Microsoft: Free Windows 10 upgrade ends July 29
Microsoft announced today that the free Windows 10 upgrade offer ends on July 29th, 2016.
The company has been tight lipped about what happens after the one year free upgrade period to Windows 10 expires with rumors ranging from an infinite continuation of the free upgrade offer to paid subscriptions for all users who took Microsoft up on the offer.
The the latest blog post on the official Windows Experience blog clarifies that the free offer to upgrade eligible devices to Windows 10 expires on the one year anniversary of the release of the operating system.
The free upgrade offer to Windows 10 was a first for Microsoft, helping people upgrade faster than ever before. And time is running out. The free upgrade offer will end on July 29 and we want to make sure you don’t miss out. After July 29th, you’ll be able to continue to get Windows 10 on a new device, or purchase a full version of Windows 10 Home for $119.
Windows 10 will only be available as a paid upgrade or a full retail copy after the one year free upgrade offer promotion ends.
The full version (not system builder) is available for a retail price of $119.99 (Windows 10 Home) or $199.99 (Windows 10 Pro) already and the price will remain the same after the promotional period.
Microsoft did not reveal the upgrade price after July 29, 2016 but the price is usually cheaper than the retail price.
Devices that run Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 can be upgraded for free until July 29, 2016 according to Microsoft.
The announcement should put an end to several rumors floating around on the Internet, and here specifically that Windows 10 upgrades would remain free or that Microsoft would start to charge users who upgraded devices to Windows 10 already.
Microsoft published a video that highlights that the Windows 10 free upgrade offer will expire on July 29.
The company confirms in it that future upgrades like the upcoming Anniversary Update for Windows 10 will be free .
The company announced as well that Windows 10 is now installed on 300 million active devices, up from the 200 million devices figure that Microsoft revealed at the end of 2015.
This would translate to about 25 million new active devices per month. Sites that track usage shares confirm that Windows 10 is gaining while all other versions of Windows are dropping.
On Netmarketshare for instance, Windows 10 rose from 9.96% in December 2015 to 15.34% in April 2016. This would equate 1% with roughly 20 million devices.
Microsoft revealed other information in the blog post, for instance that Windows 10 has the highest customer satisfaction rating of all Windows versions.
Additionally, it threw out a couple of figures to highlight the popularity of the operating system:
- In March, Edge was used more than 63 billion minutes, up 50% compared to the last quarter.
- Cortana answered more than 6 billion questions since launch.
- People played games for over 9 billion hours on Windows 10.
- 144 million people use the Photos app (that's nearly 50% of all Windows 10 installations).
Part of the announcement is informative, but Microsoft uses it as well to increase the pressure even more. While users knew about the free upgrade deadline, its confirmation may be enough for users to upgrade their devices.
Now You: Did you expect that Microsoft would end the free upgrade offer?
What mental age of reader are you targeting with the first sentence? 10?
Why not write an article on how to *avoid* upgrading from W10 to W11. Analogous to those like me who avoided upgrading from 7 to 10 for as long as possible.
If your paymaster Microsoft permits it, of course.
5. Rufus
6. Ventoy
PS. I hate reading these “SEO optimized” articles.
I used Rufus to create an installer for a 6th gen intel i5 that had MBR. It upgraded using Setup. No issues except for Win 11 always prompting me to replace my local account. Still using Win 10 Pro on all my other PCs to avoid the bullying.
bit pointless to upgrade for the sake of upgrading as you never know when you’ll get locked out because ms might suddenly not provide updates to unsupported systems.
ps…. time travelling?
written. Jan 15, 2023
Updated • Jan 13, 2023
This happens when you schedule a post in WordPress and update it before setting the publication date.
Anyone willing to downgrade to this awful OS must like inflicting themselves with harm.
I have become convinced now that anybody who has no qualms with using Windows 11/10 must fit into one of the following brackets:
1) Too young to remember a time before W10 and W11 (doesn’t know better)
2) Wants to play the latest games on their PC above anything else (or deeply needs some software which already dropped W7 support)
3) Doesn’t know too much about how computers work, worried that they’d be absolutely lost and in trouble without the “”latest security””
4) Microsoft apologist that tries to justify that the latest “features” and “changes” are actually a good thing, that improve Windows
5) Uses their computer to do a bare minimum of like 3 different things, browse web, check emails, etc, so really doesn’t fuss
Obviously that doesn’t cover everyone, there’s also the category that:
6) Actually liked W7 more than 10, and held out as long as possible before switching, begrudgingly uses 10 now
Have I missed any group off this list?
You have missed in this group just about any professional user that uses business software like CAD programs or ERP Programs which are 99% of all professional users from this list.
Linux doesn’t help anyone who is not a linux kid and apple is just a fancy facebook machine.
Microsoft has removed KB5029351 update
only from windows update though
KB5029351 is still available from the ms update catalog site
1. This update is labaled as PREVIEW if it causes issues to unintelligent people, then they shouldn’t have allowed Preview updates ot install.
2. I have installed it in a 11 years old computer, and no problems at all.
3. Making a big drama over a bluescreen for an updated labeled as preview is ridiculous.
This is probably another BS internet drama where people ran programs and scripts that modified the registry until they broke Windows, just for removing stuff that they weren’t even using just for the sake of it.
Maybe people should stop playing geeks and actually either use Windows 10 or Windows 11, but don’t try to modify things just for the sake of it.
Sometimes removing or stopping things (like defender is a perfect example) only need intelligence, not scripts or 3rd party programs that might mess with windows.
Windows 11 was a pointless release, it was just created because some of the Windows team wanted to boost sales with some sort of new and improved Windows 10. Instead, Microsoft cannot support one version well let alone two.
Windows 11 is the worst ugly shame by Microsoft ever. They should release with every new W11 version a complete free version of Starallback inside just to make this sh** OS functionally again.
motherboard maker MSI has recently released a statement regarding the “unsupported processor” blue screen error for their boards using Intel 600/700 series chipsets & to avoid the KB5029351 Win11 update:
https://www.msi.com/news/detail/MSI-On–UNSUPPORTED-PROCESSOR–Error-Message-of-Windows-11-Update-KB5029351-Preview-142215
check out the following recent articles:
Neowin – Microsoft puts little blame on its Windows update after UNSUPPORTED PROCESSOR BSOD bug:
https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-puts-little-blame-on-its-windows-update-after-unsupported-processor-bsod-bug/
BleepingComputer – Microsoft blames ‘unsupported processor’ blue screens on OEM vendors:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-blames-unsupported-processor-blue-screens-on-oem-vendors/
While there may be changes or updates to the Windows 10 Store for Business and Education in the future, it is premature to conclude that it will be discontinued based solely on rumors.
My advice, I left win 15 years ago. Now I’m a happy linux user (linuxmint) but there is Centos, Fedora, Ubuntu depending on your needs.
motherboard maker MSI has recently released new BIOS/firmware updates for their Intel 600 & 700 series motherboards to fix the “UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR” problem (Sept. 6):
https://www.msi.com/news/detail/Updated-BIOS-fixes-Error-Message–UNSUPPORTED-PROCESSOR–caused-BSOD-on-MSI-s-Intel-700-and-600-Series-Motherboards-142277
I try to disable the Diagnostics Tracking Service (Connected Devices Platform User Services) but it wont let me disable it, any help will be greatly appreciated.
Tank you for your help