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How to get Windows 10 for free...

American said:
Well you said this was thing to do, one would be crazy not to upgrade.
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We were talking about a "new key".. well chances are you will get a new Windows 10 key, as they normally dont reuse old key systems, but on this front I dont know what Microsoft will do. When I went from Win 7 to 8 in a similar way, I got a new key. However Windows 8 was a paid upgrade. When I went from 8 to 8.1 I got no new key (which is annoying when reinstalling btw). So frankly I dunno how they will do it.

But yes, people should upgrade.
 
Installing Windows 10 preview on an older machine now... Need to see if some of my favourite programs run before I upgrade my other machines.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
Installing Windows 10 preview on an older machine now... Need to see if some of my favourite programs run before I upgrade my other machines.
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A very good idea... of course depends on how old the machine is and the programs in question hehe.
 
Ah, that's the point of using my oldest machine first.. I have legal copies of Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat Pro which do me perfectly fine and I don't need CS6 or the cloud. They work on my Windows 7 machines so I want to see how things go on a non mission-critical laptop...

Having said that, accuracy and speed were improved when I upgraded it to Win 7..
 
Infinite Chaos said:
Ah, that's the point of using my oldest machine first.. I have legal copies of Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat Pro which do me perfectly fine and I don't need CS6 or the cloud. They work on my Windows 7 machines so I want to see how things go on a non mission-critical laptop...

Having said that, accuracy and speed were improved when I upgraded it to Win 7..
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I don't know about those programs, but I can honestly say that every program I own...that works on Win7...also works on Win8/8.1 and the programs I had on my Win7 laptop on which I installed the Win10 TP also continued to work.

On the other hand, I generally don't run programs that are all that old. If they've been around for a long time, they've had numerous updates.

Oh, wait...one exception: I have installed programs on my Win8.1 machine that were designed for XP...and had problems running under Win8.1. Running those kinds of programs with an adjustment of Windows Compatibility Mode for that program worked well. But I don't tend to use those kinds of programs for very long.
 
Mycroft said:
-- I generally don't run programs that are all that old. If they've been around for a long time, they've had numerous updates --
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A new copy of Adobe Master would set me back over £1200 - there really aren't any upgrades that made that worthwhile. I have the latest version running on my work Macbook pro (this isn't a PC / Apple thing) and the only substantive difference is inherent to Apples vs Windows machines. All the tools are basically the same even if Adobe have changed where they are and the colour scheme since CS 2.
Doesn't warrant a £1000+ upgrade bill.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
A new copy of Adobe Master would set me back over £1200 - there really aren't any upgrades that made that worthwhile. I have the latest version running on my work Macbook pro (this isn't a PC / Apple thing) and the only substantive difference is inherent to Apples vs Windows machines. All the tools are basically the same even if Adobe have changed where they are and the colour scheme since CS 2.
Doesn't warrant a £1000+ upgrade bill.
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I understand completely. Cost means a lot. You should use the software you have for as long as you can.
 
First look is "very promising." I haven't installed any software yet - the interface is great and the tabs at the bottom to switch make good sense. You get Microsoft OneNote free and ready to go - that's been a bugbear on most of my machines as I always wanted to explore this program.

Only problems (which I will be reporting) are that there seems to be a recurring explorer problem, the digitiser settings on the built in Wacom are way out of sync and the screen display doesn't fill the screen - it's like watching an old movie on a widescreen TV with wide black space either side of the screen. Windows Journal - which I use while waiting to get OneNote looks very familiar for drawing and inking - only problem is the cursor tracking is horrible as there may not be any Wacom Drivers ready yet.

As an interface I like it, it looks and feels customisable and useable. A thumbs up from me - with the proviso that the screen display and cursor tracking get fixed.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
First look is "very promising." I haven't installed any software yet - the interface is great and the tabs at the bottom to switch make good sense. You get Microsoft OneNote free and ready to go - that's been a bugbear on most of my machines as I always wanted to explore this program.

Only problems (which I will be reporting) are that there seems to be a recurring explorer problem, the digitiser settings on the built in Wacom are way out of sync and the screen display doesn't fill the screen - it's like watching an old movie on a widescreen TV with wide black space either side of the screen. Windows Journal - which I use while waiting to get OneNote looks very familiar for drawing and inking - only problem is the cursor tracking is horrible as there may not be any Wacom Drivers ready yet.

As an interface I like it, it looks and feels customisable and useable. A thumbs up from me - with the proviso that the screen display and cursor tracking get fixed.
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Screen display is due to graphics drivers from Nvidia or ATI. What card do you have?
 
PeteEU said:
Screen display is due to graphics drivers from Nvidia or ATI. What card do you have?
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I know you know a lot about this stuff, but I just realized you've been around this business for a looong time. "ATI" :lol:
 
Mycroft said:
I know you know a lot about this stuff, but I just realized you've been around this business for a looong time. "ATI" :lol:
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Hey it is not that long ago that AMD bought ATI! At least I did not ask if it was VIA or S3... and if it is.. get a new card!
 
PeteEU said:
Screen display is due to graphics drivers from Nvidia or ATI. What card do you have?
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The HP 2710p has an integrated Intel graphics chip - it's an older computer which is why I was happy to try Win 10 on it. If that problem is never solved (the only drivers on HP's site stop at Windows 7 support) then I'll stick my legal copy of Win 7 back on.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
The HP 2710p has an integrated Intel graphics chip - it's an older computer which is why I was happy to try Win 10 on it. If that problem is never solved (the only drivers on HP's site stop at Windows 7 support) then I'll stick my legal copy of Win 7 back on.
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You were not kidding about old .. that is a 7 year old laptop. Well you could install Windows 8.1 and see if the problem is fixed there, then it will most likely be fixed in 10 as well. But it is 7 years old, so chances are that they wont fix it.
 
PeteEU said:
You were not kidding about old .. that is a 7 year old laptop. --
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Actually mine is 9 years old. :2wave:

As I said before though, I'm happy to put a legal copy of Win 7 back on - I'm using this one to see that my apps run.
 
Summerwind said:
You are incorrect, the free upgrade from Windows XP, 7, Vista, or 8.1 will be available for one year til late June 2016. You don't have to get it the first day it's out or even the first month it's out, we have an entire year.

Windows 10 is a Free Upgrade For Just One Year

This article doesn't mention XP or Vista, but if your components are compatible, Microsoft has indicated it will upgrade those as well.
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No you are not correct. the free upgrade only applies to windows 7 SP1 , windows 8 and windows 8.1 users.
if you have XP you will not get the free upgrade unless you do what the article suggests.

you will not get 1 year. if you do not have the little icon in your system tray that says to upgrade to windows 10 then you will not get the free upgrade.
they have already released the pre-patch for windows 10 to all the ones that will get it.
 
Well, scratch that...

New information from MS has squashed the notion that one could get on the Technical Preview bandwagon and end up with Win10 for free...no matter what OS they had when they started.

Now, only people who are using a licensed copy of Win7 or better...who join the Insider Program...install the Technical Preview...will get Win10 for free after it's released.

Or, as has already been stated, if you have Win7 or better and are Not on the insider program or have NOT installed the technical preview, you also get Win10 free. In each case, you have a year to upgrade to Win10. After that, the OS will cost you full price.

So if you've been using XP, Vista or some other OS, it's a no-go...you pay full price from the get-go.

If you are using a Windows OS older than Win7 and you want to get Win10 for free, your only option is to upgrade your OS to Win7 or better and THEN upgrade to Win10 after it's released. You can buy Win7...maybe cheaper than buying Win10...or if you know someone with an unused Win7 activation code they would let you use, that would do the trick.

If I had waited a day or two, I would have had no reason to start this thread. Oh, well...
 
Mycroft said:
-- If I had waited a day or two, I would have had no reason to start this thread. Oh, well...
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You did right. I think one prevailing theory is that Microsoft wants to turn the millions of pirate copies in China into legal copies of Win 10, I can see perfect sense in the theory as you turn millions of illegal customers into millions of legal customers.

More to be gained by engaging with the pirates I think.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
You did right. I think one prevailing theory is that Microsoft wants to turn the millions of pirate copies in China into legal copies of Win 10, I can see perfect sense in the theory as you turn millions of illegal customers into millions of legal customers.

More to be gained by engaging with the pirates I think.
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Well, the issue of turning pirate copies into legal copies is a different issue...one that still isn't settle as far as I know and it has gone through its own permutations. We'll see how that one shakes out as time goes by, I'm sure.

But from what I understand, at the moment, those pirated copies don't automatically turn into legit copies and are not eligible for the free upgrade to Win10. What I'm guessing will happen is that pirated copies of Win7 will suffer the same fate as legitimate copies of that OS...they will fall behind and won't be able to deal with the advances and changes in computer uses that are to come. I mean, there is a reason few people use Win98 anymore. It's pretty much useless and incompatible with modern hardware and software. The same will eventually happen to Win7.

Now, I'm sure people will try real hard to pirate Win10...and they might succeed. I also expect MS to combat those attempts. Making it easy to switch to a legit copy could be one such attempt.
 
PeteEU said:
Hey it is not that long ago that AMD bought ATI! At least I did not ask if it was VIA or S3... and if it is.. get a new card!
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amd bought ati in 06,and oficially stopped branding cards ati in 2010.

but when i think old,i think vodoo 2 dual card or even something like an ati 3drage or even way older a hercules cga card.
 
beerftw said:
amd bought ati in 06,and oficially stopped branding cards ati in 2010.

but when i think old,i think vodoo 2 dual card or even something like an ati 3drage or even way older a hercules cga card.
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Yea see.. not that long ago!

and Dual Voodoo cards.. omfgs that is pimp.
 
Carlton_dancing_and_shizz.gif


Yeharr.

Windows 10 latest update - full screen on my tablet PC. Now I only have to wait for Wacom to update the Wacom Drivers for tablet PCs to work on Windows 10.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
Yeharr.

Windows 10 latest update - full screen on my tablet PC. Now I only have to wait for Wacom to update the Wacom Drivers for tablet PCs to work on Windows 10.
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You are obviously talking about the latest technical preview update.

I'm curious...do you expect Wacom to wait till after Win10 is released before they update the drivers? Or will they have them available July 29?
 
Mycroft said:
You are obviously talking about the latest technical preview update.
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Yup, I haven't gone back to Windows 7 yet.. My newer tablets will go to Windows 10 but it's the older hardware I want to review and test.

Mycroft said:
I'm curious...do you expect Wacom to wait till after Win10 is released before they update the drivers? Or will they have them available July 29?
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Wacom will probably wait - they will have a test driver for selected insider users but historically they are not a fast moving company.

The driver for Win 8.1 works pretty well as it is so I'm using that.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
Yup, I haven't gone back to Windows 7 yet.. My newer tablets will go to Windows 10 but it's the older hardware I want to review and test.



Wacom will probably wait - they will have a test driver for selected insider users but historically they are not a fast moving company.

The driver for Win 8.1 works pretty well as it is so I'm using that.
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I have an HP Stream 7 tablet with Win8.1. I've done a little reading about putting the Win10 TP on it. It seems people who did had issues with there not being any touchscreen drivers for it in Win10...but that HP's Win8.1 drivers worked. That's about as far as I've researched. I don't know if HP is going to come up with anything...or if MS is going to build generic drivers into Win10. I'll wait and see when the OS is released.
 
Could you reinstall 8.1 if you gave 10 a try? As a layman I'd bet a lot of Win 8's underlying structure is in Win 10 which is why some drivers may still work.
 
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