[Keith Wallace]

Microsoft to provide free upgrades to Windows 10 for 2 to 4 years | Computerworld

I've basically been willing to accept that complaints of an impending subscription-based OS are just unfounded cries of anti-Microsoft displeasure. Now, we've got an annoyingly quiet Microsoft posting slides hinting that this might be true. Given the company's total lack of transparency on any aspect of Windows 10 lately, this is definitely something that's going to stop me from upgrading, at least for a while. I have no interest in a subscription-based OS. I'll stick to Windows 8.1 through its support cycle (much longer than the alleged W10 one), and I'd sooner learn Linux than sign up for monthly/yearly fees to use my computer.

If Microsoft even bothered to TRY to explain this away, it wouldn't be AS bad. Instead, there continued silence on things is obnoxious on a good day. Given how half-baked their Windows Phone hardware existence has been (and how it burned many waiting for McLaren, among other things), I've lost a willingness to give them the benefit of the doubt. So, here's hoping Microsoft learns what a P.R. team is for, because I'll be sticking to Windows 8.1 until there's some kind of open explanation of what we're REALLY signing up for.

[owensdj]

You can't go wrong taking the free upgrade to Windows 10. I'll be free and supported for the lifetime of that device. We know this much for sure.

What I'm guessing MS will be doing is that they'll support bug & security fixes for life on Windows. In the future new features will cost money. This is actually better for the consumers than the way they've been doing it with older versions no longer supported at all.

[TheLumaniac]

You can't go wrong taking the free upgrade to Windows 10. I'll be free and supported for the lifetime of that device. We know this much for sure.

What I'm guessing MS will be doing is that they'll support bug & security fixes for life on Windows. In the future new features will cost money. This is actually better for the consumers than the way they've been doing it with older versions no longer supported at all.

This + No one has said anything about paying a monthly subscription.

[blrossjr79]

Wait, what? A subscription? That would kill Windows. Doubt they'd do that.

[Don Geronimo]

Windows as a consumer product has never really made money for Microsoft. I doubt that they'd charge a subscription for the OS itself, especially with their vision of Windows as a Service.

Their "subscription" model is already working anyways, but through Xbox Live, Groove Music, Office 365, Skype Unlimited, and their other services that run atop Windows, and not Windows itself.

[Jas00555]

I have another idea...

How about we stop reading FUD and only listen to trusted Windows reporters?

http://www.neowin.net/news/no-micros...-in-four-years

[PepperdotNet]

Your cost for Windows 10 will be exactly the same amount you would pay for the next service pack of your current validly licensed Windows, if there were in fact a next service pack.