When Microsoft Plans to End Its Free Windows 10 Upgrade Offer
1–10 of 46 posts
Re: When Microsoft Plans to End Its Free Windows 10 Upgrade Offer
#2Article synopsis:
"When do they plan to end the offer? This article doesn't know. Probably the end date MS themselves specify. Oh you thought it was over already? Well did you know that if you need assistive tech, or say you do on the honor system, you can still get the Win 10 free upgrade? Interesting, eh?"
Re: When Microsoft Plans to End Its Free Windows 10 Upgrade Offer
#3Article synopsis: "When do they plan to end the offer? This article doesn't know. Probably the end date MS themselves specify. Oh you thought it was over already? Well did you know that if you need assistive tech, or say you do on the honor system, you can still get the Win 10 free upgrade? Interesting, eh?"
Gen I get this for every article on HN? Maybe a userscript or extension with HN link synopsis?
Re: When Microsoft Plans to End Its Free Windows 10 Upgrade Offer
#4Microsoft will never end the Windows 10 upgrade offer. They want all Win 7 and 8/8.1 users on Win 10. The advantages of having a device upgrade from 7->10 include the following:
- Windows 10 has a more restrictive license. Telemetry sharing and automatic updates cannot be turned off on all Win 10 upgrades.
- The shrinking and eventual elimination of Windows 7 devices means fewer older devices to support, fewer patches to backport, etc.
- People that have paid for their Windows 7 license offer no further revenue to Microsoft. Microsoft is basically losing money on them, being obliged to continue supporting a device that paid for its license five years ago. People on Windows 10, however, provide "value" (as a stand-in for direct revenue) to Microsoft in the form of analytics and telemetry.
- People on Windows 10 are inherently more likely to participate in Microsoft's other, more profitable subscription-based models ala Office 365.
Re: When Microsoft Plans to End Its Free Windows 10 Upgrade Offer
#5You don't even need to do the trick in this article. According to Paul Thurrott, you can still activate with a Windows 7 or 8.1 key: https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/142616/yes-can-s...
Re: When Microsoft Plans to End Its Free Windows 10 Upgrade Offer
#6Article synopsis: "When do they plan to end the offer? This article doesn't know. Probably the end date MS themselves specify. Oh you thought it was over already? Well did you know that if you need assistive tech, or say you do on the honor system, you can still get the Win 10 free upgrade? Interesting, eh?"
Strange thing is, I didn't realise the regular offered ended and successfully upgraded 4 Windows 8.1 machines in the last month or so without any issue or doing anything regarding "Assistive tech".
I just put the Windows 10 ISO from the Microsoft site on a USB, kicked the install off, entered the Windows 8.1 licence key from the OEM sticker on the machine and it happily installed and activated.
Not sure if I'm an edge case with some peculiarity with our hardware vendor, but was surprised to learn the upgrade window finished sometime ago...
Re: When Microsoft Plans to End Its Free Windows 10 Upgrade Offer
#7You don't even need to do the trick in this article. According to Paul Thurrott, you can still activate with a Windows 7 or 8.1 key: https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/142616/yes-can-s...
Ah, I just posted about my experience below on this. I can confirm this worked for me, with no lies about "Assitive Tech" within the last month with 4 different OEM Windows 8.1 licences.
Re: When Microsoft Plans to End Its Free Windows 10 Upgrade Offer
#8Microsoft will never end the Windows 10 upgrade offer. They want all Win 7 and 8/8.1 users on Win 10. The advantages of having a device upgrade from 7->10 include the following: - Windows 10 has a more restrictive license. Telemetry sharing and automatic updates cannot be turned off on all Win 10 upgrades. - The shrinking and eventual elimination of Windows 7 devices means fewer older devices to support, fewer patche…
If this is the case, why bother putting the upgrade behind the "assistive technologies users only" fig leaf? It's going to scare away some number of honest people from upgrading. If your goal is to upgrade the maximum number of devices, wouldn't you want to make the upgrade obviously free for everybody?
Re: When Microsoft Plans to End Its Free Windows 10 Upgrade Offer
#9You don't even need to do the trick in this article. According to Paul Thurrott, you can still activate with a Windows 7 or 8.1 key: https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/142616/yes-can-s...
Ah, I just posted about my experience below on this. I can confirm this worked for me, with no lies about "Assitive Tech" within the last month with 4 different OEM Windows 8.1 licences.
Yep, I've installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 using a Windows 7 key that has never been used to upgrade to Windows 10 before just the other week - it all worked without any issue, the system activated itself fine. No tricks needed.
Re: When Microsoft Plans to End Its Free Windows 10 Upgrade Offer
#10Article synopsis: "When do they plan to end the offer? This article doesn't know. Probably the end date MS themselves specify. Oh you thought it was over already? Well did you know that if you need assistive tech, or say you do on the honor system, you can still get the Win 10 free upgrade? Interesting, eh?"
Strange thing is, I didn't realise the regular offered ended and successfully upgraded 4 Windows 8.1 machines in the last month or so without any issue or doing anything regarding "Assistive tech". I just put the Windows 10 ISO from the Microsoft site on a USB, kicked the install off, entered the Windows 8.1 licence key from the OEM sticker on the machine and it happily installed and activated. Not sure if I'm an edg…
If the machines are branded laptops (or branded desktops like Dell or something) this can be an expected behavior: the license key that the Windows 10 licensing code checks and accepts by design could have been stored in the machine. It is still machine and vendor dependent.
If you've made any of the machines, e.g. by buying a motherboard or a barebone and then by installing Windows 8.1 yourself, it's a news to me.
EDIT: I'm especially interested in upgrades, not in "clean" installs. Most of the users don't want to start from the scratch with configuring every program they use.