What to tell customers about Windows 10 free upgrade 2

[goombawaho]

This whole free upgrade thing is stressing me out. I'm concerned that customers are going to go ahead and reserve their copy via the little task bar icon and let it rip after July 29th. This seems very risky given the following realities:
- not all hardware/software will be compatible
- driver issues
- older computers that can just barely run W7 may run worse
- some upgrades will likely just fail

What am I supposed to do? Email everyone I can think of and tell them that they can reserve their copy, just don't pull the trigger until we get some feedback regarding real world experiences. Worst case scenario for me is that a bunch of people upgrade as soon as they can and I get multiple calls of screwed up computers.

Anyone have a letter template? "Dear customer - hold your horses..........."


"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[rclarke250]

They can check their system and applications to see what will work or not, in the upper left corner of the reservation app, there is a menu you can click on, and "check your PC" For mine it says hardware has 0 conflicts, Windows Media Center will be uninstalled, as it isn't supported anymore, and 2 applications I have will not work right, Spybot Search & Destroy, and PCWizard 2012. This can be done before they reserve their copy of windows 10.

 

[xit]

This will get very interesting no doubt. Most of my customers will not be aware of it period, many others will ignore it, after that who knows.
On the upside I can see a brisk business upturn with all these scenarios. This is a call for my customers to make, I can't police their actions but I can assist them after the fact, best I can do.

 

[goombawaho]

rclarke250 - I knew about the link to test compatibility and I just sent out the following letter. The problem is that many people don't pay attention or think about things, they just act.

I prefer to herd my customers like cattle.

Dear Customer,

As you may or may not have heard, Microsoft is letting all users of Windows 7 and Windows 8 upgrade to Windows 10 when it comes out at the end of July. You may have noticed that a new icon has appeared on your task bar recently. This is related to the Windows 10 upgrade. See attached PDF.

Basically, you reserve your copy of Windows 10 by providing an email address. Then the software will be downloaded and will wait until triggered by Microsoft some time after July 29, 2015. I would recommend that you WAIT so we can see how the upgrades go and how Windows 10 is received. Don't be one of the first to upgrade and possibly suffer the consequences. The free upgrade is good until July 2016, so there is no rush. If you have any questions about this, please contact me.

If you want all the information Microsoft has disseminated, here is a very good and quick reference: Windows 10 Free Upgrade FAQ

Generally speaking, if your PC runs Windows 7 or Windows 8, it will run Windows 10 without an issue. If you want to run a Windows 10 compatibility analysis on your computer, here is how to do that.
Click the Get Windows 10 icon on the task bar. In the "Get Windows 10" upgrade window, click the icon with the three horizontal bars, a.k.a. the hamburger icon (upper left). From the left pane that appears, click the link to Check your PC.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[linney]

Everything you need to know about upgrading to Windows 10

http://venturebeat.com/2015/06/01/everything-you-need-to-know-about-upgrading-to-windows-10/

Microsoft starts prompting Windows 7 and Windows 8 users to ‘reserve’ their free Windows 10 upgrade

http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/31/m...ers-to-reserve-their-free-windows-10-upgrade/

Questions about reserving Windows 10

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...ndows-10/eef2b38b-f84c-4468-ad8f-3a868d71130d

Specifications

These are for a pre-released version of Windows 10 and are subject to change.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/windows-10-specifications

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-specifications

 

[goombawaho]

Your post assumes I knew nothing about the Windows 10 upgrade, which is not the case. Irrespective of that, my question was related to handling the upgrade in the real world with real customers.

You need to understand the question before you "copy and paste" a reply.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[johnherman]

I would warn your user community that they are not to upgrade their workstations (independently) to Windows 10 unless they get approval from the Windows Administration Group to bypass Windows 9. That should present a sufficent roadblock to a large part of the user community.

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adaptive uber info galaxies (bigger, better, faster, and more adept than agile big data clouds)

 

[goombawaho]

Most larger organizations will have volume licensing which will NOT offer to be updated that way. Probably for a very good reason. Because people WOULD DO IT and cause chaos. I'm worried about 3 person offices and individuals.

Link

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[johnherman]

Not the best of options, but for those particular users, you can disable Windows Update using Services. I do this on my own systems regularly, and for the same reasons you've listed - let other people be the testers, and do the upgrade at a time of my choosing. Of course, you'll probably want to wait to disable their Windows Update until right around the launch date. BTW, if they are using the Microsoft Antivirus/Antimalware, those upgrades are not affected by Windows Update being disabled.

==================================
adaptive uber info galaxies (bigger, better, faster, and more adept than agile big data clouds)