as I understand it W10 is free until July 29th- so, after that date we are free from M$ trying to takeover our system with their new OS ? because if they do so, holding one's system hostage for payment of unrequested update- wouldnt that qualify for some serious legal repercussions ? 

I guess after that date there will be yet another update for old OSes, which will stop the "takeover".
 
But I strongly suggest to check which company has already "took over" your system. I mean which equipment prevent your upgrade. Win10 is for many people (including myself) the best Windows version ever produced by MS. I mean from the technical perspective (you can switch off "calling home" in case you do not like it). It boots ~10 times faster then my old XP on the same (old) computer, it does garbage collection after updates and I have no compatibility issues with old software/hardware. Starting with Windows 8, they have explicitly targeted rather limited tablets hardware. This hardware is less powerful then 5-10 years old Desktops (disk is even slower, eMMC/SD), but to make any concurrence to Andoroid and $Pad devices, it has to run fast. And it IS fast! After XP time, Windows Vista was impossible to use on "low end" devices, Windows 7 was better on powerful systems only, Windows 8 was the first reasonable version and Windows 10 is a kind of 8.2.

azslow3
I guess after that date there will be yet another update for old OSes, which will stop the "takeover".
 
But I strongly suggest to check which company has already "took over" your system. I mean which equipment prevent your upgrade. 

ooooo- do you think it's serious ?

LaszloZoltan

azslow3
I guess after that date there will be yet another update for old OSes, which will stop the "takeover".
 
But I strongly suggest to check which company has already "took over" your system. I mean which equipment prevent your upgrade. 

ooooo- do you think it's serious ?

You have published into the wrong board or at least forgot to put a smile if that was thought as a joke.
 
Many people are not upgrading to Windows 10 because they think "it will spy me", "it will takeover", "it no longer can use old drivers". The reality is different. Only with Linux someone can be sure no one spy you and no one takeover, since you can see the source code of everything. All other OS since long time CAN spy you and takeover when they want, it is just that Windows 10 explicitly asks for permission.
Normally written drivers with Win7/Win8 should work under Win10. MS has messed with drivers installation specification, so some of them can not be installed without tricks, but no changes in the BINARY driver is required. Some manufacturers has used undocumented features and/or rely on obsolete (since much longer time then win8, but could be still there for compatibility) functionality. Such software can stop working, but that is manufacturer's foul, introduced during development with guarantied "time bomb" effect.