Microsoft Making Free Windows 10 Upgrade Available To Small Businesses

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Microsoft is now making the free upgrade to Windows 10 available to small businesses. The company has also posted instructions for IT departments to opt out of the automatic upgrade and disable the GWX icon.

Because of ongoing customer requests from many small businesses and other small organizations to easily take advantage of the free upgrade, we will soon make the Get Windows 10 app available to them as well. Like consumers, small businesses and organizations will soon be able to receive notifications about the upgrade and then directly upgrade to Windows 10 through an easy-to-use interface right from the system tray on their Windows 7 Pro or Windows 8.1 Pro PC.
 
Guess it's time for me to upgrade the office to Server 2012...*sigh*
 
Haa haa they have to opt out. That means if someone isn't paying attention....Well you know what'll happen.
 
I just had this happen yesterday too. A guest was using a PC and upgraded to Windows 10. Great there is a group policy that I can apply from Winsrv 2012.
 
So what do they consider a "small business". How many butts in seats licenses does that mean and how long does this offer go?
 
"We are not going to just limit our privacy issues, data collection, and wifi credentials to home users, we want to acquire it from businesses, too. Trust us..."
 
If you follow through to the KB3080351, note that they are now saying this:

"Microsoft has released new updates to enable you to block upgrades to Windows 10 through Windows Update. These updates install a new Group Policy Object. Computers that have this Group Policy Object enabled will never detect, download, or install an upgrade to the latest version of Windows."

They also give the registry key methods to do the same thing for non-Enterprise versions. It will be interesting to see if they continue to honor the reg key going forward, giving all Win7 and 8.1 users a means of permanently turning off the WIndows 10 nagging.
 
evilsofa said:
They also give the registry key methods to do the same thing for non-Enterprise versions. It will be interesting to see if they continue to honor the reg key going forward, giving all Win7 and 8.1 users a means of permanently turning off the WIndows 10 nagging.
Click to expand...

Assuming that the free upgrade period ends July 29, 2016, not seeing why they wouldn't. The wrinkle in that would be if they do extend the free upgrade period. I could see an extension that they could play off as "overwhelming demand" or some other typical marketing hype, but I don't think the upgrade will be free permanently. At least without some time passing after the free upgrade offer.
 
Very bad plan that will cause a lot of problems. There is no reason put the upgrade icon and nagware on business machines. Guess Microsoft is really getting desperate to get more people to upgrade to Windows 10.

There are too many old applications in use by businesses that can break if a user accidently upgrades to Windows 10. Plus the bandwidth while the update downloads Windows to every computer (even if you don't install it) will be sucking up a lot of their internet.

Lucky I have the office on WSUS, so I should be ok, but I have to be careful not to run windows updates until after I join the computer to the domain.
 
heatlesssun said:
Assuming that the free upgrade period ends July 29, 2016, not seeing why they wouldn't.
Click to expand...

My guess is that they will extend the free upgrade period, but they won't announce it until the last minute because they want to push as many people into upgrading as possible.

If they don't announce an extension to the free upgraded a month before it ends, I'll "fake" upgrade my home systems before the time runs out.
I'll install a spare drive, image the system to the spare drive, disconnect the original drive and then upgrade the image on the spare to Windows 10. Then I'll remove the spare drive and reconnect the original drive. This way if I eventually want to do an upgrade or a fresh install of 10, Microsoft will already have a key for my systems.

Hopefully they will extend the "Free" upgrade period so I don't have to bother with this.
 
I'm not sure how they know these are business machines vs home machines. I run Win Pro and it's not a business machine. Is it based off of whether you use active directory?
 
nilepez said:
I'm not sure how they know these are business machines vs home machines. I run Win Pro and it's not a business machine. Is it based off of whether you use active directory?
Click to expand...

It's based on if you use Windows Update. Previously this wasn't getting pushed out to devices on a domain. However those machines were getting updates directly from Microsoft.

This actually makes sense and isn't quite as nefarious as some are making it. If you're using Windows Update to manage machines then this is how those that would upgrade to 10 would probably do it anyway. It is legitimate to argue that it's opt-out versus opt-in. But that could be the case for any update that you potentially wouldn't want from Microsoft.
 
nilepez said:
I'm not sure how they know these are business machines vs home machines. I run Win Pro and it's not a business machine. Is it based off of whether you use active directory?
Click to expand...

If your machine is joined to a domain, then you wouldn't have the Windows 10 nagware installed. That's how they should have left it.

Now, even if you are on a domain, but are using Windows Pro, you will see the Windows 10 update screens. Businesses using WSUS (Windows update service) or Windows 7 Enterprise will not see it (yet).
 
nutzo said:
If your machine is joined to a domain, then you wouldn't have the Windows 10 nagware installed. That's how they should have left it.

Now, even if you are on a domain, but are using Windows Pro, you will see the Windows 10 update screens. Businesses using WSUS (Windows update service) or Windows 7 Enterprise will not see it (yet).
Click to expand...

But if you're using Windows Update to deploy updates even when joined to a domain that's how those machines receive updates, just like home users. And no, this can't happen to devices using WSUS, that's the whole point of it, to control updates.

Again, the only issue here is opt-out versus opt-in.
 
Does this mean that Windows 7 / 8.1 versions (Pro or Ultimate) authorized with volume license / KMS activation will be able to upgrade to a permanently activated copy of Win10 Pro that doesn't require rearming with KMS because of the new plan for Win10 or something?
 
Xaeos said:
Does this mean that Windows 7 / 8.1 versions (Pro or Ultimate) authorized with volume license / KMS activation will be able to upgrade to a permanently activated copy of Win10 Pro that doesn't require rearming with KMS because of the new plan for Win10 or something?
Click to expand...
probably or something.
 
nutzo said:
If your machine is joined to a domain, then you wouldn't have the Windows 10 nagware installed. That's how they should have left it.

Now, even if you are on a domain, but are using Windows Pro, you will see the Windows 10 update screens.
Click to expand...

However, if the admin installs the new Group Policy Object as outlined in KB3080351, the machines joined on the domain will never detect, download, or install the Windows 10 upgrade.
 
evilsofa said:
However, if the admin installs the new Group Policy Object as outlined in KB3080351, the machines joined on the domain will never detect, download, or install the Windows 10 upgrade.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Opt-in instead of opt-out is the only issue here. Not exactly earth shattering if one is updating their fleet with Windows Update instead of their own system.
 
evilsofa said:
However, if the admin installs the new Group Policy Object as outlined in KB3080351, the machines joined on the domain will never detect, download, or install the Windows 10 upgrade.
Click to expand...

Except that requires you to be running Windows 2008 r2 or later on your domain controller.

There are some issues with dotted NetBIOS names on Windows 2008R2 server and later that have kept me from being able to upgrade the main domain controllers at the office (something I inherited). Only solution is a complete domain migration with is complicated by Exchange, CRM and Share Point. Wouldn't be a problem if I could shut everything down for a week & rebuild.
I'm a one man IT shop, so trying to allocate a couple man weeks for a migration project is pretty much impossible.
 
nutzo said:
Except that requires you to be running Windows 2008 r2 or later on your domain controller.

There are some issues with dotted NetBIOS names on Windows 2008R2 server and later that have kept me from being able to upgrade the main domain controllers at the office (something I inherited). Only solution is a complete domain migration with is complicated by Exchange, CRM and Share Point. Wouldn't be a problem if I could shut everything down for a week & rebuild.
I'm a one man IT shop, so trying to allocate a couple man weeks for a migration project is pretty much impossible.
Click to expand...

So deploy the registry settings.
 
My question to Microsoft would be:

What company would want their employees getting the notification and handling a windows 10 upgrade themselves?
 
crispyb said:
I just had this happen yesterday too. A guest was using a PC and upgraded to Windows 10. Great there is a group policy that I can apply from Winsrv 2012.
Click to expand...

There is an option somewhere to only allow admin to do updates, use it.
 
I kind of hope this results in Microsoft on the receiving end of a huge lawsuit...and losing.
 
BryanSTG said:
I kind of hope this results in Microsoft on the receiving end of a huge lawsuit...and losing.
Click to expand...

Yes, because a free upgrade which you can both block and roll back is something a jury is going to give you money for :rolleyes:

Be definition, these are small companies. The admin could probably roll back every PC in a an hour or so....in case you didn't know, rolling back is very fast.
 
nilepez said:
Yes, because a free upgrade which you can both block and roll back is something a jury is going to give you money for :rolleyes:

Be definition, these are small companies. The admin could probably roll back every PC in a an hour or so....in case you didn't know, rolling back is very fast.
Click to expand...

SMFH. Why should any admin even have to deal with the possibility of that headache?

Its going to take the EU a while to catch up to MS on 10 because the legal system is slow, but I do hope we end up getting a SKU with all the spying bullshit removed.
 
I think they are pretty much at the point where they want everyone to be on a single Windows OS platform. Which I don't blame them since having to continue support for multiple OS's can be an issue for them. I know some offline systems that still run Windows 2000 at a local supermarket lol. Most common I see when at anywhere with a computer or screen in view is often Windows XP.
 
nilepez said:
Yes, because a free upgrade which you can both block and roll back is something a jury is going to give you money for :rolleyes:

Be definition, these are small companies. The admin could probably roll back every PC in a an hour or so....in case you didn't know, rolling back is very fast.
Click to expand...

Microsoft is installing nagware, spyware, and Windows 10 (in some cases) without consent. This is definitely not legal, despite what their EULA says.
 
BryanSTG said:
Microsoft is installing nagware, spyware, and Windows 10 (in some cases) without consent. This is definitely not legal, despite what their EULA says.
Click to expand...

That said, in the case of machines connected to Windows domains, the option to not use Microsoft's Windows Update has long been an option. Windows Update has long been spyware and nagware by your definition.
 
DPI said:
SMFH. Why should any admin even have to deal with the possibility of that headache?

Its going to take the EU a while to catch up to MS on 10 because the legal system is slow, but I do hope we end up getting a SKU with all the alleged spying bullshit removed.
Click to expand...

fixed that for you
 
nilepez said:
Then hire a lawyer. Sue Microsoft. Get rich.
Click to expand...

I always find it laughable how lawyers are denigrated in a place like this, until someone wants or needs one. So much for Microsoft's BS, it comes no where close to anonymous Internet forums.
 
chockomonkey said:
My question to Microsoft would be:

What company would want their employees getting the notification and handling a windows 10 upgrade themselves?
Click to expand...

Prior to being acquired, my company had about a tenth of a person on IT -- if we had a domain server, it would have been totally fine for people to upgrade themselves. We didn't have enough windows machines to consider setting up a domain though.
 
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