c5_convertible
Microsoft solitaire collection for Windows 10 is free, so I'm not sure what you mean?

It was an illustration of what they are going to try to do across the board in the upcoming years.  They are going to pull away pieces that have been considered part of the OS "package" and monetize them separately.
 
Freecell is a small example.  Yes, you can play the basic game for free but you do have to register a store account, which means you do have to give Microsoft your credit card, and you will be subject to lots of nags trying to get you to "upgrade" to group orgy solitaire mode for a monthly subscription.  This is all peculiar, because I always thought "solitaire" meant "alone".  I don't have a store account and plan to resist that as long as I can.
 
Microsoft can do what they want, but I think their claim of "Yes, it's really free -- why does everybody doubt us?" is blatant false advertising.

cparmerlee
It was an illustration of what they are going to try to do across the board in the upcoming years.  They are going to pull away pieces that have been considered part of the OS "package" and monetize them separately.
 
Freecell is a small example.  Yes, you can play the basic game for free but you do have to register a store account, which means you do have to give Microsoft your credit card, and you will be subject to lots of nags trying to get you to "upgrade" to group orgy solitaire mode for a monthly subscription.  This is all peculiar, because I always thought "solitaire" meant "alone".  I don't have a store account and plan to resist that as long as I can.
 
Microsoft can do what they want, but I think their claim of "Yes, it's really free -- why does everybody doubt us?" is blatant false advertising.

If it's just the games that go this way I will live. I can't image for a second other areas of the OS going through this. For starters people will not tolerate it and move to Linux. M$ have other apps to peddle such as office, visual studio, server software, software on your phone/tablet etc, the cloud. There's really no point in doing this.

It does seem that after a couple of weeks, Windows10 is settling down and requires only a couple of minutes at the beginning of a system start to "do its thing". I think the major difference was made by turning on the metered connection. This seems to produce a first few minutes of flurried activity, then the machine settles into a usable state. Using the laptop during this first few minutes can be fraught with danger, and is impossible to guarantee a stable work platform. I can get anything from a freeze to a restart and lots of between. (while writing this reply the first 6 or 7 lines disappeared never to return, after just turning on the machine).
While this seems a viable alternative on a laptop, I believe the option to select the internet connection as metered is not going to be available on the desktop, which has a physical connection to the modem. I will wait a while yet before considering moving the desktop over.
I appreciate everyone's involvement in this.