Windows 10 launches in 190 countries this summer

[miniyazz]

This will surely alienate everyone who's bought a proper copy - who will now wonder what the point was, if Microsoft are going to reward those who didn't.
A better strategy might be to offer Windows 10 free to everyone in the first 6 months or whatever? That way it doesn't seem like they're singling out pirates for special treatment (and they're offering free upgrades to everyone else anyway so I doubt it would cost them significantly more).
They could easily exclude enterprise editions/use which I expect they are excluding anyway.

[edzieba]

This will surely alienate everyone who's bought a proper copy

Which at launch, will be pretty much no-one: for the first year, everyone with a copy of Windows 7 or 8 (prior to this, it would be everyone with a legitimate copy of 7 or 8) get 10 for free.

[excalibur2]

This will surely alienate everyone who's bought a proper copy - who will now wonder what the point was, if Microsoft are going to reward those who didn't.
A better strategy might be to offer Windows 10 free to everyone in the first 6 months or whatever? That way it doesn't seem like they're singling out pirates for special treatment (and they're offering free upgrades to everyone else anyway so I doubt it would cost them significantly more).
They could easily exclude enterprise editions/use which I expect they are excluding anyway.

Maybe MS has invented a way of checking if your OS is legit before you can download.

DOH! further reading on the net and it's an amnesty for pirates.

[Saracen]

I'm still waiting on the pricing strategy.

For instance, quite what does "free for first 12 months" mean?

One possibility is that the 'free upgrade' is really a 12 month trial, after which it's buy it or lose it? Though, IIRC, they said something about it being a perpetual licence.

Another possibility is that after 12 months, upgrading will be chargeable. In which case, how much?

And, are they sliding further down the slope of monthly rental, a ia Office 365?

I'm not even going to consider upgrading until that becomes much clearer, and even if I then do, it's going to depend on other things, like just how integrated MS cloud services are, because I have zero interest in those, and on whether the final production code allows to me avoid the horrible Win8 UI kludge.

Frankly, I'm .... ho-hum .... about Win10. MS lost me, for the most part, with W8 and my jury is still out about Win10, or just sticking with Win7 (and, yes, XP on some machines) and taking newer machines wholly Linux. That will depend entirely on the whole package of the above issues.

[D-T]

It's not so much the clean install I'm curious over (that will likely be there like win 8), it's more a case of I've got 'spare' win 7 licenses which I can use to get a free copy of win 10, they're just not actually on a computer at the moment so that's why I'm curious

Ah, sorry, I skimmed over the 'without it being installed' in your original post.

It sounds like all Windows licence keys (even ones used illegitimately) are going to be eligible for the free upgrade.

I would think a Win 7 key and the relevant Windows setup .iso files -- which are straight-forward enough to get hold of -- should be all you'd need to claim & install a genuine copy of Windows 10. With a Windows 7/8/8.1 key and the free-upgrade policy, I imagine Microsoft will probably enable you to download 10 directly from the store.

[excalibur2]

Ah, sorry, I skimmed over the 'without it being installed' in your original post.

It sounds like all Windows licence keys (even ones used illegitimately) are going to be eligible for the free upgrade.

I would think a Win 7 key and the relevant Windows setup .iso files -- which are straight-forward enough to get hold of -- should be all you'd need to claim & install a genuine copy of Windows 10. With a Windows 7/8/8.1 key and the free-upgrade policy, I imagine Microsoft will probably enable you to download 10 directly from the store.

Something I read was:- Although pirates can download win 10....illegal copies (of win7&8) will not get support from MS, so MS must know which are genuine and those that are not.

[Dooms]

Not sure why they just don't make it a free download for personal use, would resolve all these ifs and buts and it basically what they are doing anyway.

It would make them look very good instead of confusing

[Saracen]

Something I read was:- Although pirates can download win 10....illegal copies (of win7&8) will not get support from MS, so MS must know which are genuine and those that are not.

The statement I saw was that yes, ALL WIn7 and Win8.x installations, legitimate or not, can update using the free-for-a-year option BUT any installation "not considered genuine" before the update will still be considered not genuine after it. What's not (to me, anyway) entirely clear is what that implies. Yes, they won't be eligible for support, etc, but will MS still consider going after "pirate" users? NOT that they seem to be very active doing that at the moment.

If, as seems likely, MS are moving away from using Windows as an income stream to a strategy of getting maximum users on Windows, but "monetising" in other ways, like add-on services (Cloud, whatever) and Win-based products (Office, or whatever) then allowing all users, including pirates, to semi-legitimise makes sense. ......

IF.