How could I even give them hard-earned money when they're giving it for free?

Woot. You can stream to your computer rather than playing on the console. I'm sure the same pitch was done for VCR's where you could attach it directly to your TV. It still means the console is separate from the PC, not to mention instead of displaying directly on a TV, now it has to encode it and send that data over a network, which might add latency. If you have a very high personal network you might not notice a problem, still seems like a really lame feature vs say putting a HDMI input slot on your computer and then feeding it to one of your recording software's

If we're talking about the upgrade for free (first year) then i hardly consider that free. They want to push the new OS and to do that early adoption seems the easiest way to go, especially since 8 was so universally hated.

I've lost trust in Microsoft for years, Giving a free upgrade won't change my stance on them.

7 ate (8) 9

I don't know about the others, but it proved true enough of Windows 7. In any case it's free and it's not like you won't still have Win 7 to reinstall should you not get on with Win10 anyway. Only if you decide not to get it in that first year then you're losing out on a freebie and gaining nothing.

Then how microsoft earns their profit? Surely they do not give things free out of good will alone, not especially it cost them millions to develope and market this new windows. There must be a catch somewhere right?

The idea is the cost of the OS to be regained from Store transactions and first party services.

There's also what's called the windows tax. Glancing over the article Microsoft charges something $50 to a $1000 computer for their copy of windows, but they can raise the prices so $50 isn't necessarily the bottom price.

If only a million computers were sold in the US per year, that still equates to $50M+ to Microsoft. I'm sure more than a million are sold a year.

The fish!!! Couple with the fact that Microsoft no longer sells Win 7, it is a good time to learn how to build my new PC.

I mean I had reformated and reinstall my windows and drivers in the past, and had been installing graphic cards, memory and such when I upgrade my PC, surely it is not hard to build a PC from scratch with its components right? Just need to calculate the power for correct power supply and the rest should be plug and play?

If you plan on adding a high end video card, a 500W powersupply is needed, otherwise 300W will work for you (probably). The video cards will tell you, since as far as i can tell only the 500W have a certain type of plugin that plugs directly into a video card.

Something i've done is go to NewEgg, and either find a barebones system and upgrade it, or a preconfigured package. They did a good job on those from my memory.

Also... you'll probably need specialized screwdrivers, either NewEgg or OfficeMax will have it, so i'd recommend getting them.

As for actually building the system, give yourself an entire table of room, and about 3 hours to configure it. It's rare to plug everything in the right order the first time :P

edit: and static electricity... yes... when in doubt if you are charged, touch the frame.... I have yet to zap anything i've worked with.

I installed the Windows 10 tech preview and am using it.

I'm trying to use it's features rather than try to make it do all the exact things I had set up before.

So far, it's working well. Time will tell if I like it, if it does everything I want, etc. But so far so good.

http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff300/fv00269.htm

Dude, you got 1 GB.

I know, (that's not my main PC though), but 8.1 uses between 40 and 50% of that while idle, 10 uses 90%, there's something wrong at least with this build (reported via feedback app btw) for an OS which claim to be even lighter than 8.x

I see. 8.1 is pretty light indeed.