![]() Microsoft stopped selling new copies of Windows 10 back in January, and most versions of the operating system will stop getting security updates in October 2025.Įven after Microsoft stops accepting Windows 7 and 8 product keys, you should be fine if you've already activated an older install. Microsoft says Windows 10 users can still upgrade to Windows 11 for free-at least, if their Windows 10 PCs meet Microsoft’s relatively stringent system requirements for Windows 11. That loophole has persisted to the present day. But users quickly noticed that it was still possible to upgrade these old Windows installs using downloaded ISOs or USB sticks, and it was still possible to use old Windows product keys to activate fresh installs. Advertisementįurther Reading How to upgrade to Windows 11, whether your PC is supported or not įormally, that free upgrade offer ended in July 2016, and Windows 7 and 8 PCs no longer saw notifications about the offer. Not only would people running Windows 7 and Windows 8 be offered the option to upgrade to Windows 10, but product keys from those versions of Windows would activate the analogous editions of Windows 10. Microsoft wanted to encourage developers to use its new technologies by giving them the largest possible install base of people on the newest version of Windows. When Windows 10 originally launched in 2015, it did so as a free upgrade to all users of Windows 7 and Windows 8-the vast majority of the Windows user base at the time. We've asked Microsoft for clarification and will update this story if we receive any. ![]() ![]() ![]() But Neowin could not activate a newer Insider Preview build of Windows, suggesting that the change will mostly affect newer Windows versions. We were able to activate a fresh Windows 11 Pro 22H2 install with a Windows 8 Pro product key as of this morning, as was Neowin. (Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.)Īt least for now, though, it seems like this change will only apply to future Windows versions. ![]()
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