Microsoft offers admins free Win 10 upgrade lube Microsoft has offered free lubricant to ease the insertion of Windows 10 across PC fleets. Redmond's preferred wheel-greaser is called the Upgrade Analytics tool will help admins evaluate system readiness for Windows 10 in a bid to ease driver drama and kernel panics. The ointment provides admins with a panel showing the …
The more convinced I'm becoming that you might actually want to prefer buying your Win10 version in a few years instead of relying on Microsoft's "freebie shove down the throat" approach. Sounds crazy?
A freebie is more or less just that: even if they change the whole thing upside down then you really got no means to complain or get any protection against it because... Yups: it was free, it's "as is" and as such you more or less agreed to whatever brilliant ideas Microsoft has in store for you.
Now... I'm not claiming that buying is the ultimate solution to this. Worse: it even depends on the country you're from (even in our "united" Europe the laws on this still differ per country). Even so: you'll have (a little) more protection against "we'll change this because we can" for the simple reason that you bought something, and under national law you'll be protected against scamming and fraud and such. You'll also have this "reasonable expectation" rule (depending on country).
So for starters I expect Microsoft to be a whole lot more transparent with the commercial versions of Windows 10 vs. the freebie versions. They'll have to: they can't just sell you "trust us, you'll like it". Not only is that illegal, who would buy that? So I'm expecting to see exactly what features will be provided, what caveats we'll have to cope with and which features will be external (or added through 3rd party stuff, such as the Microsoft store).
All in all I think it'll be much safer to wait for this to happen. It'll cost you money, but at least they'll have to deliver what you're paying them for.
Even so: you'll have (a little) more protection against "we'll change this because we can" for the simple reason that you bought something, and under national law you'll be protected against scamming and fraud and such. You'll also have this "reasonable expectation" rule (depending on country).
Perhaps, but I don't think that's worked well in the past, and Microsoft has bigger lawyers than me. And if I wait for government to get involved, I will have long since moved on to something else by the time they get a result (if, in a soon-to-be-ex-EU country with metadata-slurping Tories in charge, that ever happens at all).
Wrong stuff in the wrong place. Too late for ice water, even
Are you sure you're talking about the same product? :)
The GWX app already does an evaluation of your app and driver readiness. It just always says "full speed ahead!" even if the machine won't boot afterwards, doesn't work with some of your devices, or pesky apps have to be deleted.
Why would this tool work any different? They either know how to determine if the PC can run their OS or they don't - and obviously the answer is the latter. And/or they lie, which is no better.
Hear hear! I tried it on nearly a dozen boxes and lappys at the shop...now we aren't talking P4s here, we're talking C2Qs and Phenom X4s and Core i3 lappys, all with ooodles of RAM...every time GWX said "its good to go!" and with every.single.one. there was serious show stoppers.
So apparently MSFT thinks a computer with no network, no sound, no graphics, hell that won't even boot? Yep working as intended.
So I have added something else to my "must have" USB toolbox..Never10 by GRC, at least it works as intended!
But try in a VirtualBox, and it will say: "No that does not work because of this fake-video-driver"
And in fact it works without any issue, you just have to prepare a USB key with the upgrade tool, and launch the setup.exe that is at the root of this USB key.
P.S.: that is because obviously I don't need it, I have been happily running Linux for 8 years now, but as they made me pay for it (M$ extortion method), I kept W$ in a VirtualBox just in case I stumble upon a program that has really no equivalent... which didn't happen for at least 4 years now!
Microsoft only told people the purpose of GWX was to scan people's PCs and let them know if it was compatible with the upgrade. The real purpose was to push Windows 10 at all costs-- including the loss of use of the computer if the upgrade fails in grand fashion and renders the PC unbootable.
That, you see, is just a risk Microsoft is willing to take with your PC to reach its goal of a billion devices infected... er, upgraded within two to three years. Even a tiny chance at success is worth the risk, whereas a PC that does not attempt the upgrade and remains on 7 or 8 is less useful to MS than a dead one. (At least with a dead one, you might go buy another PC... with Windows 10 on it.)
You can plainly see where the trust and well-being of the Windows user are prioritized in all of this.
So come now! Won't you now install Windows 10 and click that ACCEPT button that gives Microsoft your permission to do anything they want, to push out any "features" they have decided you need, for the rest of the life of that device? Surely giving such an *ethical* company so much power over your personal computer and its data is a good idea; why, they would never abuse a trust, would they?
Why hasn't any one realized the M$ will re-offer W10 as free in the future when few people will pay exorbitant ransom prices? M$ NEEDS people to migrate so they can join Giggle and Amazing in the advertising revenue slurp. Perhaps sometime in the future they will pay customers to use their crap so they can make money on the analytics?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
