Can You Download Windows 10 For Free

Microsoft's free upgrade offer for Windows ten ended more than five years ago, but no i told the people who run the Windows activation servers. As a result, you can still upgrade to Windows x from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 and claim a free digital license for the latest Windows 10 version, without being forced to jump through whatsoever hoops.

That upgrade became more than important than ever when support for Windows 7 officially ended in January 2020. And information technology turned out to be a neat relief to household budgets when the pandemic made working from dwelling (or going to schoolhouse via remote sessions) all of a sudden pop. In the past two years, millions of people accept taken old PCs out of storage and gotten up to speed apace, thank you to these free upgrades.

Also: Windows xi FAQ: Hither's everything you need to know

You can also still upgrade Windows x Abode to Windows 10 Pro by using a product fundamental from a previous business edition of Windows 7, 8, or viii.ane (Pro/Ultimate). That can salve you every bit much as $100 in OEM upgrade charges if you buy a new PC with Windows 10 Home preinstalled. (For details, see "How to upgrade from Windows 10 Home to Pro without hassles.")

Every technique I depict in this article works the same for Windows 11 too, although nigh older PCs volition exist blocked from upgrading to Microsoft'due south newest operating system by the stringent Windows 11 hardware compatibility requirements. For those PCs, Windows 10 remains a feasible selection until at least Oct 2025.

In this post, I'll encompass the basics of how to install Windows ten as an upgrade on older hardware. I'll too talk virtually the licensing issues involved, which are (as ever) disruptive.

I wrote and published the first version of this postal service in early 2017, several months after Microsoft's initial free upgrade offer ended. The costless upgrade offering had just concluded, and when I downloaded the Windows 10 upgrade tool and ran it on an old Windows 7 PC, I fully expected that the upgrade would fail activation and I'd be asked for a product cardinal.

Imagine my surprise when, instead, I was greeted with this screen.

One digital license, no production central required.

Over the side by side 4-plus years, I repeated those steps on examination PCs at regular intervals and confirmed that the costless upgrade tool withal works. I continue to receive email messages regularly from readers offering immediate reports that their free upgrades were successful, with no buy or product key required.

A minor number of readers take reported that the upgrade fails considering of a Setup mistake or a compatibility cake. For details on how to troubleshoot these errors, encounter "This free Windows 10 upgrade offer notwithstanding works. Hither's why - and how to get it." For help decoding setup errors, meet "Windows 10: Apply setup log files to troubleshoot installation problems."

Desire your own digital license to the latest Windows ten version? Follow these instructions.

How to upgrade an one-time PC to Windows 10

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If you have a PC running a "genuine" copy of Windows vii/8/viii.i (Windows 7 Abode, Pro, or Ultimate edition, or Windows 8.x Home or Business, properly licensed and activated), you lot can follow the same steps I did to install Windows 10 as an upgrade.

Before getting started, I recommend a few preliminary tasks that can caput off potential bug:

Confirm that your copy of Windows is properly activated. This is especially important if you recently reinstalled Windows.
Cheque for whatsoever recent driver updates, specially for network and storage hardware.
Download and install whatever available BIOS updates for your hardware; this step is peculiarly important for systems that were originally sold in 2017 or earlier, when hardware makers were still shaking out issues with Windows 10.
Back up your information files to an external difficult drive or cloud storage (or both). Consider doing a full organization backup to an external difficult bulldoze using the Windows vii fill-in program, which is too available in Windows eight.10 and Windows 10. Just run the control Sdclt.exe, so choose the Create A System Image selection.
Temporarily uninstall third-political party security software and low-level system utilities that tin interfere with the upgrade. You can reinstall those programs subsequently the upgrade is complete.
Finally, disconnect any unnecessary external devices, especially USB wink drives and external hard drives. (Several common installation errors tin can be traced to the Setup program being confused by these additional drives.)

With those preliminaries out of the way, become to the Download Windows ten webpage and click theDownload tool now push. Afterward the download completes, double-click the executable file to run the Media Cosmos Tool.

Y'all can upgrade straight using this tool, or create carve up media.

If you lot've downloaded the Media Creation Tool on the machine you plan to upgrade, and yous plan to upgrade that PC and only that PC, you tin can choose theUpgrade This PC Now option. That option installs the nearly recent version of Windows 10. It typically takes about an hour, depending on your hardware. (Having an SSD as your system drive is the best way to speed upwardly the procedure.)

If you know you'll desire to upgrade to Windows x on more 1 PC, or if you just want more flexibility in the issue that the instant upgrade fails, choose the second option and save the installation files to a USB drive or as an ISO file. The download takes a petty time just when information technology'due south complete, you can run the Windows Setup program manually to install Windows ten on any PC running any supported Windows version (sad, this won't piece of work with PCs running Windows Vista or Windows XP). The exact steps depend on which download selection you lot chose:

USB flash drive Insert the USB flash drive yous simply created into a gratuitous USB slot on the PC you desire to upgrade. And then open File Explorer (Windows Explorer in Windows seven) and double-click Setup to install Windows x. Notation that you lotcannot boot from the newly created USB drive or DVD to perform an upgrade to Windows 10. Y'all must run the Windows 10 setup program from your currently installed and activated copy of Windows.
ISO file After the download is complete, you'll need to mount the ISO file and open it in a Windows Explorer/File Explorer window. On a PC running Windows eight.1 or Windows 10, yous can double-click the ISO file to open up information technology equally a virtual drive. On a PC running Windows 7, you'll need to install a third-party utility such as the free, open-source WinCDEmu. Afterwards mounting the ISO file, double-click Setup to start the install process.

Then just follow the prompts to complete the upgrade to Windows 10. You lot volition not be asked for a product key, and when the upgrade is consummate and you've connected to the internet, you'll accept a digital license to the most recent Windows x version, which you can confirm by going to Settings > Update and Security > Activation. All your apps and data files volition be available.

The digital license is associated with that specific device, which means y'all tin reformat the disk and perform a clean installation of the same edition of Windows ten anytime. (If you're thinking of upgrading your old arrangement bulldoze to an SSD, perform the upgrade to Windows 10 on the quondam hardware; after confirming that the new Windows ten version is properly activated, install the SSD and and so either restore from a backup image or boot from the USB flash bulldoze to practise a clean install. You won't need a production key, and activation is automatic.)

Is your license valid?

And now the large question: If you avail yourself of this upgrade to Windows x, is the resulting license valid?

The entire "gratuitous upgrade" offering was always accompanied by linguistic communication that was, to put it politely, a scrap squishy. And the language around the end of that offer was similarly vague. For instance, come across the answers I've highlighted here on Microsoft'south Windows ten Upgrade FAQ:

That's very odd language. The free upgradethrough the Get Windows 10 app ended on July 29, 2016. Likewise, the discussion of product keys says a key will be necessary "for this tool to work" (not true) but doesn't say a word about licensing.

And unlike the weaselly "Genuine Windows" label on older upgrades, the activation screens for a Windows 10 upgrade specifically confirm the existence of a "digital license."

Anyway, the free upgrade offer was extended briefly, at to the lowest degree for people who use assistive technologies. The FAQ on a dissever folio fifty-fifty called information technology a "gratuitous upgrade offer extension" and pointedly noted that information technology was not limited to specific assistive technologies. (I regularly use the Magnifier utility in Windows, which is indisputably an assistive technology.)

Of form, I'grand non a lawyer, and this column isn't legal advice. But I will say that I am personally confident in the activation condition of any PC upgraded using the tool on that page during the eligibility menstruation.

This extension was, I call back, a very large nod and a wink, designed to brand it easy for those who wanted a Windows ten upgrade to yet get information technology while placating the OEM partners who were none too happy near the yr-long emphasis on upgrades rather than new PC sales.

Alas, I say "was," because the extension (which was itself extended) officially ended on Jan. xvi, 2018. The folio that formerly ran an Upgrade Assistant at present returns an error message.

The big question now is whether Microsoft will ever turn off the lawmaking on its activation servers that dispenses digital licenses after an upgrade from an earlier Windows version. I've connected to test that scenario, and I can confirm, long after the finish of support for Windows vii, that it yet works.

I continue to hear from readers sharing their experiences. If you've used this technique on a PC, click my proper noun at the top of this post and use the contact form to let me know how it went for yous.

Note:This article was originally published in January 2017. It has been updated multiple times since then to reflect the most current information.