If you haven’t upgraded to Windows 10 (and you didn’t have your arm twisted and the upgrade forced on you), you might have been thinking of upgrading to Windows 10.  I’m not getting into how to upgrade.  But I’m going to discuss some of the key reasons why you should consider it and a few reasons why you might not.

Why upgrade:

It’s Free. At least for now. If you already have Windows 7 or 8.

Windows 10 is a free upgrade from Windows 7 upwards until the 29th July 2016.  There is a ‘cost’ in terms of the time it will take you to upgrade and potentially work through any issues you might have after the upgrade but the software itself is free for most people for now.

 

It’s the new Windows, same as the old Windows.

Microsoft has learnt a lot from the mistakes of Windows (ahem) Vista and Windows 8.  Windows 10 is a solid operating system and seems to have been well received around the world.  It fixes a lot of the things users didn’t like about Windows Vista and 8 and improves on some of the things we liked from Windows 7 (like the start menu) .

 

Security and Compatibility.

The latest version of Windows is the Windows operating system is naturally the most secure and has the most compatibility with other hardware and software.  They’ve spent a lot of time with security features such as device guard, credential guard, secure boot, bitlocker drive encryption and virtualisation based security.  I’ll spare you the technical details of all of that but suffice to say it helps to add layers of protection to your pc that can make it more secure.  On top of that it will receive constant security updates and new security features via Windows Update as they become available.

Most hardware that worked under Windows 7 will still work just the same under Windows 10.  I’ve heard of the odd device here and there that doesn’t work in Windows 10 but there is usually a workaround or 3rd party driver that will get it working again.  And you should be fine as long as the device isn’t 100 years old and requires a serial interface.

 

New Features.

Windows Hello, Cortana, XBox Streaming, Universal Apps and the App Store are all reasons that you might want to consider upgrading.

For power users, virtual desktops, Powershell, Bash on Windows and even copy/pasting into the command prompt (I’m actually pretty excited about that one) are interesting new features that warrant an upgrade.

 

You may never need to upgrade again.

It ‘should’ be the last upgrade you ever need to do.  Microsoft will be rolling out upgrades and new features incrementally and automatically over time from now on.  How long they can keep this up for remains to be seen but the theory is that this should be the last time you ever need to migrate from one operating system to a completely new version.

 

 

Why not to upgrade:

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Sometimes there’s nothing wrong in just staying where you are.   If your current system is stable, works for you, is still supported with updates from Microsoft, and none of the above points are compelling to you then it makes sense not to upgrade.  Mainstream support for Windows 7 has expired already but extended support for Windows 7 will continue until January 14, 2020.

Mainstream support for Windows 8 ends January 9, 2018 and extended support goes until January 10, 2023

You have old software or old hardware

If you’re still on Windows XP, I hope you have a good reason.  A very good reason.  There aren’t many good reasons left for staying with Windows XP and legacy apps that require low level hardware access and can’t be run as a virtual machine is about all I can think of.

If you happen to be on a computer with less than 1GB ram or 1Ghz Processor and 16GB hard drive space, then you don’t meet the minimum requirements for Windows 10 either – seriously time to buy a new computer.

 

Privacy Concerns

There is a lot of things in Windows 10 that call home to Microsoft by default.  You can optionally turn most of them off during installation and depending on your view on trusting Microsoft and .  But some don’t trust their computer phoning home and not knowing what it might be collecting and sending back to Microsoft.  Security researchers haven’t found anything untoward but it is still a concern for some (and yet they will still use Windows).   There’s more details in this Lifehacker post that detail what the settings are that have caused concerns and what they actually do.

 

Dependencies on Windows Media Player.

If you absolutely can’t live without your Windows Media Player or you have custom software that relies on it, stay with Windows 7.  Windows Media Player has gone the way of the dodo in Windows 10 and has been replaced with the new Groove Player.

 

You’re a hardcore Mac or Linux Junkie.

Why are you even reading this?

 

 

 

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