The end of 'Free' Windows 10 upgrades is nigh

As most people will probably know by now the 'free' upgrade from Windows 7 or Windows 8 to Windows 10 will soon be over. On the 29th of this month, assuming Microsoft don't make any last minute changes to their plans, the Windows 10 free upgrade offer will close.

What is not known is how much the Windows 10 upgrade will cost after the 29th of July.

The upgrade cost might go to the normal upgrade cost that has been charged for Windows 7 and Windows 8, which was US$99. Or Microsoft may have a new deal for the next 12 months allowing people to upgrade for half price, or about US$49. But at this stage, as far as I can work out anyway, Microsoft have not made it clear what the status will be after 29th July. They might even extend the free period?

My personal opinion is that Windows 10 is technically superior to Windows 7 and Windows 8; as you might expect. Windows 10 is significantly more secure than Windows 7, and the new Edge browser in Windows 10 has proven to be much more resilient to malware attacks than IE was.

On top of this Windows 10 has native support for many things that are add-ons to Windows 7 and Windows 8.

If you are upgrading from Windows 7 or Windows 8 to Windows 10 then you can actually do an upgrade with reasonable confidence it will all go well. Your applications, data, and settings will survive. Unfortunately this is not the case if you are going to upgrade from a version of Windows before Windows 7. In fact the best way to 'upgrade' from a version of Windows prior to Windows 7 is probably to do a re-build—in which case you may want to engage your family IT support person as re-builds are fraught with traps.