Windows 10 upgrade

[teecee]

I am picking up a used laptop for a charity theatre group later.
It is running Windows 8,can I still do a free upgrade to Windows 10?
As usual they have no money!

[Jinx]

teecee said:

I am picking up a used laptop for a charity theatre group later.
It is running Windows 8,can I still do a free upgrade to Windows 10?
As usual they have no money!

https://www.howtogeek.com/272201/all-the-ways-you-...

Oh and you can grab the key off the current install if you don't know it:

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-find-your-windows-...

[Mr Pointy]

Hopefully the free upgrade route is still working although I haven't tried it for a while.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/...

You need to create a bootable USB (8-16GB is enough) & use this download tool to create the media. At the point where it asks for a licence key enter your current Win7 key & it should be happy. I'd recommend cloning the drive before you do anything just in case it goes wrong, or use another HDD/SSD. In fact, consider sticking a cheap SSD in if it hasn't got one.

[GlenMH]

Mr Pointy said:

consider sticking a cheap SSD in if it hasn't got one.

I got a Crucial one for 17 quid and it totally transformed a laptop. Did a clean install of W10 on it and copied the docs back from the old hard drive.

[anonymous-user]

Mr Pointy said:

Hopefully the free upgrade route is still working although I haven't tried it for a while.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/...

You need to create a bootable USB (8-16GB is enough) & use this download tool to create the media. At the point where it asks for a licence key enter your current Win7 key & it should be happy. I'd recommend cloning the drive before you do anything just in case it goes wrong, or use another HDD/SSD. In fact, consider sticking a cheap SSD in if it hasn't got one.

It’s still available. I’ve done it on a laptop in the last month. Didn’t need to create a bootable external device though: just ran the installation from MS’s website and installed it over W7P and under my existing applications.

[phl]

Bit of an old topic but I upgraded a windows 8 laptop to windows 10 using the Microsoft Windows 10 media creation tool. I just selected the upgrade option. Windows 10 activated automatically with a digital licence. So still working as of this morning (almost 4 years after the upgrade offer supposedly ended)!

[anonymous-user]

phl said:

Bit of an old topic but I upgraded a windows 8 laptop to windows 10 using the Microsoft Windows 10 media creation tool. I just selected the upgrade option. Windows 10 activated automatically with a digital licence. So still working as of this morning (almost 4 years after the upgrade offer supposedly ended)!

Good to know as I’ll be doing this for my dad in a couple of weeks.