Right, nothing is truly free, but the main upgrade will be. I always do a clean install with a new OS, so I am wondering if I will be able to do that from Win7 using my existing key, or will I have to by new licenses for a clean install. MS will make money somehow we just don't know the full details yet. Could be like Steam, since everyone would go to the MS store to buy "apps", especially if they can get all Android and Apple apps (code etc) to work across all Win10 devices as they plan. A cut of the app sales would be quite nice for them. Guess we'll find out in the July/August time frame.

Brad_Hawthorne
Problem is Microsoft is being very ambiguous. The core of Windows will be free, but those things Microsoft label as being not a part of the core OS are going to be a revenue path upgrade trail. Want more than 16GB of system memory? Want Windows Media Center? etc...

Well, another reason for this is the EU anti-competitive laws. Microsoft has already been in hot water with the EU before so the more bare the operating system the less chance Microsoft has of breaking the law.