For people still on 7 with retail keys

Some of you may have purchased their retail win 7 professional keys directly from Microsoft years ago and are not using windows 7 that came with your specific machine...for those of you still in this category I found out today that even though they sold us on "lifetime" upgrades, that isn't the case.

 

The window for is now closed from what I've learned in  my conversation with Microsoft support India. Unless someone knows otherwise, at the time we purchased the keys, the lifetime free upgrades only were applicable during a decided time frame and applied to ALL keys not only OEM keys.

 

So our Keys that we paid hundreds for are now indefinitely defunct. You will have to shell out money again for new keys.

 

For those that want to reply to this post with "I told you so" etc. at the time of sale we were told the keys were not only transferable to any machine, but where for also lifetime upgrades without specific windows opportunity.

 

 

Well...the fact that Win 7 is unsupported...and has been so for some time now...IMO, that makes the subject of licenses/keys for Win 7...rather unimportant to anyone using the unsupported O/S.  Time has overcome such subject matter, IMO.

 

I am a Win 7 user, dual-booting with Win 10 and I use my install every day.

 

Louis

There has never been a lifetime anything with any OS.

You are welcome to use it as long as you wish unsupported. There is also the new hardware that will not support installing Win 7.

The bad news:
Yes, the original upgrade path ended in 2016 & the extended free upgrade path ended a year ago:
https://devicepartner.microsoft.com/en-us/communications/comm-windows-ends-installation-path-for-free-windows-7-8-upgrade
(And AFAIK there was never a promise that a Windows license for ___ version would be forever.)

The good news:
A valid Windows license for 10 can also be used for 11
Windows 10 licenses are widely available & inexpensive.
But "buyer beware" that you are getting a legit license from a reputable source.

Also:
There are "generic" keys for both 10 & 11 that can be used for upgrades & clean installs.
These generic keys CANNOT, however, be used to legally activate Windows.
You will still need to buy a legal key to activate.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/95922-generic-product-keys-install-windows-10-editions.html

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/generic-product-keys-to-install-or-upgrade-windows-11-editions.3713/

There has never been a lifetime anything with any OS.
You are welcome to use it as long as you wish unsupported. There is also the new hardware that will not support installing Win 7.

Exactly. ;-)

The official time period the free upgrade from Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10 was available was one year after the release date of Windows 10.  While Microsoft didn't cut off the free upgrade after that time period expired, and they never said the free upgrade was disallowed after that time period, there was no guarantee the free upgrade would last forever.

 

Alas, now that the free upgrade has come to a seemingly semi-arbitrary end, I kick myself for procrastinating for all these years to get some of my computers upgraded for free.  It didn't help that I don't like Windows 10 much at all.

Check EULA and system requirements and other things can change with or without notice to customers.

The official free upgrade offer ended in 2016.
The bitter end, however, came in September 2023.
It may have been "arbitrary", but it was NOT sudden. :-)
The September 2023 deadline was well & widely publicized in advance. :-)

All good things come to an end.

Just sayin' :-D

As mentioned: All is not lost. With careful shopping, one can score an inexpensive Win10 license, which can be used interchangeably for Win11. I have no personal experience doing this. But it's widely covered at authoritative venues.

The September 2023 deadline was well & widely publicized in advance. :-)

Really?  I certainly didn't spot any advance notice of the discontinuation.  Where was it "well & widely publicized" so I couldn't have possibly missed it?  Where did you first learn about it?  Was I really living under that big a rock?

 

The September 2023 deadline was well & widely publicized in advance. :-)

Really?  I certainly didn't spot any advance notice of the discontinuation.  Where was it "well & widely publicized" so I couldn't have possibly missed it?  Where did you first learn about it?  Was I really living under that big a rock?

 

Just one of the many links

https://www.zdnet.com/article/can-you-still-get-a-windows-10-upgrade-for-free/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/its-official-no-more-free-windows-10-upgrades/

Just one of the many links
https://www.zdnet.com/article/can-you-still-get-a-windows-10-upgrade-for-free/
https://www.zdnet.com/article/its-official-no-more-free-windows-10-upgrades/

Which just dropped in your inbox one day? Or did you just run a quick search to post in this thread?

The September 2023 deadline was well & widely publicized in advance. :-)

Really?  I certainly didn't spot any advance notice of the discontinuation.  Where was it "well & widely publicized" so I couldn't have possibly missed it?  Where did you first learn about it?  Was I really living under that big a rock?

It was over a year ago.
But there were discussions at tenforums.com, among other sites.

Having said that, the end came *7 years* after the official, free upgrade offer ended.
One could argue that 7 years was plenty of time for folks to perform the free upgrade?

Just sayin' :-D

But, it's moot, as of September 2023.
I don't see much value in relitigating something that ended a year ago. :-(

The workaround in September 2024 would be to buy a legit Windows 10 license (inexpensive) and do a clean install.

Edit: Having said that, as we all know, Win10 support ends in October 2025. So a new upgrade isn't very future-proof. It does buy time.

Respectfully submitted

Edited by MoxieMomma, 25 September 2024 - 05:55 PM.

The Internet is full of helpful information. But if you're not looking for it, you're not going to find it, and it isn't going to just come to you, no matter how important or well publicized it is. I wasn't expecting the free Windows 10 upgrade to come to an end any time soon, so I wasn't looking for signs that it was, and I guess I wasn't in any of the right places like tenforums.com to be tipped off about it. Does that mean I was living under a rock? Who knows? All I'm sure of is I apparently wasn't in any of the right loops.

 

Just one of the many links
https://www.zdnet.com/article/can-you-still-get-a-windows-10-upgrade-for-free/
https://www.zdnet.com/article/its-official-no-more-free-windows-10-upgrades/

 Or did you just run a quick search to post in this thread?

 

Actually, yes I grabbed the links since you have never seen anything about it

Because the official upgrades ended years ago, MS had no responsibility to say anything in 2023.

People had to learn the hard way.

I Learned about when people started to complain in various forums.

 

I personally had no skin in the game as all my clients were on 10 long ago. Currently, my push is to have my clients on a computer that officially supports Windows 11 or replace it with one.
 

Actually, yes I grabbed the links since you have never seen anything about it

The point is you were able to look up information about the discontinuation, because you already knew about it. I didn't have a clue, and I wasn't seeing anyone in my circles bringing it up.

And apologies, I didn't mean to leave the impression that I had never seen anything about it before now. I've actually known about it for a few months, but it was still long after the discontinuation when I was finally made aware of it. It was actually in this forum in a thread about someone trying to upgrade. Complacency got the better of me like many others.

Edited by BeigeBochs, 25 September 2024 - 07:41 PM.