Windows 10
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Created: Saturday, 27 June 2015 10:49
According to Microsoft, Windows 10 will be available as a free upgrade to select users of Windows 7 and 8.1 starting July 29, 2015. This free option will only be available for 1 year. Microsoft has posted a listing of their minimum requirements for upgrade here (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-specifications)
To reserve a copy of Windows 10, Microsoft has deployed a Windows 10 app that confirms your device is compatible with Windows 10. To get the app, click on the small Windows icon located at the lower right side of the task-bar, and click ‘Reserve your free upgrade’ when prompted. Once reserved, Microsoft alerts you when your device is ready to install the upgrade. Unfortunately, this free update is not available to Enterprise customers. Once upgraded to Windows 10, you will be able to reinstall, including a clean install, on the same device without needing to purchase Windows 10 or go back to your prior version of Windows and upgrade again.
I installed the Windows 10 Beta on a virtual machine (VM) to see if it will be a viable option for many of my clients. I connected VM will be added to the a domain and see if it will utilize the same group policies (GP) as the Windows 7 workstations. There are probably new policies that will need to be created specifically for Windows 10, but those will crop up as testing and deployment matures.
The only issues I found is that some of the existing applications I tested would not work, unless they were upgraded to their latest versions. According to a Symantec forum (http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/sep-and-windows-10), 12.1 RU5 and below will not support Windows 10. RU6 is available for deployment, and is it is stated that this will work for Windows 10. When RU6 was installed, I was able to successfully manage the Windows 10 VM via the Symantec EndPoint Protection Manager.
For the most part, I think that Windows 10 is a viable option for almost every use case I've encountered. I predict that because of the intial price of this OS, that it will become the next best thing.
