This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

Windows 10 desktop

Heard the news? Microsoft has stopped offering Windows 10 equally a free upgrade after 12 months of begging aggressive questioning. Except that doesn't seem to quite be the example.

There are at to the lowest degree two ways to still become Windows 10 for free, provided you have an authentic Windows 7 or eight.one license. First, the Windows x upgrade offer hasn't actually expired if you use assistive technologies like screen readers or on-screen magnifying spectacles, and the but hallmark the system performs is a button that says "Yes, I apply these technologies." In short, anyone who wants Windows ten can yet get it that way.

Over at ZDNet, still, Mary-Jo Foley has found an alternate-alternate method of downloading Microsoft's Bone that doesn't require you to lie about your demand for a seeing-heart dog, on-screen keyboard, or colour incomprehension. It seems y'all can however activate Windows vii and 8.1 keys during the upgrade process. A Microsoft spokesperson provided the following statement to ZDNet:

Users upgrading their PC for the showtime time will demand to enter a Windows 10 product fundamental. Users who've previously installed Windows 10 on their PC should actuate successfully with a digital entitlement when reinstalling Windows x on that PC.

Annotation that the upgrade procedure referred to in the original story is specifically for organisation keys that were never upgraded or authorized for Windows 10 during the past 12 months. This statement is, at all-time, inaccurate — though it's also non surprising a PR person might non know why a program that was widely advertised equally catastrophe on July 29 hadn't actually ended yet.

If we had to approximate, nosotros'd guess that Microsoft hasn't pulled the switch merely yet because it wants to requite people a fiddling more time. The alternative is that Microsoft made a very public bear witness of ending the Windows ten upgrade offering and will pull the GWX.exe tool from systems in a future Windows Update — but doesn't actually intend to end giving the OS away. It'll just require a little bit more than elbow grease to download as fourth dimension goes by, or a willingness to claim a disability you may not actually possess.

On a personal notation: When I upgraded my own Windows seven rig to Windows x, I ran into a problem with my brandish driver. The upgrade assistant kept insisting that my display was incompatible with Windows 10. Since I'm running a GTX 970 with the latest Nvidia drivers, I knew that wasn't true, but couldn't lock downwards the problem. I wound up running the installer manually and handled the upgrade that mode.

FuseHydrogen

I wanted to beat this message with a crowbar until it fused hydrogen.

Information technology turns out that this problem was caused by an old, erstwhile driver I'd installed years agone, while working with the TightVNC customer for accessing testbeds. I still use TightVNC on occasion, more often than not considering I need a VNC solution that allows for file transfers and doesn't install or emulate a GPU driver. (Microsoft'south RDP is roughly 100x faster, just doesn't ever play overnice with GPU drivers when testing 3D applications. If y'all have a client you'd recommend, let me know.) Some years ago, there was a GPU commuter you could install to improve functioning in the application, and I'd installed it. This, it turns out, is what Windows 10 was picking up and failing to understand. One time I removed that commuter, I had no problem upgrading to the Anniversary Update for Windows 10.

I'd even so recommend that users at least merits their complimentary copy of Windows 10 earlier MS decides to pull its diverse plugs, but don't encounter a problem with sticking with whatsoever version of the Bone yous prefer.