How to delay upgrading to Windows 10 after the July 29 deadline

[Mike Henderson]

There are many opinions about whether true or not. My first question is always "Why are they giving it for free?"

Because they don't want to continue supporting the old operating systems. This way they can drop support for the old systems earlier - they can say "We gave you the opportunity to upgrade for free."

Support of existing systems is expensive and engineers don't want to do it. They all want to work on the new stuff, not fixing somebody else's work. It doesn't help your resume to say "Worked on supporting Windows Vista." (unless you're a very junior engineer, just getting started)

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

I have been considering upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 but am concerned about security. I have heard that Windows 10 has built-in overlord (Microsoft) access to the data on my computer. Is this true ?

I can't imagine that Microsoft would want to access non-operating system data on everyone's computer. It would be a public relations nightmare.

Mike

[Dan Friedrichs]

Agree! Why not a DVD upgrade to those who qualify?

It's just not necessary. W10 does a great job of installing itself neatly and cleanly without the hassle of needing to do a "clean install" like prior versions benefited from. Just let the auto-upgrader do it's thing and you'll be happy.

I often think: if you're "fighting the system" and trying to do something that no one else is doing....you're probably doing it wrong.

[William Adams]

Still staying on 8.1 on a small tablet since there's no consensus on whether or no Windows 10 is nice on tablets --- rather divergent and strongly held opinions on this.

I would kind of like to get Windows 10 so as to test out the Affinity Designer beta for Windows when it becomes available, but that will need a clean install of the 64-bit version.

[Larry Browning]

Agree! Why not a DVD upgrade to those who qualify?

What am I missing here? There is a very simple way to get the DVD that has already been explained.

[Brian Elfert]

My computer got upgraded to Windows 10 when I wasn't really ready, but everything works just fine except my Acronis True Image 2014. I am reluctant to upgrade to True Image 2016 since they changed to a subscription based model and doubled the price.

[Lee Schierer]

Sooner or later Microsoft is going to stop supporting versions 7 and 8 just like they have all the other previous versions.

[William Adams]

Yep: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle

Windows 7 January 13, 2015 and January 14, 2020
Windows 8 January 9, 2018 and January 10, 2023

[Curt Harms]

I have Win10 active (under Parallels) on both my personal iMac (to support Quicken) and on my BYOD work MacBook Pro to support corporate applications that require Windows. In general, I like it a lot. There's a minor learning curve for a few things, but otherwise, it's MUCH closer to Win7 behavior than v8.x was and easy to use. Seems to be pretty efficient, too. My employer just "released the hounds" and is upgrading 13K machines to Win10 before the deadline for cost control, too.

You can download the ISO and create your own DVD. I built my VMs from the ISO.

Does the July 29 deadline apply to Enterprise versions as well? I thought that was home/small business users only.

[Curt Harms]

I can't imagine that Microsoft would want to access non-operating system data on everyone's computer. It would be a public relations nightmare.

Mike

If they don't they worded some screens poorly. If I do a custom install rather than express, there are quite a few items that talk about sending personal data to Microsoft. They don't specify what personal data is in play on those screens. I don't spend time trying to find out because my Windows uses are very plain vanilla, WordPerfect Office for legacy files and Garmin GPS. Nobody is going to learn much from those.

[Chuck Wintle]

Because they don't want to continue supporting the old operating systems. This way they can drop support for the old systems earlier - they can say "We gave you the opportunity to upgrade for free."

Support of existing systems is expensive and engineers don't want to do it. They all want to work on the new stuff, not fixing somebody else's work. It doesn't help your resume to say "Worked on supporting Windows Vista." (unless you're a very junior engineer, just getting started)

Mike

Can you provide a link where you have read this.

[Larry Browning]

Can you provide a link where you have read this.

Chuck,
It is my understanding that this is a new direction for Microsoft. Here is a NY Times article from last July (Just before Windows 10 was released) that tries to explain this new direction.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/20/te...tegy.html?_r=0

[Yonak Hawkins]

Is anyone else having problems loading Windows 10 ? My installation gets hung on "checking for updates". I have tried loading after a clean boot and still no luck.

[Curt Harms]

Is anyone else having problems loading Windows 10 ? My installation gets hung on "checking for updates". I have tried loading after a clean boot and still no luck.

How long did you wait? Checking for updates can take longer than 15 minutes, sometimes quite a bit longer. Once it 'decides' what it's doing the upgrade goes fairly quickly with a good internet connection.

[Yonak Hawkins]

How long did you wait? Checking for updates can take longer than 15 minutes, sometimes quite a bit longer.

Way longer than 15 minutes. Of the several times I tried, the longest I waited was 20 hours. I have a very good internet connection with no other connectivity issues.