Ok English majors, English grammar people and everyone else for that matter....

[steve2470]

Look at this paragraph from Microsoft. Is it clear to you ?

Microsoft and our OEM partners know that many consumers are unwitting victims of piracy, and with Windows 10, we would like all of our customers to move forward with us together. While our free offer to upgrade to Windows 10 will not apply to Non-Genuine Windows devices, and as we’ve always done, we will continue to offer Windows 10 to customers running devices in a Non-Genuine state. In addition, in partnership with some of our valued OEM partners, we are planning very attractive Windows 10 upgrade offers for their customers running one of their older devices in a Non-Genuine state. Please stay tuned to learn more from our partners on the specifics of their offers.

from: http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/05/15/genuine-windows-and-windows-10/

Part of it is clear to me. It's just a bit confusing to me.

I first saw this here: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_install/microsoft-clarifies-non-genuine-windows-licenses/0a081193-8f2a-466b-9a3e-969d0f923835#LastReply

eta: OEM = Original Equipment Manufacturer (i.e. a company like Dell)

eta2: I was really just asking a grammar (?) question. Honest.

[Dont call me Shirley]

1. I think it means they are not giving windows 10 away free. The only freebies are for windows

7 and 8.1, but I think windows 10 must be installed by a "professional".?

I gave it a stab

[steve2470]

3. well, MS wants everyone to either download a beta copy and upgrade from there or....

have a valid Windows 7 or 8 license and upgrade from those licenses. That's my understanding. I just thought a few of those sentences were pretty mangled.

[Dont call me Shirley]

5. Mangled is a succinct adjective to describe MS's entire paragraph.

I read your link, but I guess I didn't understand any of that precisely either. I'm not a tech geek, so my IT comprehension is limited.

[okaawhatever]

2. They are saying that if you have genuine Windows software they are offering a free

upgrade to Windows 10. If you have a pirated copy of Windows you cannot get it free but they will sell it to you (but they won't turn you in or anything if you ask for an upgrade). If you hae OEM which is Original Equipment Manufacturer Windows software (that is usually what you get when you buy a computer brand new & it doesn't have the same licensing as buying Windows software off the shelf) then you will have to pay, but they are workig on specials with their OEM partners.

[steve2470]

4. yes

I think they could have said all that much more clearly.

[Dont call me Shirley]

7. So does MS consider the OEM Windows 7 Non-Genuine?

[steve2470]

8. no, if you bought a computer with Windows 7 pre-installed (the OEM part)

it is genuine.

[csziggy]

9. What if you built your own computer and installed Windows 7 OEM?

Actually I bought all my own parts, paid a guy to assemble the computer - with a copy of Windows 7 Home which wouldn't recognize all my RAM - and installed Windows 7 Pro on the computer myself. In the end, I effectively built it myself because several of the cables were not securely attached and I had to go in and reconfigure the cables so they would stay attached.

But the copy of Windows 7 Pro I ended up with is and OEM, DVD only copy, not the boxed version sold over the counter at places like Best Buy. It's a genuine version of Windows with a license, registered through the standard procedure with Microsoft and validated by them.

Not that I am planning on changing my Windows version any time soon, but if I were - am I SOL?

[steve2470]

10. I think as long as you still have the license and the key....

you're good to go. I have copies of Vista, 7, and 8, all the same way you do. DVD's with license keys.

[Dont call me Shirley]

11. Thanks steve.

Would one need to add more "space" to a laptop for the 10 to work properly?

[steve2470]

12. that's called dual-booting, and I would not try that

I would save all your stuff to a thumb drive or external drive or the cloud, etc. Install W10 from scratch, which means totally erasing the hard drive and then installing it. When people upgrade on top of an OS, they have problems some times.

Of course, you can always do nothing, which is much easier. It makes MS cry, but who cares. A big meanie I am!

[Dont call me Shirley]

13. You awesome steve, thanks. At this time, doing nothing is the best option. Waiting until the 10 bugs

are worked out would be optimal.

[F4lconF16]

6. Not quite.

There's some weird grammer here:

While our free offer to upgrade to Windows 10 will not apply to Non-Genuine Windows devices, and as we’ve always done, we will continue to offer Windows 10 to customers running devices in a Non-Genuine state.

Starting with "while" means that there should be a "then" afterwards. "While XXX is this way, then YYY will happen."

(Edit: realized I said that totally incorrectly. Point is, there should be something else afterwards that matches up with the "while" in that sentence. There's an "and", but that doesn't tell us what is happening while the other thing is happening.)

If they removed the "and" from the "and as we've always done", it would make sense.

While our free offer to upgrade to Windows 10 will not apply to Non-Genuine Windows devices, as we’ve always done we will continue to offer Windows 10 to customers running devices in a Non-Genuine state.

Or it could be rewritten:

Our free offer to upgrade to Windows 10 will not apply to Non-Genuine Windows devices, but as we’ve always done, we will continue to offer Windows 10 to customers running devices in a Non-Genuine state.

Still poorly phrased imo, but at least grammatically correct. I don't know what the official word is for what the problem was in that sentence, I only know it was a problem.

The rest of it seems fine to me. It's legalese-ish, but relatively clear about what it means. But I could see how it would be confusing.

[petronius]

14. Apparently, there was a two-for-one special on commas down

at Ye Olde Gibberish Shoppe. Plus, "with us together" sounded really eloquent to someone who wouldn't recognize eloquence even if it bit them right in the nards.

But I think the gist of it is that if you have a pirated version of Windows, then no free upgrade for you (but we're, like, totally not blaming you, you thievish thiefy-thief, you! Give us money!)

[Malraiders]

15. I'm sure the people who use a pirated Win pre-10 version will

just wait and download and install a pirated Win operating system as soon as it surfaces on the internet and laugh about MS free offer.

Edit: Grammar has fallen to new lows since the internet has been established.