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Windows 10 still free for Windows 7 users!

T

tezza

Veteran Member
Joined
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Location
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In my vintage computer shack I had (until the weekend) a Windows 7 machine I used primarily as my gateway to the Internet out there. I declined the free Windows 10 upgrade nag that went around when Win 10 first arrived, not wanting to upset things with a new (possibly buggy) version of the OS. It's now a few years later and, from what I'd read, Windows 7 would soon start nagging me again as it moves towards end-of-life. In addition, I'm a lot more familiar with Windows 10 now, having two other Windows 10 computers inside the house.

I reluctantly decided to bite the bullet and investigate updating to Windows 10.

One annoyance was that upgrading was now going to cost me. About $US 290 for Windows 10 Pro to replace my Windows 7 Pro (at least going by prices on the Microsoft New Zealand site). However, once I started looking, I found a few articles suggesting that although the upgrade for free offer wasn't being promoted..it may be still there for valid Windows 7 owners! (see https://www.techsupportall.com/upgrade-windows-7-to-windows-10-for-free-even-in-2018/) . I thought, "What they hey, why not give it a go". I could always roll back to Win 7 if my original activation key didn't work.

Well, the upgrade did work! It didn't even ask me for the activation key as I expected. I now have a full version of Windows 10 Pro on my little pizza box HP.

What's more, everything works and it seems even faster than the Windows 7 version that was there! The only negative was the crapware promotion apps that were installed (*sigh*), but these were easily uninstalled. One or two (like Film and TV) can't be uninstalled but these are just ignored.

I'm happy.

Tez
 
Stone said:
No need to swap it.

Install it on another drive, partition or machine... for free.
Click to expand...

It's not free though.

You're trading a Windows 7 license for a Windows 10 license.

That's a bad deal if you ask me since Windows 10 is worthless.
 
GiGaBiTe said:
It's not free though.

You're trading a Windows 7 license for a Windows 10 license.

That's a bad deal if you ask me since Windows 10 is worthless.
Click to expand...

I realize this is a 'vintage' forum, but I'm not clear why the hate for Windows 10 other than the usual 'Why do i need something new when the old thing works fine' (which is what my dad tells my mom whenever she tries to get him to 'upgrade' his flip phone).

I run Windows 98 on machines because I need DOS ability, and I run XP on machines because I need certain driver support that wasn't available on later machines (in fact, I just built a Win 98/XP dual boot machine for Retro use). I actually get why folks would stick with those versions, earlier versions, or no microsoft products at all (maybe you just want to use retro software, or you hate microsoft, or whatever), but I don't get why you would use windows 7 over Windows 10 on your current 'modern' machine. It's got all the same complaints you might have with a new OS and none of the benefits. The only thing I feel would be worse is to use Windows 8 (specifically because they moved everything around and switched it to a tablet OS before they fixed some of the problems with 8.1 and the rest with 10).
 
ngtwolf said:
I realize this is a 'vintage' forum, but I'm not clear why the hate for Windows 10
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There are several reasons.

Windows 10 still has the remnants of the "Metro" UI disaster that was Windows 8. One small example, if you try to open a file that has no file association, a dialog box appears asking if you want Microsoft download a program to open it with - but there is no "close" or "cancel" button or any visible way to dismiss the dialog. You have to click OUTSIDE the dialog to make it go away, unlike any normal dialog.

With Windows 10, Microsoft now likes to re-arrange the UI after every update, possibly even removing features. Many people, especially businesses, need a UI and OS that does not completely change at random times. At the moment, Windows 7 does not change as much.

Microsoft has even shown their disdain for users by using the Windows 10 "lock screen" for advertising.

Windows 7 gives better control over updates, although Microsoft has pushed their "telemetry" spyware available on Windows 7 as well.

There is also the more common matter that some software/drivers that runs under Windows 7 may not run under Windows 10.

Anyway, I'm not too surprised the "upgrade" is still available. I guess you don't even have to futz/hack with anything. I was thinking that in a worst case, one might have to use the build where they added the upgrade option, disconnect from the internet, set set the clock back, install, set the clock forwards, reconnect, and then it just looks like a machine that was upgraded within the timeframe or recently restored from a backup but not activated yet. Point is, it is not quite that easy for them to close this door even if they wanted to.
 
lyonadmiral said:
What you should try if you can get a hold of it, is Windows 10 LTSB :)
Click to expand...

I gave that a try, wile its better then the regular version of 10 it still has alot of UI bugs.

None of the problems are really a big deal, but add them up and it gets quite annoying.
To me windows 10 feels like it's still in the later Beta phase of development and still need some more work, hopefully once windows 7 support is dropped the bugs in 10 will be fixed.
 
Last edited:
SomeGuy said:
There are several reasons.

With Windows 10, Microsoft now likes to re-arrange the UI after every update, possibly even removing features. Many people, especially businesses, need a UI and OS that does not completely change at random times. At the moment, Windows 7 does not change as much.

There is also the more common matter that some software/drivers that runs under Windows 7 may not run under Windows 10.
Click to expand...

So I've never actually run across anything that didn't run in Windows 10 that ran in Windows 7. In fact, the driver paradigm is the same between the two.

The UI I could see, except in my case, I haven't used the UI since XP which was the last version that had things where you could sort of find them. To run anything, I hit the Windows key and start typing whatever I want. Usually it takes about 3 letters for whatever I want to do or run to show up. I've used Windows the same way in both 7 and 8.

Personally I prefer the speed and UI of Windows 10, especially on a laptop because laptop support had never been great so it always gets a little better with each version (specifically for folks like me who use a laptop a lot for work and undock/dock it multiple times throughout the day with various screen configurations... Windows 10 automatically reconfigures itself correctly at least 90% of the time which is more than any previous version). In fact, when I last switched jobs they gave me a laptop with Windows 7 because their Windows 10 image wasn't ready, so I had to jump through hoops to switch to a surface just because they didn't have a Windows 7 version for it. :)
 
I don't have a problem with Windows 10 other than the damn forced updates that are a PITA to turn off. Otherwise, it works just as well as Windows 7.

That aside, I thought that the free upgrade thing was long over. Just wish that it worked with Vista, cause I've got a few older laptops I'd have liked to have switch off of that.
 
ngtwolf said:
So I've never actually run across anything that didn't run in Windows 10 that ran in Windows 7. In fact, the driver paradigm is the same between the two.

The UI I could see, except in my case, I haven't used the UI since XP which was the last version that had things where you could sort of find them. To run anything, I hit the Windows key and start typing whatever I want. Usually it takes about 3 letters for whatever I want to do or run to show up. I've used Windows the same way in both 7 and 8.
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I ran into alot of older games that work fine in 7 but not 10, early 3d games. My steam copy of dark forces 2 will not work in 10. and a lot of other early 9x 3d games have all manner of bugs. We have a few apps at work that are buggy as hell in 10 but work 100% fine in 7.
As for the UI, I mean the whole interface, DPI setting are a mess with some apps and windows being fuzzy wile others are fine after changing it. Some apps like one of the two control panels still use a more widows 7 layout and the same for folders in explorer, But the newer windows 10 control panel uses a completely differently layout along with new windows 10 app like the new edge browser.
If not that I do not like change, but that change needs to be done right. The DPI setting need to be fixed and MS needs to to pick what style UI they want to use and not mix the two.

Example
control panel 1
control pane 2

EDIT:
Anyway, I'm going off topic. PM me it anyone want to talk more about this.
 
Chuck(G) said:
I have a licensed copy of Win 8.1 that I don't ever intend to use. Can that be swapped for a Win10 license for free?
Click to expand...

With the exception of my wife's laptop, which came with W7, my other 3 boxes all had W8 when upgrading to W10. I think you can do it. Why not grab an image an drop it on a spare DD/SSD and see what happens.

Note: Beware of that big black limo with "MS" on the license plate and a guy named "Guido".

:dontgeti:
 
Mr. Horse said:
I ran into alot of older games that work fine in 7 but not 10, early 3d games. My steam copy of dark forces 2 will not work in 10. and a lot of other early 9x 3d games have all manner of bugs. We have a few apps at work that are buggy as hell in 10 but work 100% fine in 7.
As for the UI, I mean the whole interface, DPI setting are a mess with some apps and windows being fuzzy wile others are fine after changing it. Some apps like one of the two control panels still use a more widows 7 layout and the same for folders in explorer, But the newer windows 10 control panel uses a completely differently layout along with new windows 10 app like the new edge browser.
If not that I do not like change, but that change needs to be done right. The DPI setting need to be fixed and MS needs to to pick what style UI they want to use and not mix the two.

Example
control panel 1
control pane 2

EDIT:
Anyway, I'm going off topic. PM me it anyone want to talk more about this.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that W10 does not support 8/16-bit apps and/or games. That's why a lot of us keep a XP period gamers around. BTW, I've run some old games and stuff in a DOS Box (or equivalent) and they suck big time. Even dual booting into 95/98/XP on a W10 compatible modern system doesn't work right because of the lack of driver support. So this is not news and you probably know all of that anyway.
 
Agent Orange said:
Keep in mind that W10 does not support 8/16-bit apps and/or games. That's why a lot of us keep a XP period gamers around.
Click to expand...
Actually Windows 10 32-bit can run DOS and Windows 3.x application. I have a Windows 10-32 box running Microsoft BOB (16-bit Win31) and other Win3x stuff.

XP 64-bit, Vista 64-bit and Windows 7 64-bit also lack NTVDM DOS/Win31 support, but 64-bit stuff did not commonly get pre-loaded until several years after the release of Windows 7.

As far as applications that don't run under Windows 10, I have heard a lot of people complain about the ability to run VirtualPC 2007 under Windows 10 (both 64-bit and 32-bit). Of course why they want to run that is different issue.
 
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