Review by PhotoGraphics

Why would someone pay retail when they were giving WIN 10 upgrades away free? Thats a tough question. For me it boiled down to the freedom of completely wiping everything clean and starting fresh (usually with a new hard drive and other components) about once every two years. I know there are other ways to do that but there are always remnants of those little nasties that seem to never go away even with a clean install. Starting with a new hard drive (actually SSD these days) greatly reduces the fear of data loss due to age and multiple rewrites and as cheap as they are a new drive every couple of years gets impressively new technology.

How does it all work out in real life? Well for just over a hundred for a full version licensed copy my experience is that not only do I get some customization options I didn’t get in the free upgrade but Microsoft hints that I get pushed major upgrades sooner. That being said its a little disheartening that despite trying to buy the freshest retail version possible whats really in the box is the absolute first generation of WIN10 … it still needs to undergo multiple version upgrades which have to be done in sequence, for example it simply is not possible to go directly from Ver 1523 to Ver 1706 without upgrading through each version in-between.

Im not sure what someone meant by calling the USB flimsy, its not. Its a half-full 16GB thumb drive of relatively decent construction. That being said, though, if you do a search for photos of the physical drive there must be a couple of dozen at least that all look different. The OS ships with a separate credit-card size user ID number that is convenient to store in a safe place.

Any downsides? Well yes, Im finding them as I go along. One is some vague references in the fine print we all agree to by using this software to the effect that if you downloaded the freebie you are in a different status than if you get the boxed product in terms of transferability including if you change certain key components inside your computer like the motherboard and the possibility that the boxed version users may not get certain apps for free, or at all, that are included with the freebie version. Like I said, its all kind of vague and not easy to pin down.

I did notice some significant differences in compatibility with legacy software and some external devices when I upgraded this version to the Fall 2017 Creators Edition and when I did the same upgrade on another computer that has the OEM version of WIN10 installed. Unfortunately, the boxed version seems to be less tolerant to being compatible with some older software and hardware. But it is what it is, if you need a license key version you have to take what you’re given.