Upgrade to Windows 10 — for free!

Written By Greg Wood

On July 8, 2019
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Remember when you could upgrade the previous version of Windows to Windows 10 for free. That ended – sort of.

Many of my customers use Dell. Dell has always had a different agreement with Microsoft. One day, I took an old Dell notebook with Windows 7 Pro and run the Windows 10 update. It was an in-place upgrade. It worked. I thought that was lucky.

A number of months later, we worked with a non-profit that received a number of used HP notebooks and desktop computers. The hard drives had been wiped clean. I loaded 15 to 20 machines with Windows 10 Pro. Some required that I enter the Windows 7 Pro license. Others just worked.

The research I did on Microsoft did NOT find this feature. So although we continue to upgrade old computers, we don’t advertise it.

About two weeks ago, I was listening to “Windows Weekly.” Paul Thurrott discussed this feature. If he can discuss it on a webcast, I can write it up on my blog.

There are no guarantees. But it’s worth a try. Windows 7 has expired. You need to get off of it. And one of the many features on Windows 10 is that it runs on smaller hardware than Windows 7. You may have specific hardware that is not supported and not supported well.

Good luck!

 

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