How To Update My Computer To Windows 10

Microsoft's gratuitous upgrade offer for Windows x concluded more than than five years ago, only no one told the people who run the Windows activation servers. As a result, you can still upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 and claim a gratuitous digital license for the latest Windows x version, without existence forced to jump through any hoops.

That upgrade became more than of import than ever when support for Windows 7 officially ended in Jan 2020. And it turned out to be a great relief to household budgets when the pandemic made working from dwelling house (or going to school via remote sessions) suddenly popular. In the past two years, millions of people take taken old PCs out of storage and gotten upwards to speed rapidly, thanks to these free upgrades.

Also: Windows 11 FAQ: Hither'southward everything you demand to know

You can also still upgrade Windows ten Habitation to Windows 10 Pro past using a product central from a previous concern edition of Windows 7, eight, or eight.1 (Pro/Ultimate). That tin can save you as much as $100 in OEM upgrade charges if you buy a new PC with Windows 10 Habitation preinstalled. (For details, meet "How to upgrade from Windows 10 Dwelling to Pro without hassles.")

Every technique I describe in this article works the same for Windows 11 as well, although about older PCs will be blocked from upgrading to Microsoft's newest operating system by the stringent Windows 11 hardware compatibility requirements. For those PCs, Windows 10 remains a feasible option until at to the lowest degree October 2025.

In this post, I'll encompass the basics of how to install Windows 10 as an upgrade on older hardware. I'll also talk about the licensing issues involved, which are (equally always) confusing.

I wrote and published the first version of this post in early 2017, several months after Microsoft'southward initial free upgrade offer ended. The complimentary upgrade offering had just ended, and when I downloaded the Windows x upgrade tool and ran information technology on an old Windows seven PC, I fully expected that the upgrade would fail activation and I'd be asked for a product primal.

Imagine my surprise when, instead, I was greeted with this screen.

One digital license, no production fundamental required.

Over the next four-plus years, I repeated those steps on test PCs at regular intervals and confirmed that the complimentary upgrade tool still works. I continue to receive email messages regularly from readers offering firsthand reports that their free upgrades were successful, with no purchase or product primal required.

A small number of readers have reported that the upgrade fails because of a Setup error or a compatibility block. For details on how to troubleshoot these errors, see "This free Windows 10 upgrade offer still works. Hither'south why - and how to get it." For assistance decoding setup errors, see "Windows ten: Utilize setup log files to troubleshoot installation problems."

Want your own digital license to the latest Windows 10 version? Follow these instructions.

How to upgrade an old PC to Windows 10

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If you lot have a PC running a "18-carat" copy of Windows 7/8/viii.i (Windows vii Dwelling house, Pro, or Ultimate edition, or Windows 8.x Dwelling house or Business, properly licensed and activated), you can follow the same steps I did to install Windows 10 as an upgrade.

Before getting started, I recommend a few preliminary tasks that can head off potential problems:

Confirm that your copy of Windows is properly activated. This is especially important if you recently reinstalled Windows.
Check for whatsoever recent driver updates, peculiarly for network and storage hardware.
Download and install any available BIOS updates for your hardware; this step is especially of import for systems that were originally sold in 2017 or earlier, when hardware makers were all the same shaking out issues with Windows 10.
Support your information files to an external difficult drive or cloud storage (or both). Consider doing a full system backup to an external hard bulldoze using the Windows vii backup program, which is also available in Windows 8.x and Windows x. Just run the command Sdclt.exe, then choose the Create A Organisation Image option.
Temporarily uninstall third-party security software and depression-level organization utilities that can interfere with the upgrade. You lot can reinstall those programs afterward the upgrade is complete.
Finally, disconnect any unnecessary external devices, especially USB flash drives and external hard drives. (Several common installation errors can be traced to the Setup program being dislocated by these boosted drives.)

With those preliminaries out of the fashion, go to the Download Windows ten webpage and click theDownload tool at present button. After the download completes, double-click the executable file to run the Media Cosmos Tool.

You can upgrade straight using this tool, or create separate media.

If you lot've downloaded the Media Cosmos Tool on the motorcar you plan to upgrade, and you plan to upgrade that PC and merely that PC, you can cull theUpgrade This PC Now option. That option installs the most recent version of Windows x. It typically takes virtually an hour, depending on your hardware. (Having an SSD as your system drive is the all-time way to speed upwardly the process.)

If you know you'll want to upgrade to Windows 10 on more than than one PC, or if you just want more flexibility in the event that the instant upgrade fails, choose the second selection and save the installation files to a USB drive or as an ISO file. The download takes a piffling time merely when it's complete, y'all tin run the Windows Setup program manually to install Windows 10 on any PC running any supported Windows version (lamentable, this won't piece of work with PCs running Windows Vista or Windows XP). The exact steps depend on which download option you chose:

USB flash drive Insert the USB flash bulldoze you just created into a free USB slot on the PC y'all want to upgrade. Then open up File Explorer (Windows Explorer in Windows 7) and double-click Setup to install Windows 10. Notation that y'allcannot boot from the newly created USB drive or DVD to perform an upgrade to Windows 10. You must run the Windows 10 setup program from your currently installed and activated copy of Windows.
ISO file After the download is consummate, y'all'll need to mountain the ISO file and open it in a Windows Explorer/File Explorer window. On a PC running Windows 8.1 or Windows 10, yous can double-click the ISO file to open up it as a virtual drive. On a PC running Windows 7, you'll need to install a third-party utility such as the complimentary, open-source WinCDEmu. Afterwards mounting the ISO file, double-click Setup to start the install process.

Then merely follow the prompts to complete the upgrade to Windows 10. You will not exist asked for a production key, and when the upgrade is complete and yous've connected to the net, you'll accept a digital license to the well-nigh recent Windows 10 version, which you can confirm past going to Settings > Update and Security > Activation. All your apps and data files will be available.

The digital license is associated with that specific device, which means you tin reformat the deejay and perform a make clean installation of the same edition of Windows 10 someday. (If you're thinking of upgrading your sometime system drive to an SSD, perform the upgrade to Windows ten on the old hardware; afterward confirming that the new Windows 10 version is properly activated, install the SSD and and then either restore from a backup prototype or boot from the USB flash bulldoze to exercise a make clean install. You won't need a product central, and activation is automatic.)

Is your license valid?

And now the big question: If y'all avail yourself of this upgrade to Windows x, is the resulting license valid?

The entire "gratuitous upgrade" offer was e'er accompanied past language that was, to put it politely, a flake squishy. And the language around the end of that offering was similarly vague. For case, meet the answers I've highlighted hither on Microsoft's Windows x Upgrade FAQ:

That'southward very odd language. The free upgradethrough the Get Windows 10 app ended on July 29, 2016. Likewise, the give-and-take of product keys says a key will be necessary "for this tool to work" (non true) but doesn't say a discussion about licensing.

And unlike the weaselly "Genuine Windows" characterization on older upgrades, the activation screens for a Windows 10 upgrade specifically confirm the existence of a "digital license."

Anyway, the free upgrade offer was extended briefly, at least for people who employ assistive technologies. The FAQ on a separate page even called it a "free upgrade offer extension" and pointedly noted that information technology was not limited to specific assistive technologies. (I regularly apply the Magnifier utility in Windows, which is indisputably an assistive applied science.)

Of form, I'm not a lawyer, and this column isn't legal advice. Only I volition say that I am personally confident in the activation status of any PC upgraded using the tool on that page during the eligibility menses.

This extension was, I think, a very big nod and a flash, designed to make information technology easy for those who wanted a Windows 10 upgrade to however get it while placating the OEM partners who were none too happy about the twelvemonth-long emphasis on upgrades rather than new PC sales.

Alas, I say "was," considering the extension (which was itself extended) officially ended on Jan. 16, 2018. The folio that formerly ran an Upgrade Assistant at present returns an error message.

The big question at present is whether Microsoft will ever plough off the code on its activation servers that dispenses digital licenses after an upgrade from an earlier Windows version. I've continued to examination that scenario, and I tin confirm, long after the end of support for Windows 7, that it withal works.

I continue to hear from readers sharing their experiences. If yous've used this technique on a PC, click my name at the top of this mail and use the contact form to permit me know how it went for yous.

Note:This article was originally published in January 2017. It has been updated multiple times since and then to reverberate the nigh electric current information.