RIP Windows 7 - upgrade to Windows 10 for FREE

extreme_one

To upgrade for free, use the Windows Media Creation Tool and select to upgrade from there.

Enter in your Windows 7 (or Windows 8) licence key, and you should soon have Windows 10 running – for free.

Make sure you have:

An internet connection (internet service provider fees may apply).
Sufficient available data storage for the download, on a computer, USB or external drive.
A blank USB flash drive with at least 5 GB of space or blank DVD (and DVD burner) if you want to create media. We recommend using a blank USB or blank DVD, because any content on it will be deleted.
When burning a DVD from an ISO file, if you are told the disc image file is too large you will need to use Dual Layer (DL) DVD Media.

wagstaffes

farnis extreme_one I found this article which says that Microsoft quietly continued the free upgrade offer. I might give it a try.
https://www.howtogeek.com/509087/how-to-upgrade-from-windows-7-to-windows-10-for-free/
I'm not a teccy so plain English responses appreciated.

Ps. I was feeling brave so I had a go at this. Took a few hours but seems to have worked fine. Laptop is now running Windows 10 Home and cost nothing. Just need to learn how to use it now!
The only thing I did differently was I used the en-gb windows site rather than the en-us.

baconbutty

R.I.P windows 7 😢

deltayankee3

Be careful! Select "I do Not Have A Licence Key" at the first time of being asked. Then when the upgrade has finished and you have run the Windows Update multiple times - even if it says "You re Up To Date"

Then go to automatically register in Windows 10 Update and security section. If that fails it will ask you for the Licence Key and at that point put in the key attached to the computer.

If you cannot read this because it has been obliterated IT IS VITAL you run Free version of Belarc Advisor before you start. Save the results or print out the result and the key will be there.

Post Back if you have any problems or PM me.

baconbutty

deltayankee3 If you have windows 8 wouldn't the licence already be embedded in the hardware ?

formulaone

RIP Window's 7 (Security Updates) as of from tomorrow 14/01/2020

extreme_one

baconbutty your Windows 8 key can be retrieved, and transferred to a Windows 10 install, if you don't have it written down.

I haven't done it for a long while but there are downloadable tools.

baconbutty

extreme_one I mean like when I've fitted a new HD to my sons laptop I didn't need to use the licence key because it is embedded in the bios/uefi so wouldn't windows already know it going from 8 to 10 .

extreme_one

baconbutty You might be right, I thought you'd still need to enter the License key as the HWID isn't sufficient to license an upgrade to a later version of Windows.

TBH I updated to Windows 10 shortly after it was released, and I've never needed to reinstall so I can't remember the intricacies of the upgrade method.

deltayankee3

Upgrading from a Windows 7 machine - almost certainly you will need to manually add the Licence Key. I don't think it has ever been able to generate the "Digital Licence"

With Windows 8 or 8.1 - you may be correct that the upgrade to Windows 10 is automatic and carries a "Digital Licence automatically.

The main point I make is that when upgrading always choose "I do not have a Licence Key which is a small link in Blue right at the bottom of the screen. Also I would urge people to back up all data before upgrading, particularly email clients.

farnis

Windows 7 support expired yesterday so if you are like me you wont want to run the risk of using an out of date operating system. I looked on several legit websites and the cheapest retail version was £119, and that was from Microsoft!

However if you already have a fully working (legit) version of Windows 7 installed, with a legit serial number you can still upgrade for free via Microsoft. Its a bit of messing because you need to burn an iso file sent to you via Microsoft and also need to go into the bios and do a bit of tweaking, but I was done within the hour and had all the current up to date security updates installed. The best thing about it is that its all above board as well.

shazzzy

farnis thanks for that
i have a windows 7 laptop and was wondering what to do with it

darrenperfett

farnis well done, sounds good

chand311

farnis very expensive though.

munglespoon

You can get legitimate KMS and bulk enterprise keys much cheaper than that, but I will not post links to where these might come from. I think that the LTSC version of Windows 10 is far superior, but you do need a different license to get this version legitimately. The LTSC version has a lot of unnecessary and resource-hungry things stripped out of it and does not have all the annoying adverts for Candy Crush and other things that have not been installed on the computer.

deltayankee3

Sorry but the information here is totally wrong.

You can upgrade from Windows 7 or 8 or 8.1 for free

foolish

deltayankee3

deltayankee3 Sorry but the information here is totally wrong.

You can upgrade from Windows 7 or 8 or 8.1 for free

The OP does say that in the second paragraph.

deltayankee3

https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33061059-rip-windows-7-upgrade-to-windows-10-for-free/9

deltayankee3

Read down to my post and the relevant responses guys and gals