The free upgrade for users of Windows 7 and 8.x has arrived! It will be rolled out starting with people on the Windows Insider program who participated in the evolution of the new “Windows-as-a-service” policy (jokingly referred to as the “eternal beta”). Apparently, Windows is now a “service”, meaning that you will get to keep it free of charge for the lifetime of your machine and get all the updates and security fixes. Once you install, you have 30 days to decide whether or not to switch back to your old system which is held in limbo, just in case.
Windows 7 users: If you’re up to date with your Windows Updates you’ll already have a little icon in your system tray of the four-square Windows logo. Click on it to ‘reserve’ your copy. The reservation system allows Microsoft to spread the load around on its servers.
Windows 8.x users: run Windows Update and apply all updates. After that you will get a message in your system tray (see Windows 7) asking you to reserve your copy. Reserve it. Again, with so many machines to update Microsoft has to spread the load on its servers.
The offer to get Windows 10 completely free forever is open for one year, so that Microsoft gets as many customers on Windows 10 as quickly as possible. If you change machine after 28 July 2016, the version of Windows you get will depend on what is preinstalled. If you don’t take up the offer in time, you won’t get a free copy of Windows 10 and you will have to pay retail.
TechRadar notes that a hidden Windows 10 feature allows users to hide and ignore mandatory Windows 10 updates. This feature is important for those who utilize Nvidia hardware due to a problematic Nvidia driver update. The feature is in the KB3073930 package. It allows users to block specific Windows updates.
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