Microsoft announced free upgrade offer for Windows 10 ends on July 29, 2016. So, after that Microsoft officially ended the Get Windows 10 upgrade program from the windows old OS and terminates it’s GWX tool on older PC’S that shows the message to the users to upgrade their PC to Windows 10. Because at that time the users don’t feel any need to upgrade their PC’s as they are happy with the current version of Windows OS installed.
But the happy news is, you can still upgrade to Windows 10 and acquire a free digital license.
I thought if I upgrade my Windows 10 from my older PC, I’ll get a notification to enter Windows 10 license key again. So, for this I created two Virtual Machines using Hyper-V one for Windows 7 and one for Windows 8.1 for testing purpose. Installed both version of Windows. And after upgrading my OS to Windows 10. Hola! My Windows 10 was already activated. I didn’t ask to buy a new license key from Microsoft Store to activate my upgraded version of Windows 10.
Caution:
Windows 10 supports many of the hardware compatibility drivers. But First check your PC drivers by yourself i.e. your PC hardware manufacturer provides drivers also for Windows 10 or not. So, after successful upgrade you won’t be in trouble.
Steps to Upgrade Windows 10 from older PC:
First step is to click on https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows10
Microsoft page link and then click onto the Download tool button. When the download completes, run the Media creation tool.
There are two ways to upgrade your PC. When you run the Media creation tool, the screen will popup asking you to choose between Upgrade this PC now and Create installation media for another PC. If you want to upgrade the current PC, choose the first option. And if you want to install windows 10 to another PC through USB or DVD, choose 2nd option. Assuming you choose the first option, click on next and complete the prompts to finish the upgrade. Windows 10 upgrade will not ask you to enter product to acquire your digital license.
Note: Windows 10 activation can be checked by just going to Settings > Update & Security > Activation
The installed windows 10 digital license will be connected with the device hardware which means if you format your hard drive and install Windows 10 again from scratch. You’ll not be prompted to enter Windows 10 key again. As, Microsoft Windows license servers already know your device attached license key and activate your version of Windows 10 as soon as you connect your PC with the internet.
If you encounter a problem of less disk storage space in your Windows installation drive. You can delete your old version of Windows via Disk cleanup by following these steps.
Go to Start > Search Disk Cleanup > Clean up system files > Check ‘Previous Windows installation(s) on the list that appears and clean it. You’ll get free space in your selected Windows drive after performing the action.
Conclusion:
So Windows 10 provide the simple, easy and most reliable upgrade process we’ve yet seen from a Microsoft OS. Yes, no Operating system is perfect. If you do run into problems with an upgrade in place then you have 10 days to revert the OS back to your previous version. Your valid license key will continue to work and no need to reactivate the OS.
