Keep Windows 10 Preview Up to Date or Face a Dead PC

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Microsoft has a strange way of keeping you up to date if you are running Windows 10 Preview; your PC won’t boot up. A not too subtle hint that the build that you are running isn’t in the best interest of Microsoft and you have to upgrade to the later 2015 Builds, which will also stop booting on October 15th when the Preview program officially ends.

The first three builds of Windows 10 Technical Preview—9841, 9860 and 9879, all released in 2014—will refuse to boot at the end of April, according to a message posted by a Microsoft support engineer on the company’s discussion forum.
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I can see something like this being implemented in their OS for all users in the very distant future. Around the same time frame where all users have a permanent personal IP address that can be banned from the entire internet for insulting a billionaires business or terrorism (then known as just saying something wrong about the wrong person).


I'm an optimist at heart.
 
Blah blah blah. This isn't news, nor should it be surprising to anyone.
 
Ruoh said:
Blah blah blah. This isn't news, nor should it be surprising to anyone.
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Agreed.

They are free previews. Not products anyone paid for. They were never intended to be long term installs.

To me they are something to be fired up in a VM once or twice to play around with, but not something I would run as a real OS.


Germanium said:
I can see something like this being implemented in their OS for all users in the very distant future. Around the same time frame where all users have a permanent personal IP address that can be banned from the entire internet for insulting a billionaires business or terrorism (then known as just saying something wrong about the wrong person).


I'm an optimist at heart.
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I kind of wish they would do this.

Can you imagine how few botnets there would be if XP - for instance - had a forced no boot date after EOL?

Though, rather than refuse to boot, I would just make the OS refuse to recognize any network devices after EOL, because network connectivity is the real threat at that point. Let them go on using the OS as a standalone machine for as long as they want.

Having any OS connected to the internet past when it no longer receives security updates is a very very bad idea, that some people just can't seem to get into their heads.

Not only are you and your data at risk, but you also are at a much increased risk of becoming part of a botnet (without any user interaction) and harming others on the internet.

"being careful" and using anti-virus and anti-malware are not an adequate protection once patching ends.
 
most users are fine with an os that can surf the internet, watch netflix and email.

chrome os and ios fills that niche nicely.

an operating system should not tell you what to do.
 
This shouldn't be surprising nor should you be using the technical preview in the first place if you're just going to let your install sit stagnant.
 
Acting like this is new is disingenuous.
Microsoft has put out Technical Previews with expiration dates for decades.

Now, if this ever becomes part of a SHIPPING operating system?
THEN people need to grab their pitchforks and pop the top on the pitch and naptha.
 
This is a complete non-story...nothing "strange" at all...;) I do find it strange that Al seems completely befuddled by what Microsoft is doing.

This is perfectly normal for beta software--it's called a time-out. It simply means that the version you are using has timed out and you need to go and get the next version of the software, which is also free--just like the now-obsolete older build/version. When Netscape was in business it gave away copies of Navigator/Communicator on its web site that were *all* timed out--after a certain date the browsers would refuse to run. But...just like with Win10, no worries, because the remedy was simply to install the next version of the browser--which also had a time-out date. (Netscape's time-outs occurred after 90 days.) Small price to pay for getting a free browser in those days which you updated every 90 days in perpetuity, I thought at the time...;) Alternately you could buy a copy of Netscape's browsers from a software store and not have to worry about time-outs, as the free browsers downloaded from Netscape's site were the only versions with time-outs...as they were betas, too.

Also, unlike Al's implication, Microsoft has never recommended to anyone that the Win10 Previews (beta software) be run on anyone's main box, so this statement:

"...A not too subtle hint that the build that you are running isn’t in the best interest of Microsoft and you have to upgrade to the later 2015 Builds."
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...is misleading in what it implies, because the "best interests of Microsoft" isn't served by updating the Win10 build to the newest build, it is in the best interests of the people running the Win10 beta previews that they update to each new build of Win10 as it is released. In fact, when joining the "Windows Insiders" in order to get the Preview OS in the first place, you must agree to update the OS as new builds are released through the Windows update channels (from common sense if for no other reason--there is no earthly reason why someone would not do that.) The Preview builds are betas and they all have bugs, but ostensibly the newer builds have fewer bugs than the older builds--which is of course the main reason people should not run Win10 Preview as their primary OS (Win10 hasn't yet shipped.) You don't have to take Microsoft's advice about that, but if you decide to run Win10 as your primary, anyway, then if a bug brings down the OS and you lose all your stuff--that is 100% your fault.

I cannot understand why anyone would think that beta software timeouts have a sinister aspect to them. The practice has a long history and is industry-standard for beta software.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041555674 said:
Can you imagine how few botnets there would be if XP - for instance - had a forced no boot date after EOL?
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Can you imagine how much more money companies would make if they were able to decide when you had to stop using a product you paid for?

Refusing to support a product is fine but stopping it functioning should never be allowed. Its bad enough that they get away with designing products to fail after a few years.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041555674 said:
To me they are something to be fired up in a VM once or twice to play around with, but not something I would run as a real OS.
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I've been using the technical preview as my main os ever since it came out, there are a few bugs here and there but its been working great. I didn't even do a clean install, just upgraded over 8.1 and I'm on the latest build now.
 
but why should people upgrade if they don't want to, isn't this a free country?
 
AndreRio said:
but why should people upgrade if they don't want to, isn't this a free country?
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This has ne relevance to this "non" issue. You didn't pay for the technical preview, if you did then yes, that would be true. You voluntarily participated and agreed to abide by the rules set forth by Microsoft in regards to it.
 
AndreRio said:
but why should people upgrade if they don't want to, isn't this a free country?
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Maybe because it's test software that was never intended for production use and will not receive support when the RTM version is released.
 
Ya, I'm not sure why someone would be surprised by this. It's a free preview/demo. How many games put out demos that allow you to play the full game or play for as long as you'd like?
 
Why the clickbait? this isn't news..

Dead PC? Really? come on... I thought this was a PC enthusiast forum, lol.
 
but someone payed for the paid version (win7/8.1) I did. I should not be deceived like that? upgrade, as they want us to?
 
It was actually news to me. I knew of a deadline but did not know the actual date. I am using win10 on laptop that was originally mine but got repurposed for a project. I will most likely reformat to 8.1 because of this restriction since I should not be beta testing on a production system anyways.
 
AndreRio said:
but someone payed for the paid version (win7/8.1) I did. I should not be deceived like that? upgrade, as they want us to?
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Deceived how? If you installed it on a production system (which they advise against) that's not you being deceived.

You installed a technical preview of software that the builds change fairly often, Microsoft didn't deceive you into thinking it was anything but a technical preview.
 
My only thing is I wish they'd let you run windows inside a VHD. You can and they will let you but it's not supported. So every time they push another image to my windows 10 preview I have to install it myself (been having a hard time trying to get the image passed through windows update) because it will just fail saying you can't run windows on a virtual hard drive.
 
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