Do you presently have a legit licensed copy of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1? If so, your upgrade to Windows 10 is FREE if you do it within one year of the release of Windows 10 (which is targeted for mid-this-year). Really. FREE.
Other than that I haven't seen precise costs for each edition of Win10, but they should be out fairly soon.
Windwows 10 will have to offer more than a free upgrade to get me off of Windows 7. Was on XP until a few years into Windows 7 before upgrading. There is a history of problems with new operating systems and it is not open to the public thanks to the internet. No more upgrades without some knowledge of the problems thanks goodness!
Windows 7 has matured and is very stable. Why upgrade to another version without a long stable entry along with a cheap reason to upgrade? We shall see, but today I see nothing but another security promise as a reason to upgrade. Sorry, but free is not a good reason...
yes but having to upgrade even for free is a hassel. I like windows7 and don’t want to change.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/18/8241023/windows-10-free-for-software-pirates
Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users this summer, but Microsoft is also extending its offer to software pirates. "We are upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10," says Terry Myerson, Microsoft’s Windows chief
I have a copy of Windows 10 Technical Preview on this here SSD. I ran it, and I compared it to Win7 and Win8.
The result: Win10 is faster, but, boy, is it ugly. It's just as ugly as Win8. Weird flat colors, no Aero Glass, no visual hints on where the decorations are, dull color schemes... it is a bad idea just for that reason alone. You don't have a spare set of eyes. Save what you have, don't run Win8 and Win10.
I read that MS intentionally limits theming support in Win8/10. If that remains true, that's bad news. Aero Glass was very well received. MS dumped it only to save a few mW of GPU power on weak tablets. Flat decorations do not require complex 3D transforms. But a desktop GPU has no difficulty with this - so Aero is just a collateral damage in the ill-advised Microsoft's bid for domination on tablets. MS should bring it back, all of it. Are they going to listen to the customer this time, or it will be hubris of Win8 proportions all over again? We shall see.
Based on what I have seen, Win10 does not win over Win7. Basically there is not a single compelling reason to "upgrade." As others already mentioned, any upgrade is a complex affair - you usually have a few 3rd party software packages, some of them are licensed, some of those licenses have been lost or misplaced, some of them simply won't work on Win10... do you want to take this plunge? For what benefit? To lose the familiar GUI? I cannot imagine *anyone* moving away from Win7.
There is also the issue with media codecs that other people mentioned. Win7 has that all out of the box. On Win8 and Win10 (presumably) you have to purchase this functionality separately.
At the same time the free upgrade from Win8 to Win10 is pretty much a certainty. But that only shows how bad Win8 is - even Win10 is better :-) Of course the best would be to downgrade to Win7 and live happily ever after. I do not recall anything in Win8/Win10 that would compel a common man to move to those OSes. Sure, a programmer could name a couple of "under the hood" functions that are improved - but none of them matter. It's not like these releases sport artificial intelligence. That would be big. What they have, like automated repair procedures, does not even register on people's radar.