For gaming I don't see any competition for windows and directx. Before we don't know the final product and pricings, we don't know a lot. The only thing we know today is that the new licence modell is a death strike for retail licenses. "lifetime updates" is the same as it ever was, but now bound to one machine. At the moment I have 3 rather new dead mainboards at my lab including 3 windows 8 licenses that died with the hardware. Okay, the key is there inside UEFI but as it's bound to the hardware hash unusable. Right?
From the Q&A after the show (no video, source liveblog from windowscentral): I think they are trying to sell the same story that retail activation is for one machine, but we all know that was not true.
Obviously there's a more annoying thing with the new license modell: a need for a microsoft account where your hardware hash will be stored. That means more cloud inclusions and most likely more telemetry.
This is not the first time that the license is bound to the hardware....how quickly people seem to forget or want to make a mountain out of a mole hill. Previously with this model all it too was a call for phone activation. I could be wrong but I do think that a unique hardware string is still generated based on your hardware and as long as x number of hardware pieces do not change with in x days windows remains activated. Once upon a time it did not take much of a change at all to trigger the need for a new activation. HOnestly I have not kept up on the activation processes with windows 8 and 8.1 and what might have changes. I could be totally misunderstanding. IF this still remains true then I see no reason why it would change. ( yes some versions required slic tables as well.)
"Devices Directly connect to Windows update so those devices get the Yada Yada as soon as they are available" approximately at 16:00 to 16:12 minutes
There's some Windows activation (besides buying a key) that's more likely to allow the Windows 10 upgrade in the future? Win7 with Win Loader, Win8.1 with kms, or other kind of activation?
At the very least, Windows 7 with loader should work (for one thing, Technical Preview was delivered to Windows 7 users via Windows Update), but honestly with the way Microsoft's been trying to put their latest stuff in the hands of consumers I'd imagine it'll be as simple as signing up to get an upgrade key, much like the way Microsoft provided free keys for Windows 8 Pro with Media Center as an upgrade for early Windows 8 users. Point being, I'd almost be willing to place money on you not even needing Windows to be activated prior to a free upgrade to Windows 10. They'd rather you pirate it than not use it at this point.
I have absolutely zero faith in them letting KMS pass. A legit KMS customer would get a new key most likely. Downgrade to W7 and loader it, unless it binds to the SLIC being there and deactivates. But hey, lots of us have devices with SLIC built in, no bootloader required.
This Agreement is only for the Windows Insider Program. Not much has changed from the original document that you agreed to when you signed up for the program. What has changed from the previous version is some things in section 13 & 14.