Windows 10: Free upgrade during the first year

Sounds good, too good to be 'true'?

No matter what I think of Windows 10, it would be kinda stupid not to take up Microsoft on the free upgrade particularly if, like me, you have a standby build of your OS on a separate HD just in case the main drive crashed which I would use for the Windows 10 upgrade.

But, what would happen after the 1st year when the free upgrade offer lapsed & your HD crashed with lose of OS.

I've never found backups of drives with Operating Systems too successful when restoring often with errors that require the installation disk to be inserted into the DVD drive.

Would you be able reinstall your original OS & then upgrade to Windows 10 for free again; I doubt it

:)

 

Does Windows 10 stay free?

If you upgrade during the first year it will be free for the duration of Microsoft support for the OS (for years)

 

update for free after past the first year upgrade

Hi,

The product key from your previous OS is likely to be carried over. No new product key required.

What happens after a year is still an ambiguity which Microsoft may tell later.

To reinstall W10, you may have to install W7 first and then upgrade to W10.

 

Do a backup after you upgrade then. At least at some point during the year.

If you say when you restore from your backups it is not successful you really need to try another method. I make backups a lot and they ALWAYS work - it would be pointless otherwise. Certainly you don't need an installation disk to restore a backup.

You could try Macrium perhaps.

 

When they say free for one year that means only one thing. It will be costing us after that year. Why is everyone so excited after hearing that if it is true?

 

In the presentation it was clearly stated that the support for Win10 would be free for the lifetime of the device.

 

Personally, if I decide to upgrade my 7, I will clone the upgraded version on a separate hard drive and use that as a backup to re-clone in case of any problems. I have 4-80GB spinners. Good enough for backups.

 

Not at all. It means that within a year of launch (perhaps October based on last update timing) you don't pay to upgrade and it is free forever for that device.

If you forget to upgrade before end of next year (a year after launch) you'll have to pay. I would imagine most people who have found this site will remember to upgrade within the next 18 months.

 

Thanks for that explanation Adam. What about what the guy said about not being able to go back and don't ask me where I read that except I know it was in here. He said every thing related to the old version will be removed so you can't go back. Maybe he meant the recover that is on the pc.

 

When you upgrade from 8 to 8.1 it breaks your recovery partition. Also when you upgrade from 8.1 to 10 preview. I'd expect that the final upgrade from 8.x to 10 will do the same when it is finally released. If you make a backup before and after upgrading you'll be OK.

 

And if you have the reformatting disks you will be okay, right?

 

Emma,
I will try to explain this the best way I can. I think it was WHS (sorry if it is not you whs), he thinks some how they can block OEM and Retail version of older version of windows once the system is upgraded to windows 10. I don't see how that would be possible with pre-activated systems though. I actually have one of those systems. I was able to do a clean install of Windows 7 using a re-installation disk provided by dell. It was pre-activated after it was installed and the computer was not connected to the internet. Those type of systems have a master OEM key that is different from what is on your computer. If Microsoft blocked those keys it wouldn't only block mine but it would block others users as well. Those systems would all of a sudden show your product is not genuine. Microsoft is not going to make people mad that don't want to upgrade.

 

That is what I thought also. You go so far and you loose customers and it sounds like they are wanting happy customers. I think when I replied to that post I doubted it.

Thanks for confirming what I thought when I first read it.

 

It's the Product Key that's the important bit, not the actual Windows software itself. When you upgrade to the final version, that computer will then have a valid Windows 10 Product Key (Licence Key).

Going back to when I first upgraded to Windows 8, it was possible to get Windows 8 ISO's, but was a bit of a pain and you had to run through some hoops. However, Microsoft have since provided a tool called 'Windows Installation Media Creation Tool' that can be used to download Windows 8 ISO's. These ISO's can then be burnt to DVD or USB stick and used to [re]install Windows. I use the same DVD created from that ISO to install/re-install Windows on my own computers and also family computers (saves a 4GB download on every machine every time). As they're all 64-bit Windows 8.1 Pro, the ISO is the same for all of them, it's only their Product Keys that are different. There's no need to install your previous OS first either, just load Windows straight from the DVD/USB you burnt.

So, hopefully Microsoft will do the same for Windows 10 when it comes out and therefore you'll be able to just re-install from ISO if needed and use your Windows 10 Product Key to activate it. I guess we'll find out nearer the time, but I can't think of a reason why they wouldn't continue allowing people to download ISO's for [re]installation purposes.

I'm not a fan of cloning/disk imaging either. The problem with disk imaging software is you really need to create the disk image straight away on a clean, guaranteed infection free computer. That's fine, however software/drivers are constantly changing and updating, therefore that image soon goes out of date. Therefore, I just stick with a totally clean install from ISO and as all my files and software are on a seperate (and backed up!) hard drive anyway, it's just a case of re-installing the software from that drive, which doesn't really take long anyway. Each to their own though.

 

Sometimes glitches happen.

I was just playing around with a backup last week (Macrium).
I attempted to create a VHD from a verified backup image.
Windows booted successfully, but the keyboard didn't work (the mouse worked perfectly).
Also the on-screen keyboard would not open, so I couldn't log in.

I then attempted to restore the image to a spare HDD.
2 times out of 3 attempts the same thing happened. *Confused

I have also experienced boot failures after restoring an image.
Running Startup Repair would fix that issue, but that would result in Activation failure.
Restoring the same backup image a second time normally works. *Confused