I was a beta tester on windows me, vista, windows 7, windows 8 plus 8.1 now windows 10 and ive never got a free full copy of windows off Microsoft but then again I am from the united kingdom, I do think all beta testers should get a full working windows 10 operating system for free though I think if none of us do it is a damn disgrace but this is my last beta test ill be doing to old now cant be harassed by it all anymore
Will probably be linked to hardware. They do that for 8.x too IIRC, so it won't be that different. The only thing is that you don't have your unique key in UEFI... Anyway, this doesn't need to be linked to your MS account, they can just use a "valid HWID list".
I think It will be linked to a hash of the hardware too, maybe even the serial number of the cpu if it has one.
Well, I installed the last build (10074 upgraded to 10130) on a local account and had no problems. Indeed, OneDrive runs fine on my Microsoft account while the OS itself logs into a local account. If they were going to fix it so that you had to use a Microsoft account for the OS then they'd simply remove the local account option, imo. Here's something that just occurred to me that I sincerely hope is not the case...it's been a tickle in the back of my mind ever since I heard Microsoft declare, "...for the lifetime of the supported device." If we look at that in terms of current retail-OS thinking the statement is murky, indistinct, and anything but clear, because with a retail copy of Windows you can "take it with you" independently of the hardware you install it on--the license belongs to you, not the machine. But what if Microsoft wants to permanently tie all Windows 10 licenses (retail & OEM) to a specific piece of hardware? With OEM Windows licenses today you can clean install the OS an infinite amount of times, but only on the original hardware because the license is tied to the hardware--not the customer. What if Microsoft is simply doing away with retail licensing as we've known it in the past and transferring all future licensing to an OEM, hardware-tied model? I hate to say it, but that makes perfect sense and explains all of Microsoft's murky statements on the matter--they only seem murky if we think about classical retail Windows licensing. If it should turn out that every time I want to buy a new motherboard I need to buy another Windows license, then I think Microsoft will see a massive consumer revolt 100x more devastating to them than their original plan to make the xBone online-only... Still, as there will be retail Windows 10 licenses sold, and OEM licenses that come with pre-built computers, there has to be *some difference* there--so I hope what I'm thinking is way off base...
This is why I'm more intrigued by what the OEM manufacturers will do. If I do get a new laptop now with windows 10, that should be my geniune windows 10 OS. I should be able to re-install freely. I'd assume there should be some sort of unique identifier as was in Win 8.1, this is not a free upgrade.
You can reinstall once you have updated your activation info and hardware ID is stored in the cloud. Just reinstall Windows on a blank HDD if you wish on the same PC and once connected to the net it will activate using prior info that has been stored in the cloud. If you have a OEM copy of windows Windows 10 free upgrade becomes OEM if retail it's still retail after upgrade with the same rights. See image below.
is windows 10 really free ? will ms stick to their word and give us win 10 for free or they just want everyone to use win 10 because they know that after win 8 & 8.1 no one is going for win 10 or maybe they will rip us off with the most likely to be released win 10.1
I just posed this question to the Director of our IT Department, although most of our systems are excluded from the free upgrade( VL Channel), some mobile devices are OEM. I wont be surprised if the free year will be used by MS to tweak the licensing process.
admin needs to restric any duufus from creating useless threads on question that have been asked/answere many times