Windows 10
- Thread starter Glaucus
- Start date
I think you can safely assume that any copies of Windows being sold for £25 are either upgrade licenses only, or dodgy.
But again, licensed 10 is available for nothing in a few different ways, so why would you even want to buy a 8.1 copy to get it?
A licensed 10 is only available if you already own a genuine 7 or 8.1 license, if you don't have one of these then you'll have to buy either 7, 8.1 or a 10 license. You don't get a license as an insider you just carry on being a beta tester.
Please tell us if there's another way of obtaining a free license?
For all intents and purposes, it's the same as it being a free license.
Presumably you have a 7 or 8.1 license now?
If not, and your looking to get onto Windows for cheap, I'd suggest that being an Insider and running pre-release builds is the far less risky option over splurging £25 on a questionable 8.1 license that may or may not be legit, and may or may not even qualify for the 10 upgrade. The usual case for 'cheap' Windows is people reselling volume license keys or MSDN keys, which won't get the upgrade anyway.
Pretty much this. It will actually be ahead of the releases the general public get. It will also be Pro, rather than Home.
The downside is if stuff doesn't work you will have to just put up with it. But as Microsoft will be using Insiders to publicly test updates they plan to push to the public anyway, the chances of them dropping a system nerfing upadate on you are pretty slim.
And even if they did, you have full Windows 10 Pro for nothing, so you can't really complain.
I think I'm going to run 'proper' Windows 10 on my server and my GFs laptop as they need to be stable, and then just run with the Insider Previews on my main PC as I'm happy with the risk. I'll keep hold of the spare 7 Retail key this frees up and see what happens.
There is no 'have not' though. As far as I know the Insider Program is still open for anyone to sign up to?
I agree to an extent and used to run Windows 10 TP but I was never really comfortable with them logging everything I do, I'm not a master criminal or anything but I do like some privacy!!! there's also a possibility they could issue an update that wrecks or loses something important.
I'm looking for 3 copies so need to get them cheap as chips but I'd rather get a full license that won't spy on me or allow me to upgrade my motherboard.
Sounds like i'm obsessed, really I'm just looking for a good deal and if MS do a 8.1 introduction type offer (£25) I'll buy 4 and keep one for a future project but no chance will I be paying £80 each this side of christmas!
The £25 offer for 8.1 was for Upgrades. They are doing the same for 10, except its £0.
There hasn't ever been an introductory offer for full versions of Windows, only ever Upgrades.
Do you genuinely need 3 brand new copies of full Windows for 3 brand new systems, or could they be upgraded from existing Windows versions?
There hasn't ever been an introductory offer for full versions of Windows, only ever Upgrades.
Do you genuinely need 3 brand new copies of full Windows for 3 brand new systems, or could they be upgraded from existing Windows versions?
Not true
Do you not remember the pricing on Windows 7 Home full retail
50 quid each I seem to remember
Soldato
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I'm looking to run the Insider versions on most of my hardware, as it'll be fairly easy to mitigate the issues that come with "unstable" versions, in restricting its update schedule.
Simply because I've got more PCs now than I had back then, and the risk really isn't an issue for me.
Of course, there isn't actually any "have not" part. But that doesn't stop people from thinking like that. It's pretty much "I've had to pay, so why should anyone get it any different way?". I think that's what some people are thinking at least, anyway.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting privacy, criminal or not. Though I do think the extent of logging is greatly over-stated. As far as I know it's nothing personally identifiable, and only things that are pertinent to the OS and its running.
To be fair, there was kind of an introductory offer indirectly. Those £25 upgrade keys weren't actually upgrade keys. They were full licenses. The problem was how they set up access to getting one, and it was extremely easy to sidestep any authentication, because it didn't actually check properly.
They later rectified it, but at the time I bought 4 keys I think, for myself and friends. Some of them were the £15 ones too.
Skeeter - I really do need 3 licenses for PC, HTPC and MacBook Air (BootCamp). Like my wife says to all her friends "it's cross between Currys and Maidenhead Aquatics at our house", I just tell her "a man's got to have a hobby 
"
I have got a Windows 8.1 tablet and Windows 7 computer that I've reserved my copy of 10 on through the taskbar icon
"I have got a Windows 8.1 tablet and Windows 7 computer that I've reserved my copy of 10 on through the taskbar icon
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That's because there was never a retail version of windows 8.1 or even 8 since MS changed the terms in regards to being able to move a license from one computer to another in the OEM versions from windows 8 on and scrapped the retail version meaning that OEM versions of windows 8 and 8.1 are actually retail version since the license can be moved from one computer to another as long as it's removed from the previous computer.
Skeeter - I really do need 3 licenses for PC, HTPC and MacBook Air (BootCamp). Like my wife says to all her friends "it's cross between Currys and Maidenhead Aquatics at our house", I just tell her "a man's got to have a hobby
I have got a Windows 8.1 tablet and Windows 7 computer that I've reserved my copy of 10 on through the taskbar icon
Are any of those machines 'non critical' enough that you could just run the Insider Preview on them? That will save you a few bob if so.
Not true. The Personal Use License that came with OEM 8 was removed in 8.1. There is both Retail and OEM versions of 8.1 available now, and OEM 8.1 cannot be transfered, and cannot (technically) be purchased by end users. 8.1 follows the same licensing as 7. Windows 8 was different. See here: http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/lic...ensing-for-personal-use.aspx#fbid=9Jh5T7Dr9JI
There was 7 OEM and 7 Retail, then simply '8', but now they are back to 8.1 OEM and 8.1 Retail.
The fact they back tracked on the Personal Use License, and that you can only upgrade to 10 from 7 or 8.1, and not 8, suggests that 10 will follow the 7/8.1 license structure of having a transferable/end user Retail version, and a non-transferable/system builder OEM version.
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there is a retail version of 8.1 which comes with both 32bit/64bit disk..
oem only comes with one disk either 32bit or 64 bit.
yeah they said they'll be having retail and OEM..
win10 home OEM 109.99$
win10 pro OEM 149.99$
win10 home retail 149.99$
win10 pro retail 189.99$
Cool. So the only thing we haven't got concrete confirmation on is that Retail Windows 7/8.1 licenses become Retail 10 when upgraded.
I'm 99.9% sure they will, but I get the feeling we won't know until its released and people start testing things.
I'm 99.9% sure they will, but I get the feeling we won't know until its released and people start testing things.