Personally, I will stay with Windows. 

That's the question, Andy. 

If you're lucky you'll be able to roll back to W7. If not, "Welcome to Linux" or MacOS, because W7 will not be supported after 2020, if I remember correctly.

I would stay with Windows, but the version would depend on the ongoing costs. 

I would certainly NOT pay $84 a year to run Win10 on any of my PCs, so if they go with that model, I would revert the ones I could, and see about Win8x for the others. 

I'd rather pay a $100 one-time fee for Win8.1 from Newegg, than "rent" an OS for a monthly rate from MS.

I really don't think Microsoft could force people who upgraded to Windows 10 for free to pay a fee to continue to use it. That would seem highly irresponsible, if not totally illegal to me. 

I rolled back to Windows 7 after trying Win 10. I was having some strong issues with Microsoft over a  product key and Windows CD that I bought legitimately online from a reputable company. I felt like I was being extorted by Microsoft. What is being described in this thread sounds like extortion to me. I'll stick with my Windows 7. It works great and I don't miss Win 10 one little bit. If enough people do this, I think Microsoft would have to rethink their approach if they want Win 10 to be anywhere near successful.     -- Ace --

As of today:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows

bottom of page:

* Windows Offer Details

Yes, free! This upgrade offer is for a full version of Windows 10, not a trial.

______________________________________________

I expect no surprises on existing installations,  Who knows what pricing models MS or anyone else may choose to use in the future.

I didn't say it was a trial. I'm asking what happens at the end of the year? 

"Yes, free! This upgrade offer is for a full version of Windows 10, not a trial. 3GB download required; internet access fees may apply. To take advantage of this free offer, you must upgrade to Windows 10 within one year of availability. Once you upgrade, you have Windows 10 for free on that device."

Right...but what about updates...patches, etc. Will you get them, or, will you have to subscribe to get them?

I'm not saying you will or won't have to subscribe...just wondering.

If you do have to subscribe, then what will you do?

It depends entirely on how much they charge, just like everything else.  If it's what I would consider reasonable, I'll probably buy it.  I'm not fundamentally against paying for software.  Otherwise in my case I guess there would be Win7 for what patch period remains for it, which I would probably choose over an unpatched Win10.  I really have no interest in Linux, it seems like more of a hobby than I'm looking for at this point.

I really don't expect it to be an issue though.  At some point they may choose to charge for a service pack (e.g., Win3.1), and if they do I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, and again it would all depend on price/options.

Honestly I'm not at all convinced or concerned that there is some horrible master plan for Win10.  Remember all the speculation regarding the $40 or whatever upgrade offer for Win8?  And after that they didn't even charge for 8.1.  I think it it far more likely that many of the speculative writers on those various sites are just trying to generate traffic.

nothing will happen at the end of the (freebie upgrade) year. they need big install base to sell the other rubbish / collect data, etc.

most people get their windows via oem installs on new machines, does anyone really see windows going kaput after 1 year if they don't pony up? no. that'll never happen.

win10 being win10 means devices gets lifetime upgrade for free. though of course definition of that is yet to be defined. you can reasonably see free upgrades (on that device) for maybe 5 years until ms deems certain hardware requirement is needed or some such for a particular upgrade.

enterprise gets subscriptions just like it always has. don't confuse that and consumer stuff. smb might get screwed though.

Jafo is correct, you can take off the Tin foil hat.  That being said it's very likely that a future Windows home releases will have a subscription model.  It's a subscription economy we're living in.

I dl'd Linux' latest release. Mint 18 with cinnamon. Since unloading 8.1 I got plenty of room for another OS. Just another toy to play with. 

surely that'll be him describing some sort of concept, and then other people dumping the money?

1 thing about linux... it just ain't consumer friendly enough as long as people looking up how to do stuff is given command line answers.

as for mint.. simple things like always keeping numlock on (upon login) requires a separate app instead of being baked into the os settings.. or upgrading from 17->18 not done via gui... just meh.