Windows 10’s one-year free upgrade offer was a big lie

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Windows 7 is now very near to its end of support date of January 14, 2020. As the clock ticks down on Windows 7 support, more and more users are upgrading to Windows 10. Most users might now assume that paid upgrades are required as the big M’s free upgrade offer supposedly only lasted one year after Windows 10’s launch.

However, one Reddit user, who is reputedly a Microsoft employee, has said that the big M’s one-year free upgrade offer for Windows 10 was little more than marketing fluff.

Windows 10 is retailing on Amazon at various prices. For example, the 64-bit Windows 10 Home DVD is currently available for $112.99 on Amazon. The full Windows 10 package on a USB stick is retailing for $105. Yet, users don’t really need to shell out for Windows 10 at all. In a recent Reddit thread, one user who claims to be a Microsoft employee, stated:

I work at Microsoft and have been since before the Windows 10 launch. That whole “free” upgrade for a year was fully marketing fluff. After the cut off happened, the direction given was that it requires a paid license. HOWEVER, this was brought up by the brick and mortar stores that they were doing simple clock changes on customer devices during the upgrade challenge to get around it; and then ultimately it was clear two years later that anything Windows 7 and up would go to 10 fully activated and still to this day.

That Reddit poster also added that Windows Devices Group was not really bothered about Windows 10 free upgrades continuing. He claims that Mr. Myerson actually cared about Windows 10’s upgrade stats more than revenue. Thus, that is an interesting theory for explaining why the big M has not done much to ensure users cannot continue to freely upgrade to Windows 10 by downloading the Win 10 ISO from the company’s website.

So, the ‘one-year’ free upgrade offer for Windows 10 has been something of a lie as Microsoft has never truly terminated that offer. While Windows 10 is generally available at about the $100 mark at Amazon and co, Win 7 users can instead freely upgrade to the latest platform with the Win 10 Media Creation Tool. Click the Download tool now button on the Download Windows 10 page to get the Media Creation utility. Then users can follow the steps outlined in the post below.

Users will find Windows 10 has a few restrictions when utilizing the OS without activating it with a product key. However, those restriction are only relatively minor ones. So, it is by no means essential to purchase Win 10 on Amazon, or anywhere else for that matter, to upgrade to it from an older platform.

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