Win 10 free till 31st December 2017...

[NomoneyNohoney]

If you should want to change your operating system to Windows 10, there is still a free path available until 31st December.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessi ... s10upgrade

Amongst other positive inducements, that link says:-
Q./ "I'm planning on purchasing a third party assistive technology. Will the upgrade extension still be valid?
A./ Yes. If you require assistive technology on Windows, you are eligible for the upgrade offer.

A nod's as good as a wink...

[redsturgeon]

If you should want to change your operating system to Windows 10, there is still a free path available until 31st December.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessi ... s10upgrade

Amongst other positive inducements, that link says:-
Q./ "I'm planning on purchasing a third party assistive technology. Will the upgrade extension still be valid?
A./ Yes. If you require assistive technology on Windows, you are eligible for the upgrade offer.

A nod's as good as a wink...

You had me wondering, what were these ten things that I could win for free.

John

[UncleEbenezer]

You had me wondering, what were these ten things that I could win for free.

John

You are the lucky winner of ten free posts to lemonfool!

[Breelander]

If you should want to change your operating system to Windows 10, there is still a free path available until 31st December.... assistive technology...

There is no need to jump through any 'Assistive Technology' hoops to get a free upgrade to Windows 10. Just upgrade your qualifying Windows 7/8 PC to Windows 10 the normal way here https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/softwar ... /windows10 and Microsoft's activation servers will still give you a digital licence and activate your Windows 10.

Yes, I know MS have said the free upgrade should have ended, but they have quietly been allowing free upgrades to continue until now.

The announced end date for the Assistive Technologies offer does put a question mark over this continuing though. It may well be their intention to turn off all free activations on 31st December. So the warning to get in before 31st December is still an apt one, it's not necessary to pretend to be disabled.

You don't even have to keep using Windows 10, if you upgrade to earn a digital licence it's valid for the supported life of your machine. Upgrade, get the licence, then roll back to your previous Windows. Your machine now has a licence to use Windows 10 any time in the future, regardless of any end date for the free upgrade.


I have seen reports of successful upgrades the conventional way on other support forums as recently as last month, usually accompanied by surprise that it still works. Personally I have set aside a qualifying Windows 7 laptop that has never been upgraded. I will be testing if the free upgrade has (finally) been turned off early in the new year.

[GeoffF100]

A friend of mine managed to trash his W7 HP Pavilion g6 laptop. It would not boot W7, and demanded an installation disk. I tried to download a W7 ISO from here:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/softwar ... d/windows7

No luck, MS told me to get installation media from the manufacturer.

Just upgrade your qualifying Windows 7/8 PC to Windows 10 the normal way here https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/softwar ... /windows10 and Microsoft's activation servers will still give you a digital licence and activate your Windows 10.

I clicked on Bree's link with my W10 PC and saw an Update Now button. Great, I thought, clicking on that button is the "normal way" of updating a W7 PC to W10. I followed the link on a friend's W7 laptop, and the button was missing!

Nonetheless, I succeeded in getting my friend's laptop to revert to the last clean state, so he has a working machine again. After he had taken his machine away, I found out that it should be possible to get the laptop to create its own recovery media, now that it is running again:

https://support.hp.com/gb-en/document/bph07143

The laptop's processor is about twice as fast as my ten year old Lubuntu machine, and 4 GB of RAM, rather than 1 GB. Nonetheless the laptop seemed to be much slower to me. Would reinstalling W7 be likely to speed it up?

[Breelander]

... I clicked on Bree's link with my W10 PC and saw an Update Now button. Great, I thought, clicking on that button is the "normal way" of updating a W7 PC to W10. I followed the link on a friend's W7 laptop, and the button was missing!

It used to be there, but it seems MS have removed the link now if you look with a Win7 PC (I have just done so to check). You saw it on the Win10 PC because you already have Win10 and are entitled to update to the latest version.

The page is still of use though, another 'normal' way to perform an upgrade is to download the Media Creation Tool from that page and run it. You can use the MCT to either 'upgrade this PC now' or 'make media for another PC' which downloads the install media to an ISO file or onto a USB for later use (ideally, before Dec 31).

I tried to download a W7 ISO from here:...
No luck, MS told me to get installation media from the manufacturer.

To download Win7 install media you need to give Microsoft a valid Win7 install key before MS will give you a download link - and it has to be a full retail key, the one from the sticker on the PC is an OEM one and won't work. Since Windows 8 MS have stopped doing this and freely let you download their ISOs. You don't need a key until you install it.

You can get a link to get the Win7 ISO direct from Microsoft's servers using this third-party tool.
(make sure you choose the correct version, Home, Pro, etc.)
https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/technolog ... nload-tool

Once it's installed you'll still need a key to activate it, but the one on the OEM sticker should do for that.

[Gaggsy]

Did they finally stop this way to update a win7 machine to win10?

[Breelander]

Did they finally stop this way to update a win7 machine to win10?

By 'this way' do you mean the 'assistive technology' offer? That page now says: "Thank you for your interest in Windows 10. The free upgrade offer extension for Windows 7 and Windows 8 customers who use assistive technologies expired on December 31, 2017" and the 'Assistive Technologies Upgrade Assistant' has been removed.

Actually, you never needed to take the 'assistive technologies' route, as simply upgrading a win7/8 PC using an ISO or USB install media would get activated automatically and be awarded a a Digital Licence by the activation servers. In fact, strictly speaking the 'Upgrade to Windows 10: FAQ' doesn't actually say the free upgrade has ended, just that the "...upgrade through the Get Windows 10 (GWX) app ended on July 29, 2016".

To upgrade 7/8 to 10, go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/softwar ... /windows10 and download the Media Creation Tool. Run that and use its 'make media for another PC' option to make install media as an ISO file or (preferably) on a USB. From within windows, either mount the ISO (3rd-party software may be needed for that) or plug in the USB. Find Setup on the root of the drive and run it.

I have seen reports as recently as this month that upgrading this way still gets activated by Microsoft's activation servers. It is not clear if Microsoft ever intend to turn this function off.

[Gaggsy]

By 'this way' do you mean the 'assistive technology' offer?

No, I meant the other way, the way you go on to describe.

A colleague has a decent HP laptop running Win 7 pro. He said he didn't like Win 10 but now realises he might need to bite the bullet.

He said "I am thinking of doing a complete hard drive wipe and a clean installation. Not sure if this will give a benefit or mess with the computer drivers. Or do a clean install of windows 7 pro from a hard drive wipe then install windows 10!"

So should he just go ahead and install Win 10 then do a clean install? Or is there something he needs to do in advance?

[Breelander]

...He said "I am thinking of doing a complete hard drive wipe and a clean installation. Not sure if this will give a benefit or mess with the computer drivers. Or do a clean install of windows 7 pro from a hard drive wipe then install windows 10!"

So should he just go ahead and install Win 10 then do a clean install? Or is there something he needs to do in advance?

A digital licence for Win10 is tied to the unique hardware ID of the PC and can be gained in one of two ways. The first (and easiest) is to upgrade an existing activated install of Win7/8. The second way is available if you have a valid key for Win7/8. You do a clean install of Win10 for the same edition (Home or Pro) as the Win7/8 key and when asked for a key, use the one for Win7/8.

This should certainly work for your friend if they have a retail key that would allow them to do a clean install of Win7 Pro and get it to activate, they could just go straight to a clean install of Win10 Pro and use the Win7 Pro key. I am not so sure about any CoA key that may be on their PC. I have heard that a CoA key should work, but haven't tried it.

Personally, if the PC has a licenced Windows 7 Pro already running on it I would upgrade that to 10 to be sure of getting the digital licence without needing to worry about keys. Once Windows 10 is activated a digital licence tied to the hardware of this PC is stored on Microsoft's activation servers. You are then free to wipe the disk and do a clean install of the same edition (Home or Pro) without needing to enter a key (click 'I don't have one' when asked). It will activate automatically from the digital licence as soon as it can contact the activation servers.

The unique hardware ID for the PC does not include the HDD, so your friend is free to swap out the original drive and experiment on a new one. My usual practice in the past was to make a system image of the original HDD, swap out the drive for a new one, restore the system image to that, then upgrade it to Win10. That way I still had the original system to go back to should things not work out.