Microsoft he said that it stopped supporting free upgrades from Windows 7 and 8 to Windows 10 or 11.
"Microsoft's free upgrade offer for Windows 10/11 ended on July 29, 2016," says a post on Microsoft's Device Partner Center website. Of course, this was known.
The following paragraph is new:
“The installation path to download the free Windows 7/8 upgrade has also been removed. Upgrades to Windows 11 from Windows 10 are still free.”
What does all this mean?
When Windows 10 was released, Microsoft announced that it would allow Windows 7 and 8.x users to upgrade to Windows 10 for free, and as the post we wrote above notes, that offer ended in July 2016. Microsoft but it quietly continued to allow free upgrades and later did the same with Windows 11 when they were released.
I use my own MSDN/TechNet product keys from Windows 7/8.x to activate Windows 10 and 11 installations and can confirm that this free upgrade policy continued well past the expiration date (July 2016).
Now I'll have to try again as it's not 100% sure if this sudden policy change, made without any prior announcement, will stop the grace period. My belief is that he will.
If you try it first, you can let us know in the comments.
George is still wondering what he is doing here….
