Windows 10 Free for Upgrade
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@nadnerB said:
So, are you saying that release date development rush and all the stupid bugs that it entails is not applicable to Windows? (not being narky, I just want to clarify)
By and large, yes. For three reasons:
- First that Microsoft develops their OS years in advance. There is no release date rush, really. They have a true alpha -> beta -> release candidate cycle so the software is done and frozen long before release date which effectively makes that rush impossible.
- Second the Windows 10 release is an update, not a new product. It is Windows NT 6.4, the fifth point release in the 6 family. It is itself a patch more than a new product. So waiting on a patch to be patched is weird. You don't wait for Red Hat 6.4 to "age" for ten months, why Windows NT 6.4?
- And lastly because the real rush to get patches and releases out happens with the weekly patch cycle and that can't be avoided. The OS release is the one place that is really protected from the rush.
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@nadnerB said:
Someone ages ago (early or pre-XP era, not sure) told me that they always waited for the for the first major update/service pack. I'm fairly sure that this was for home PC's though. Kind of silly to that today, in light of your explanation.
It was actually silly long ago too. That logic arose from the Windows 2000 release which was a problematic release and SP1 was pretty solid. That one anecdotal situation causes people to extrapolate false cause and effect relationships and everyone has kept repeated the same flawed and baseless concept since that time. People somehow took this one event and made a set of patches arbitrarily named SP1 have magical properties. It's actually a really weird myth, if you really think about it. Why would SP1 be the magic one and not SP0 or SP2, for example? What if SP1 never came (it didn't with Windows 8 and 8.1 at all, for example.)
The "magic of SP1" thing is one of the weirdest religious-like things that I have seen arise in IT over my career and it is extremely common to hear people mention too.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@nadnerB said:
So, are you saying that release date development rush and all the stupid bugs that it entails is not applicable to Windows? (not being narky, I just want to clarify)
By and large, yes. For three reasons:
- First that Microsoft develops their OS years in advance. There is no release date rush, really. They have a true alpha -> beta -> release candidate cycle so the software is done and frozen long before release date which effectively makes that rush impossible.
- Second the Windows 10 release is an update, not a new product. It is Windows NT 6.4, the fifth point release in the 6 family. It is itself a patch more than a new product. So waiting on a patch to be patched is weird. You don't wait for Red Hat 6.4 to "age" for ten months, why Windows NT 6.4?
- And lastly because the real rush to get patches and releases out happens with the weekly patch cycle and that can't be avoided. The OS release is the one place that is really protected from the rush.
Right, well, I didn't know that about Microsoft's release cycle.
I've have bad experiences with other software vendors and their release date rush stupidity. Granted that most of them, for me have been games, I have also seen business software vendors fall victim to the "All important" and "stupidly set in stone" release date. -
@scottalanmiller said:
@nadnerB said:
Someone ages ago (early or pre-XP era, not sure) told me that they always waited for the for the first major update/service pack. I'm fairly sure that this was for home PC's though. Kind of silly to that today, in light of your explanation.
It was actually silly long ago too. That logic arose from the Windows 2000 release which was a problematic release and SP1 was pretty solid. That one anecdotal situation causes people to extrapolate false cause and effect relationships and everyone has kept repeated the same flawed and baseless concept since that time. People somehow took this one event and made a set of patches arbitrarily named SP1 have magical properties. It's actually a really weird myth, if you really think about it. Why would SP1 be the magic one and not SP0 or SP2, for example? What if SP1 never came (it didn't with Windows 8 and 8.1 at all, for example.)
The "magic of SP1" thing is one of the weirdest religious-like things that I have seen arise in IT over my career and it is extremely common to hear people mention too.
When you actually stop and think about it. it makes no sense to wait for a SP/major update (MU). It's the same updates/patches that are included in the SP/MU, in a concentrated format. Very silly to use that as the basis of waiting.
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Yeah, fair enough.
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@nadnerB said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@nadnerB said:
So, are you saying that release date development rush and all the stupid bugs that it entails is not applicable to Windows? (not being narky, I just want to clarify)
By and large, yes. For three reasons:
- First that Microsoft develops their OS years in advance. There is no release date rush, really. They have a true alpha -> beta -> release candidate cycle so the software is done and frozen long before release date which effectively makes that rush impossible.
- Second the Windows 10 release is an update, not a new product. It is Windows NT 6.4, the fifth point release in the 6 family. It is itself a patch more than a new product. So waiting on a patch to be patched is weird. You don't wait for Red Hat 6.4 to "age" for ten months, why Windows NT 6.4?
- And lastly because the real rush to get patches and releases out happens with the weekly patch cycle and that can't be avoided. The OS release is the one place that is really protected from the rush.
Right, well, I didn't know that about Microsoft's release cycle.
I've have bad experiences with other software vendors and their release date rush stupidity. Granted that most of them, for me have been games, I have also seen business software vendors fall victim to the "All important" and "stupidly set in stone" release date.Yes, considering the vendor, their release practices, their history, etc. is important. But most enterprise vendors are like Microsoft. You would not wait for updates from vendors like Red Hat, Suse, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, etc. They have their releases down to a science and they rely on their testing both public and private to be really solid. They have software development reputations on the line.
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@nadnerB said:
When you actually stop and think about it. it makes no sense to wait for a SP/major update (MU). It's the same updates/patches that are included in the SP/MU, in a concentrated format. Very silly to use that as the basis of waiting.
Plus it is arbitrary. Why would the first SP be the good one? The release of the SP is just a marketing decision from Microsoft. And why would we have total faith in the team that decides when to name something SP1 (a really minor decision with likely very little oversight) and not the team that decides when something is rock solid and ready for Microsoft to stake their reputation on it by calling it "production" (which has more oversight than a moon launch!)
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It's a weird bit of having faith in Microsoft in one way (that they will get the SP1 right) but not having faith in them anywhere else. This is compounded by the fact that Microsoft stands behind the OS release but does not themselves state that there is any significance to the SP1 release, that it means anything specific, that it is similar from one generation to another (Windows 2000 SP1 and Windows XP SP1 are both arbitrary and unrelated to each other), has only made an SP1 for some versions of the OS and doesn't make any commitments to ever making them at all until the last second.
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All misgivings and thoughts about when aside, I'll be upgrading. I have 7 Pro at home and I was thinking about re-installing it (it's been a while) BUT... it's OEM. I will probably have to buy a new copy of Windows as there is a planned hardware upgrade this year too.
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@nadnerB said:
All misgivings and thoughts about when aside, I'll be upgrading. I have 7 Pro at home and I was thinking about re-installing it (it's been a while) BUT... it's OEM.
What else would it be? The entire Windows ecosystem on desktops is essentially all OEM. I haven't seen non-OEM Windows in many, many years. Not since the early Windows XP era. And even then it was rare.
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@scottalanmiller said:
What else would it be? The entire Windows ecosystem on desktops is essentially all OEM. I haven't seen non-OEM Windows in many, many years. Not since the early Windows XP era. And even then it was rare.
I had the option to buy non-oem as it was a self built system but I couldn't justify spending twice the amount of money (or possibly more) for the retail version (5 licenses?). We only have one PC at home.
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@nadnerB said:
I had the option to buy non-oem as it was a self built system but I couldn't justify spending twice the amount of money (or possibly more) for the retail version (5 licenses?). We only have one PC at home.
Five licenses? Retail version is just a single install like the OEM. No multiple installation option with it. Never heard of anything like that. OEM is what everyone has these days.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@nadnerB said:
I had the option to buy non-oem as it was a self built system but I couldn't justify spending twice the amount of money (or possibly more) for the retail version (5 licenses?). We only have one PC at home.
Five licenses? Retail version is just a single install like the OEM. No multiple installation option with it. Never heard of anything like that. OEM is what everyone has these days.
Hang on, that was the family pack... it's dusty back here in the memory archive.
I know that there were 3 different versions available for sale here in AU. OEM, Family Pack (short lived) and Retail.
In light of remembering about the family pack, and a bit of research...
(nabbed from Microsoft Answers)
OEM... tied to that motherboard and becomes non transferable, the minute you installed and activated the license.
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OEM versions of Windows 7 are identical to Full License Retail versions except for the following:-
OEM versions do not offer any free Microsoft direct support from Microsoft support personnel
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OEM licenses are tied to the very first computer you install and activate it on
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OEM versions allow all hardware upgrades except for an upgrade to a different model motherboard
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OEM versions cannot be used to directly upgrade from an older Windows operating system
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I've never seen the Family Pack. Seems like a weird idea. Who would need that?
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@scottalanmiller said:
I've never seen the Family Pack. Seems like a weird idea. Who would need that?
http://www.microsoft.com/australia/windows/offers/windows-7-family-pack.aspx
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@nadnerB said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I've never seen the Family Pack. Seems like a weird idea. Who would need that?
http://www.microsoft.com/australia/windows/offers/windows-7-family-pack.aspx
That's new to me as well.
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@Reid-Cooper said:
@nadnerB said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I've never seen the Family Pack. Seems like a weird idea. Who would need that?
http://www.microsoft.com/australia/windows/offers/windows-7-family-pack.aspx
That's new to me as well.
Sometimes company's
Australia... sometimes.
It's usually more
than it ever is -
I remember the family pack - didn't MS offer that for Windows 8 as well to upgrade home users?
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If there ever was a time to not jump directly on a released OS from MS it was Windows Millennium and Windows Vista.
Millennium just never seemed stable to me. I think I ran it for about a month before I dumped it and went back to Windows 98SE, and quickly moved to Windows 2000 Pro when it came out.
Vista was horrible if you didn't have an OEM install. Now, once SP1 for Vista came out and MS went back to their old network stack, then life was good on Vista again.
I would not expect these kinds of problems with Windows 10.
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@Dashrender said:
If there ever was a time to not jump directly on a released OS from MS it was Windows Millennium and Windows Vista.
It's completely unfair to include Millennium because that was not part of the release series (it was a sequel to the already dead DOS family and not part of the current Windows NT family - it was never the "current" supported product, even at release time. So any logic for using a supported, new release would have automatically discounted it.)
I think that the ire around Vista is completely misplaced. Vista was rough, yes. But you have to give it credit, it was the first NT 6 release. It was rough for the same reasons that Windows 2000 was. Windows 2000 was NT 5's first release. Both were major version releases with big changes included a new kernel. But Windows 2000 was much, much worse than Vista. Vista was a decent product, more or less. Not great, no, but actually decent. Most people just disliked it because it wasn't XP which had had way too long to be overly established. People mostly just disliked change.
