That whole “free” upgrade for a year was fully marketing fluff. I work at Microsoft and have been since before the Windows 10 launch. Microsoft did offer a free upgrade to Windows 10 in 2016, which supposedly ended, but Microsoft never bothered to fix the MCT loophole despite it being widely exploited through the years. In practice, however, it appears that if you do an in-place upgrade using the Media Creation tool you will be able to activate your new Windows 10 installation without any issue (note this does not work with a clean install).Īccording to someone who claims to be a Microsoft employee this is by design, Microsoft prefers to have home users on Windows 10, even if it is technically on an unpaid copy. Windows 7 is exiting support on the 14th January 2020, and in theory, this would mean anyone still stuck on Windows 7 will need to pay $120 to upgrade to the newest OS.
