Everyone knows that the free upgrade offer for Windows 10 ended on July 29, 2016, right?
Then Microsoft officially ended the Get Windows 10 program and stopped pushing the GWX tool to the computers of unsuspecting users who were perfectly happy with the older version of Windows they were using and had no desire to upgrade.
As of July 30, 2016, upgrade notifications stopped and the GWX app started disappearing. In theory, this means that the only way to upgrade to Windows 10 is to pay for a license.
The funny thing is that until today, you can upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 and claim a free license without any difficulty.
You can also upgrade Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro using a product key from a previous version of Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 (Pro/Ultimate), which can save you $50 to $100 in OEM upgrade fees if you buy a new PC with Windows 10 Home preinstalled.
Before it was determined that Microsoft was continuing the offer, we had reported through iGuRu.gr that we do not believe that Microsoft will stop the free distribution of the Windows 10 operating system, as in this way it is more damaged than gained, with the cost of user licenses.
Why?
Let's remember that Microsoft's goal with Windows 10 is to offer an operating system as a service. What does this mean? No more major versions (as we knew them) with names like XP, Vista, 7 and 8.
Windows 10 is a constantly evolving system that will have a lot of cumulative updates. This means large single patches that include updates for all components of the operating system. Windows 10 as a service will be updated regularly with not only fixes, but also new features, as it was developed in a very different way than its predecessors, and is still under development.
The "migration" of all users to Microsoft's Rolling Release or Windows as a Service model means that the development team will be concerned with creating updates for only one operating system and not for all older versions.
So if everyone uses one operating system, development man-hours are reduced dramatically.
As we mentioned in a previous post, the company seems to have turned into a huge playground for testers. It has various levels of beta testers for Windows products: There are internal beta testers, within Microsoft for example, but also all Windows Insiders in two different rings, who test Windows 10 beta builds before their official release to the stable channel.
Enterprise edition users can block updates completely, while Home and Pro edition users will have to install them.
All Windows 10 users are something like beta testers trying out the "free" Windows for Enterprise edition customers.
How to upgrade an old computer to Windows 10
If you have a computer with a genuine copy of Windows 7/8/8.1 you can follow the steps below to upgrade it to Windows 10.
To get started, you'll need to go to the Windows 10 Download website and click the Download tool now button. Once the download is complete, run the Media Creation Tool.
You can upgrade directly with this tool or create some installation media (DVD, USB).
You can simply select the Upgrade this PC now option.
If you want to upgrade the operating system on another computer, select the second option and save the installation files to a USB or as an ISO file.
Then, follow the instructions to complete the upgrade. You won't be asked for a product key, and once the upgrade is complete, if your previous operating system was legitimate, you'll have a digital license to Windows 10, which you can confirm from Settings > Update & security > Activation.
The digital license will be tied to that device, which means you can format the drive and perform a clean install of the same version of Windows 10 at any time. You won't need a product key and activation will be automatic.
