Windows 10 Upgrade; Everything You Need to Know

What is Windows 10, When is the Release Date, and What Happened to Windows 9?

It is almost confirmed news that Windows 10 will be released by Microsoft on July 29, 2015. If you are a Windows 7 (with Service Pack 1) or Windows 8.1 user, you might have already seen the announcement right in your system tray pop-up. Windows 10 edition will be a free upgrade. And for all of you who are wondering what happened to the intermediate Windows 9, Microsoft believes that with the tons of improvements and cool features that this new OS is going to bring to the table, it is too good to be termed as Windows 9; and hence this version skip!

Is Windows 10 Really FREE to Upgrade?

Free for Whom?

The short answer is, YES, Windows 10 will be a free upgrade. For most people anyway, as long as your PC runs Windows 7 Service Pack 1 or Windows 8.1. And assuming that you upgrade to Windows 10 within the first year of release, you won’t have to pay a dime. So forget about all the confusion surrounding this point online, you won’t have to pay anything for Win 10 upgrade as long as you meet these simple criteria.

Free for How Long?

And if you upgrade to Windows 10 within the first year time frame, you not only get free upgrade to Windows 10 and its updates for the “supported lifetime of the device” it will also be a full copy (not a beta release) that will continue to work beyond the first year.

What if My Computer has an Older or… Pirated Copy of Windows?

However, if you happen to have an old computer that is running Windows Vista or an earlier version of Windows, you WILL NOT get a free upgrade. You will want to purchase a new computer if your PC is so old and out-dated, anyway. However, if you are running a pirated (“non-genuine”) copy of Windows, while you may still be able to upgrade, you’ll continue to have a pirated and “non-genuine” copy of Windows 10.

What will be the License Cost of Windows 10 on a New Computer?

If you’re assembling your own brand-new computer or purchasing a licensed copy of Windows 10 to run in a VM (virtual machine), you’ll have to pay $110 for Windows 10 Home edition or $199 for Windows 10 Pro edition. It is important to note here is that in case, if you don’t upgrade from a Win 7 (with SP1) or Win 8.1 within the first year of Win 10 release and want to upgrade after the first year, you’ll have to pay for the licensed copy of Windows — unless, of course Microsoft decides to extend the offer!

Windows 10 on Mobile

For the mobile version of Windows 10, Microsoft has eliminated the Pro edition and is giving users the choice between Windows 10 Mobile and Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise, the latter of which is designed for businesses running the OS on mobile devices.

How to Upgrade to Windows 10?

Remember the pesky little announcement popup in the system tray pop-up on Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 computers that we were talking about earlier? Ironically, that also happens to be the fastest way to sign-up for the Win 10 upgrade! Use that pop-up to “Reserve” your own copy of Windows 10 and your Windows computer will automatically download Windows 10 right before the release date. This will save you time as you won’t have to download a super-massive installer from Microsoft when Windows 10 is released and everyone is downloading it like crazy, hence causing slower downloads.

However, reserving your Windows 10 copy is NOT mandatory and you don’t actually have to reserve now to be able to upgrade for free later. You’ll still be able to upgrade for free throughout the first year. Reserving your Win 10 copy now in advance will just save download time later.

Oh, in case you don’t wanna wait then the Technical Preview is now available for download on Microsoft site (for free). Here is how to get the Win 10 Preview. Although the current Windows 10 preview releases are a little buggy, trusting that Microsoft can fix them all by the release date, Windows 10 will be a worthy and recommended upgrade.

Windows 10 System Requirements

Here are the Windows 10 minimum system requirements, which are what Windows 8.1 needs to run:

• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2
• RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
• Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver

Windows 8 was rushed and was released for a post-desktop customer-base who weren’t ready for something, which was so new and strange. Hence even though Windows 10 feels like a regression, it is still such an incredible piece of OS and hopefully it’ll prove to be exactly what Windows 8 was supposed to be in the first place.

Are you upgrading to Windows 10?