That Little White Windows Icon That Showed Up In My Tray This Week

So this happened sometime in the last few days and I almost missed it. I was closing out a browser window on my desktop (still running Windows 7, dont judge me, it works fine) and noticed a new icon down by the clock. Little four-pane Windows logo, just sitting there next to the volume and the wifi bars. Never asked for it. Never installed anything. It just showed up through a regular Windows Update like it owned the place.

Turns out thats Microsoft's "Get Windows 10" app, and its basically an ad that lives in your system tray now. Click it and it walks you through reserving a free copy of Windows 10 for whenever it actually ships, which Microsoft said last week is going to be July 29th. If youre on a legit copy of Windows 7 or 8.1, the upgrade is free for the first year. Thats a genuinely good deal, I'm not going to pretend otherwise, Microsoft usually charges real money for OS upgrades and this time theyre basically begging people to take it.

But the delivery mechanism bugs me. I run IT for exactly zero other people (its just my machine and my partners old laptop), and even I had a "wait, is this malware" moment for about four seconds before I recognized the logo. I texted a friend who does actual desktop support for a mid-size company and he said his helpdesk got something like a dozen tickets this week from people convinced theyd been hacked. A little tray icon that appears out of nowhere promising you a free thing is, historically, exactly the kind of thing you tell your parents to never click on. Microsoft picked the worst possible visual language for this rollout.

The reservation itself is weirdly cheerful about it

Once you click through, it wants your email so it can "let you know" when your upgrade is ready, and it shows you a little checkmark next to your PC like youve been pre-approved for something. I reserved mine out of curiosity more than anything. I have zero intention of running Windows 10 the day it drops, Ive been burned before by day-one OS installs (Vista, I am still not over it), but I figure if the upgrade path is free for a year I can afford to wait and let other people find the bugs first.

What actually gets me is that this is happening the same week as Google I/O, where Google spent two days on stage showing off Android M and, more interesting to me honestly, Google Photos going fully unlimited for regular-quality photos and video. Everyone and their brother is going to write about Google Photos this week so Im not going to bother rehashing the keynote, you can find that anywhere. But its a funny contrast: Google doing a flashy two hour presentation with slides and demos, and Microsoft just quietly slipping an icon onto tens of millions of desktops through Windows Update and letting people discover it on their own. Two completely different ways of telling the world "hey, new OS is coming."

I dont think the tray icon approach is evil or anything, its just clumsy in a very Microsoft way. Theres no popup explaining what it is the first time it appears, no "hey by the way we added this" notification, nothing. It just exists, and youre supposed to already know. My mother in law has a Windows 8.1 laptop and I guarantee she has no idea what that little flag icon means, she probably just ignores it like she ignores every other icon down there that isnt the clock.

Anyway. July 29th is the date to remember if youre planning to jump. I'll probably wait until at least October, let the first wave of driver issues shake out. If you want to reserve now, the icon should be sitting in your tray already if youre eligible, might be worth clicking the little up-arrow to see hidden icons if you dont see it right away, mine was tucked in there for two days before I noticed it.