Three Reasons Microsoft Stopped Free Windows 10 Upgrades

By selling new devices. In the next year or two there will be quite a bit of sales of items that have the new 10 OS on them.

groze said:

I am basically talking about Microsoft goal, if Microsoft is going to start charging for the Windows 10 Operating system after July, I can't see how they are going to make it to a billion devices in 2 to 3 years


Microsoft's big Windows 10 goal: one billion or bust | ZDNet

I get what your saying. I just don't see where these people are going to come from? You would have to inherit a used PC running an older version of Windows after that date to want to upgrade. Anybody in that situation now, that hasn't done the upgrade, likely never will. Free or not.

groze said:

@Jody Thornton

What about Microsoft goal--windows 10 being on 1 billion devices in 2 to 3 years? Eliminating the free upgrade that will slow down that goal or not even make it in that time. Even Forbes website didn't answer that question.

Hey there, Groze! Been awhile.

My take is that not even Microsoft is willing to give away a few billion bucks just to keep the momentum going. Ain't gonna happen.

There's one thing I haven't noticed pointed out in this thread (could have been and I didn't see it though). And that is that all new PCs now come with Windows 10. I don't know how many bazillion PCs will be sold in a couple of years, so I won't even try to guess.

And then there's a possibility that Microsoft's projections won't happen . . . we just don't know at this point.

Bottom line for me, though, is that Windows 10 is the best OS yet. Note that I said for me although I've seen a lot more folks say the same. :)

groze said:

It all depends on how cheap wal-mart will sell the windows 10 computers.

Oh, they're getting cheaper. And, HP has made 'em even cheaper by using overseas manufacturers and cheaper cases that no longer have a way to upgrade the hard drive and/or RAM.

Six months or so ago, I paid $429 for an HP with 500GB HDD and 4GHz RAM. All the newer bells and whistles and it came with Windows 10 Home that I upgraded to Pro for the Retail partition (I made it dual boot with Insider 10).

Now, had I known that I couldn't upgrade the HDD or RAM without jumping through some hoops, I would never have bought it. But . . . how many people will buy a laptop with the intention of upgrading it? ME!

Agree with most of the comments here, If 12months is not long enough to decide then extending the offer wont make any significant difference to the figures. It just might make MS look desperate to hit target.

Wynona said:

Oh, they're getting cheaper. And, HP has made 'em even cheaper by using overseas manufacturers and cheaper cases that no longer have a way to upgrade the hard drive and/or RAM.

Six months or so ago, I paid $429 for an HP with 500GB HDD and 4GHz RAM. All the newer bells and whistles and it came with Windows 10 Home that I upgraded to Pro for the Retail partition (I made it dual boot with Insider 10).

Now, had I known that I couldn't upgrade the HDD or RAM without jumping through some hoops, I would never have bought it. But . . . how many people will buy a laptop with the intention of upgrading it? ME!

All PC companies use overseas manufacturers (at least for laptops) called ODM's.

List of laptop brands and manufacturers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

thegeriatric said:

Agree with most of the comments here, If 12months is not long enough to decide then extending the offer wont make any significant difference to the figures. It just might make MS look desperate to hit target.

Well 10% of their revenues come from OS upgrades so it's not a big deal either way.