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Not too late to get free Windows 10 upgrade

ReedRichards
Seasoned Pro
Posts: 4,927
Thanks: 145
Fixes: 25
Registered: ‎14-07-2009

Not too late to get free Windows 10 upgrade

Nominally 29th July was the last day on which you could upgrade from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 free of charge.  But there have been reports in the press that it is still possible so I thought I would experiment. In the cupboard I had a Compaq laptop with a broken screen, a dead battery and a Celeron processor that runs Windows 7 OEM (slowly) and had not been used since April 2015.  Yesterday, 4th August 2016, I connected it up to an external monitor and ran the Windows 10 Upgrade (1511 version) from a USB stick I had created a few months ago using Microsoft's Media Creation Tool.  The program ran as normal and afterwards I looked in Settings and it said that Windows 10 had activated as normal.  The clock on the computer read the correct time throughout the whole process so there was no trickery involved.  As is normal, I was not asked to enter a product key at any point in the process.  The only problem I encountered was that the external monitor stopped functioning after the upgrade until some minutes after Windows was fully loaded so I had to keep pressing the Enter key to step through several preparatory screens without being able to read them.  But the point is, if you still want a free Windows 10 upgrade then it's still possible. 

7 REPLIES 7
Anotherone
Champion
Posts: 19,107
Thanks: 457
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Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: Not too late to get free Windows 10 upgrade

You may wish to think very carefully about doing it - see this post

ReedRichards
Seasoned Pro
Posts: 4,927
Thanks: 145
Fixes: 25
Registered: ‎14-07-2009

Re: Not too late to get free Windows 10 upgrade

I'm sure you were far more likely to run into trouble if you 'upgraded' to Windows 10 during the first few months when it was available than you are now, a year later.

Anotherone
Champion
Posts: 19,107
Thanks: 457
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Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: Not too late to get free Windows 10 upgrade

That may be so, especially from some of the stuff I've read/heard. However you may wish to take note of my response here

shutter
Community Veteran
Posts: 22,202
Thanks: 3,768
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Registered: ‎06-11-2007

Re: Not too late to get free Windows 10 upgrade

I haven`t had any problems with Windows 10...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since I upgraded to Windows 7 Pro

 

 

 

( after reverting from the free downgrade to W10)

ReedRichards
Seasoned Pro
Posts: 4,927
Thanks: 145
Fixes: 25
Registered: ‎14-07-2009

Re: Not too late to get free Windows 10 upgrade

Today I came across a computer that had been bought 18 months ago and never used.  I tried updating it from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 using a copy of the 1511 version that I put on a USB memory stick a few months ago.  It activated after the upgrade so it's still not too late to get Windows 10 free.

CX
Grafter
Posts: 750
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Registered: ‎16-09-2010

Re: Not too late to get free Windows 10 upgrade

I bought Windows 8 in the £14.99 upgrade deal, from Windows 7, and this was then upgraded to 8.1 and then to 10.

A couple of weeks ago my motherboard died, and upon booting Windows 10 with the new board, it was no longer activated (as I expected). I simply entered the Windows 8 key into the activation wizard, and Windows 10 re-activated no problem.

My understanding is that this isn't possible if the version of 7 or 8 that you upgraded from was OEM, because it effectively makes the free Windows 10 an OEM version too (i.e. tied to a particular set of hardware).

Interestingly, Windows 10 had absolutely no problems with the motherboard change - I literally plugged the hard disk in without a reinstall. It's worked reasonably well for me in previous versions of Windows, but more through luck and chance (followed by a lot of faffing around updating drivers manually). In Windows 10, it appears to detect that a significant proportion of the hardware has changed, and then reinstalls all drivers from scratch on the next boot.

Browni
Aspiring Hero
Posts: 2,673
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Registered: ‎02-03-2016

Re: Not too late to get free Windows 10 upgrade

Windows is quite forgiving now if you replace hardware.

A perfect example of this is when I changed the motherboard on a triple boot system: W7, W8.1 & W10.

When I powered it up, W7 blue screened and had to be reinstalled, however W8.1 & W10 quite happily installed new drivers and then continued to boot normally. They did need reactivation but that was expected.

ymmv obviously Cool