Is the new code a Retail one? What happens if you wanted to install the OS to a completely new system like you can with a retail version Seeing M$ said that the win 10 upgrades would be a like for like upgrade "Retail for Retail" surely the system details are irrelevant only the fact that the OS you upgraded from was an Retail version should have been all he needed
That should be effectively how it works if activating using a retail key after the Fall update instead of relying on hardware ID. No clue how the keys generated by Support actually behave. It might just be a "Trigger the activation once and get them out of your queue" key.
Not sure, and yes, they certainly don't make it easy do they. That said, using support to activate was only a minor hassle in reality.
As it should be, having to go through all that if you want to install on a new build would be a right pain. Glad you got it sorted
I guess it has something to do with security, but really, its one of those things that hurts genuine users as much as anyone. They are giving it away for free to pretty much everyone anyway though - makes you think - why would they even bother.
Home consumers are more of a cost to Microsoft than a source of profit. Business and Enterprise are where Microsoft make their money, and that's where you don't get Windows 10 for free. By giving Windows 10 to everyone for free, and by forcing regular updates on the cheaper variant, Microsoft cut down on the amount of time and money wasted supporting multiple versions of an OS, and time and money wasted on support calls that essentially boil down to "install this update we released two years ago that solves this problem". And NOBODY wants a repeat of XP. That crap is still running on internet connected systems acting as malware incubators, on POS and ATM devices that are expected to securely (hah!) process credit card data, etc. By keeping updates to the OS as a forced rolling cycle, people no longer have a choice about planning for system upgrades and obsolescence. Because if your system has a network connection, or even a way of accessing external media, there's no such thing as "if it ain't broke don't fix it". It's broke, you just don't know it yet.
If you think it's bad having XP system acting as malware incubators we should be thankful that Win3.1 wasn't very internet friendly. Last week a Win3.1 system crashed and caused planes to be grounded for the rest of the day.
Given how long the system must have been in place I'd say it has an excellent mtbf. As always I'm sure the failure can be attribute to the actions of some person, rather than the operating system or software. Although that doesn't make for an interesting headline.
I had to contact support on one of my machines, (MSDNAA licence) as it wouldn't activate, they remoted in, looked at the activation page, put a new key in and hey presto activated. SLMGR shows it as retail licence, but when I tried to use it after upgrading the mobo and cpu it said the key had reached it's activation limit, so that one seems to be locked to that mobo. Luckily I've got another copy of 7 that I can put onto the new mobo (although it's playing silly buggers and won't update). Great, because windows broke and wouldn't update, and I had to reinstall several times it now tells me the win 7 key has reached it's activation limit.
Upgraded to Win 10 from Win 7 and my boot times have went from around 40 seconds to over 2 minutes! I have reverted back to Win 7, I could not put up with boot times that bad. I could do with an SSD but my SSHD does OK, dont see why Win 10 would be so slow to load
Anyone else having a problem with shutting down? I hit shut down, it goes to a black screen but computer is still running. If I move the mouse I end up back at the login screen. Only way to shut down is too hold the power button down.
I'm having that problem with my Surface Pro 3, shut it down and the screen goes black but the keyboard still stays lite up. MS told to me reset the image, but it still didn't work. I have to push and hold the power button to hard power off.
have a problem somtimes on boot screen stays black then if unplug the hdmi lead from monitor and plug it straight back in it comes on its doesnt happen all the time or if i put pc into sleep it stays powered up but 97% of the time it sleeps
Workaround is: Power options > choose what power buttons do > /change settings that are currently unavailable/ > (uncheck) turn on fast startup. But try bios and driver updates first.
Is the consensus that Win10 is worth the upgrade from Win7, then? I'm slightly nervous about the privacy issues which is why I ask.
Windows 10 is not worth the upgrade, Windows 7 works perfectly well and is fast and easy to use. There is so much reporting back to M$ with Win 10 and sharing the updates from your computer to others. Plus there is that awful user interface. If you must get it wait until SP1 comes out.
