 8.

I probably will, though that preview program thing was garbage on my laptop, buggy as all hell and it barely ran, it got so bad that I had to go back to 8.1.

Yup. gonna duel boot the Preview Program and Final (for when I need stability/the Preview OS breaks)

DX12. Only reason really.

Can't wait to get off 8.1 on to what appears to be a much better OS.

I'm going to hold off a bit to see if Windows 10 launches and breaks everything or something, but if all is running smooth after a few weeks I'm definitely going to install it.

I have a Home Theater PC connected to my living room television. I'd love to give commands to Cortana to play something on Spotify or to send directions to my phone. I'm sure that stuff won't be ready out of the box but I'm a developer so maybe I can throw something together.

I probably should wipe my installation. I might upgrade to Win 10 as well. But I want to to a clean install. Can you buy usb drives then (my current machine has no optical). My working computer is a Mac anyway. I only trust Windows with games.

I'm looking to build my first PC as I finally have a job that can support such a lavish expense. I obviously can not wait! One quick question (I'm sure I will have more in the future), After reading this thread I've realized that it may be smart to just start with 7 and upgrade when the kinks have been worked out? Thanks for any advice.

@player1: There is no reason not to, since you can get Windows 7 for super cheap (or sometimes free if you're a student or developer) and then upgrade to Windows 10 for free when you're ready.

@wuddel: You can download Windows ISOs directly from Microsoft and make bootable USB drives from them. I install Windows like that all the time, since I don't build PCs with optical drives anymore.

got windows 7 on my pc and im properly sticking with that until i find out if windows 10 is worth it. got windows 8 on my laptop. never liked it to much so im gonna change that for win10 to test it out

Running the preview build now.
So far so good, I'm only on day 3 though.
Start menu is way better than 8/8.1 so that's cool.
Xbox app is pretty good to have if you've got an Xbox One.
Installed Steam and Origin and tested a couple games, all is well.
Directx12, b-b-b-b-bring it.
Not sure how the transition goes from preview build to my free upgrade from 8.1 but I'm ready to do this.
Hopefully the process is as easy as entering the product key.

I will think about it if MS implements PC stream to Xbox One. That will be pretty cool. DirectX 12 is cool and all but then I would need to upgrade, and you know the console ports will be console ports.

I'm pretty fond of Windows 7. Will wait a few months and read impressions before making the jump. But I am looking forward to it!

Nope, Windows 7 is more than fine for now.

Just so y'all know, one of the features of Windows 10 is that if you upgrade from 7 or 8.1 and dislike it, you can go back to your old OS for 30 days after installation. It's one of the built in recovery tools.

I'll give a month or two just to make sure everything is good and all of my favorite games and programs don't have any major issues. (Going by what people are saying based off the preview, it sounds like everything is fine, but still) Honestly I'd be completely fine with Windows 7 but meh, it's free and I'm kinda forced to because of DirectX12.