Spectre: Time to bring back the free Windows 10 Upgrade

I’ve always thought it was a mistake for Microsoft to drop Windows 10 upgrades for free (although it seems you can still get a free upgrade with a clean install), but I understand them wanting to sunset that deal just to force people to upgrade early. But Spectre gives Microsoft the perfect excuse to bring the deal back. Your Windows 7 machine will get slower, but never fear, now you can upgrade for free to Windows 10! They can legitimately claim that the situation has changed, and so they’re offering this to help out their customers, move more folks to Windows 10, which they want, and get some good PR from trying to mitigate this issue that Intel has handed to them.

I think this would be a great opportunity for them to take.

Conversation 15 comments

  • Wizzwith

    12 January, 2018 - 1:51 pm

    <p>Yep, I was just thinking this too.&nbsp; Perfect opportunity to offer free W10 upgrades again.&nbsp; </p>

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    12 January, 2018 - 2:35 pm

    <p>But by not doing that, they're snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.</p><p><br></p><p>And that is what Microsoft is best at!</p><p><br></p><p>But honestly, charging 1990s prices for Windows is just stupid to start with. Make Windows 10 S a gratis download, and charge $75 to move up to Windows 10 Pro. Simple.</p>

  • Sprtfan

    12 January, 2018 - 2:42 pm

    <p>The only drawback is that it may further upset some of Microsoft's PC partners. I think the main reason MS pulled the offer in the first place was to appease them. </p>

    • SocialDanny123

      12 January, 2018 - 2:55 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#237190"><em>In reply to Sprtfan:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p><p>I agree with this. Although this isn't the main way OEMs get money, these days its enterprise and through PCaaS.</p><p><br></p><p>But they should at least make Windows 10 S absolutely free. </p>

      • Polycrastinator

        12 January, 2018 - 4:29 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#237205"><em>In reply to SocialDanny123:</em></a></blockquote><p>Killing the program doesn't seem to have made a difference, though. While OEMs may have believed this would affect their sales, I doubt it did before, and my expectation is that people who have older computers will just complain about Windows getting even worse when it slows down (of course, they may not upgrade, either).</p>

  • skane2600

    12 January, 2018 - 5:29 pm

    <p>I think they'd have to promote the idea to the general public that fixing the Spectre issue for Windows 10 won't slow down their computer as much as the fix for Windows 7. Not a great marketing pitch. I suspect that all vendors would like to talk about Spectre as little as possible.</p>

  • rameshthanikodi

    13 January, 2018 - 12:50 pm

    <p>Microsoft should have never gotten rid of the free Windows 10 upgrade. Windows is no longer perpetual, it works more like a service. So a Windows license should be a Windows license, period. Windows 7, 8, or 10, it all should just be the same licensing.</p>

  • Paul Thurrott

    Premium Member
    13 January, 2018 - 2:18 pm

    <p>Love it.</p>

  • Rycott

    Premium Member
    13 January, 2018 - 9:51 pm

    <p>You can still upgrade to Windows 10 for free now. Just grab the ISO and tell it to upgrade. It works and activates.</p><p><br></p><p>I did this as late as last week and have been doing it consistently on PCs for customers who want to upgrade after the deal had ended.</p><p><br></p><p>They probably stopped advertising it to appease the OEM's.</p><p><br></p><p>Saying that advertising it is back for the CPU issues might be an idea… as long as they don't go overboard like they did originally bu shoving it constantly in peoples faces and almost forcing it to happen. </p>

    • Polycrastinator

      15 January, 2018 - 8:20 am

      <blockquote><a href="#237516"><em>In reply to Rycott:</em></a></blockquote><p class="ql-indent-1"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">"You can still upgrade to Windows 10 for free now. Just grab the ISO and tell it to upgrade. It works and activates."</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">That's literally in the first sentence of my post. It's not useful for the average consumer, though, and even for smaller businesses who may have delayed, being able to do an in place upgrade and having it activate is a significant time and expense savings.</span></p>

      • Rycott

        Premium Member
        17 January, 2018 - 2:55 am

        <blockquote><a href="#237844"><em>In reply to Polycrastinator:</em></a></blockquote><p>You don't have to clean install to get the free upgrade. You can literally upgrade an existing Windows 7 still. I do it from an ISO but I assume the download tool could still do it as well.</p>

        • Polycrastinator

          17 January, 2018 - 8:44 am

          <blockquote><a href="#238331"><em>In reply to Rycott:</em></a></blockquote><p>That's interesting. I did not know you could do that: I had thought you had to do a clean install. Thanks.</p>

  • pderosa

    13 January, 2018 - 11:56 pm

    <p>You would have to give me free food to make me agree more.</p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    15 January, 2018 - 9:57 am

    <p>The deal is still there, you just don't get the nagging in Windows 7 / Windows 8 to upgrade anymore, which is what most people are unhappy about.</p><p><br></p><p>I upgraded a dozen or so machines towards the end of last year and created a new W10 Pro VM today using a W8 key.</p><p><br></p><p>Microsoft are damned if they do and damned if they don't. When they were explicitly offering the upgrade through Windows Update, people complained and various monopolies and privacy commissions took an interest, so they stopped… No people aren't aware that you can still upgrade.</p>

  • MattHewitt

    Premium Member
    17 January, 2018 - 10:45 am

    <p>With the ability to upgrade/clean install for free still in place either manually through an ISO or the download tool, I feel like this would annoy way more people than it would help. I mean you could promote those methods a bit more by speaking to the press or building a website or something… But I think Microsoft learned their lesson of putting a notification in Windows itself asking people to upgrade, or auto upgrading individuals and businesses.</p>

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