Microsoft aims to get Windows 10 running on a billion devices by 2018, and a major pie of that depends on getting users on older Windows editions to upgrade to Windows 10.
The majority of older Windows users are on Windows 7 – some completely giving Windows 8.1 a skip while some going back to the more trusted desktop operating system. Microsoft has hoped to upgrade these hundreds of millions of users so that there aren’t millions of PCs running Windows 7 in January 2020 when its extended support commitment ends.
On July 29, 2016, on the one-year anniversary of Windows 10, Microsoft’s unprecedented free upgrade offer will expire. What happens after that? Let’s break it down for you.
“I don’t want to upgrade” / “I hate Windows 10”
Well, no one is forcing you to… even if the ‘Get Windows 10’ prompts have made you believe otherwise. You can stay with your current Windows version, but you should understand that eventually, Microsoft will cease support for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. Try Windows 10, and hopefully, it will work for you. Else, you can always rollback to your existing Windows installation.
In addition, one day you’d eventually need to get on to Windows 10. Most new PCs in the market come preloaded with Windows 10 already, and come October 31, 2016, OEM sales of new PCs with Windows 7 will officially end.
“How can I upgrade to Windows 10?”
Well, maybe you’ve been living under a rock all this while or you really love deadlines, but now you only have a few days to upgrade your existing Windows PC to Windows 10 for free.
Head over to the Windows 10 upgrade page, and download the upgrade tool to upgrade qualified Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 devices running a non-Enterprise edition. Devices running Windows RT, Vista, XP, or an older Windows OS are not eligible for a free upgrade. You can create a bootable USB drive, DVD, or ISO to install or reinstall Windows 10. Use the nifty little media creation tool to create your own installation media with either a USB flash drive or a DVD