Windows 10 Is Here!

June 29th, 2015
Windows 10 Is Here!

Window 10
Today is the day. Windows 10 is here, and it's free...but do you need it?

Today is the day. Windows 10 is here.

What is it?

Windows 10 is the newest operating system from Microsoft. After the tremendous success of Windows 7, Microsoft lost some ground with Windows 8. To right the ship, they’ve invested a lot of time and energy to make sure Windows 10 solves the complaints from many users. For example, they’ve brought back the start button and don’t require users to use the “tile” view.

How much is it?

For the next 12 months, Microsoft is making Windows 10 free! You heard me right. It will be completely free.

Should I upgrade?

For all businesses that we support, we are recommending that you DO NOT upgrade until the operating system has been out long enough for your software vendors to test it fully. In fact, we’ll be testing it internally at our office to insure its stability, backwards compatibility, and overall ease of use. So for now, DO NOT download or install the Windows 10 upgrade.

If you clicked an earlier pop-up to download Windows 10, your PC may be downloading and installing the upgrade without any input from you. For this reason, we’ve blocked the automatic download for all of our managed clients (until we’ve had the opportunity for further testing).

For home users, you may be planning to install the upgrade. If you do, remember a few tips:

  1. If you’re running Windows 7, you’ll need to update your PC to the latest service pack. If you’re using Windows 8, make sure you have the latest 8.1 update.
  2. Make sure your existing programs all work with Windows 10. You don’t want to go through a “free” upgrade to find out that you must spend hundreds of dollars on new software.
  3. Make sure that ALL of your data and important files are backed up BEFORE you start the upgrade. While applications, files, and settings SHOULD migrate to the new Windows 10, we’ve seen issues that prevented this in the past (with Microsoft’s past operating system upgrades).
  4. After the upgrade, check your antivirus. Microsoft says that they will “try” to uninstall and reinstall your antivirus program during the upgrade. However, if it fails, they will install Microsoft’s free, basic antivirus program, Windows Defender. Check this after the upgrade.

One big question that we've been receiving from clients is "Will I be forced to upgrade to Windows 10?" The short answer is no, it will be your choice. As many of you know, we’ve often advised clients not to upgrade existing PCs to Windows 8 due mainly to the ill-advised interface changes that Microsoft made in that OS. Microsoft somewhat fixed that in Windows 8.1, and has made much better choices with Windows 10. In our testing of the Windows 10 Preview editions over the past few months, we've been impressed. That brings up the second most common question we've received:

"What happened with Windows 9?" Although Microsoft has not given an official answer on that, there has been a lot of speculation, from 9 being an unlucky number in Japan to third-party program code that references "Windows version (Starts with 'Windows 9')" referring back to Windows 95 and 98. My personal favorite is that the new version of Windows is so much better that an increment of 1 didn't do it justice.

Of course, we're here if you need any assistance. Feel free to give us a call.