Monday, June 01, 2015

Windows 10 Upgrade Q&A

Today, I noticed a new icon in my Windows 7 system tray (the lower-right corner of the desktop screen).  When I clicked on the icon, I got the pop-up that I've copied below promoting the free upgrade to Windows 10.  This raises interesting questions for you and your users: 


QuestionShort Answer
What should you/they do?Nothing!
Do you want to be an early-adopter of Win 10?No!

Microsoft says Windows 10 is the "last" Windows operating system you will ever own.  They will continue to improve, patch and update it forever.  One day, all your PCs will run Windows 10, after all your legacy systems (Win-XP, Win-7, et al.) have died and been replaced with new Windows 10 machines.  So the question is not if, but when and how.

Yes, the advance buzz on Windows 10 is positive and Microsoft's history is that it gets every other operating system upgrade right. So after the Windows 8 fiasco, Windows 10 will be great if the past is any guide. (Or did they jump over Windows 9 right to Windows 10 because they know 10 is another fiasco?)

But the past is not a perfect guide.  Users will have to deal with a learning curve when adopting any new operating system, lowering productivity while they adapt.  Legacy applications may not work smoothly with Windows 10.  

Keystone recommends that you let others, including Keystone, work with it first and find out the bugs and the gotchas in Windows 10 so you don't have to learn about them the hard way.  The horizon on free upgrades is one year, so there may be a case for upgrading newer PCs later this year or early next and replacing older PCs on schedule (3-5 years) instead of upgrading them