Don’t Do This Until You Check For Compatibility With Other Essential Software Installed On Your Computer!
The following announcement from Microsoft explains how users of PCs running Windows 7 or Windows 8 can “reserve” their free upgrade of Windows 10:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-upgrade
Here’s the pop-up showing you’ll see on your computer:
To reserve your free upgrade you’ll just click the Windows icon in the tray notification area of your taskbar, enter your email address if you want confirmation of your reservation, then click the Reserve Your Free Upgrade button. When you reserve your free upgrade basically what you’re doing is configuring your PC so it will automatically download a copy of Windows 10 once it becomes available on Windows Update on July 29th. Once your PC has downloaded Windows 10 you’ll be notified that Windows 10 is ready to be installed, and you can then perform the installation at the time of your choosing.
If you don’t see the icon offering you a free upgrade to Windows 10 then you don’t have Microsoft’s KB3035583 update installed. The update is called the “Get Windows 10” app and it was actually released back in April by Microsoft as an optional update for Windows 7 and a recommended update for Windows 8. That would mean that Windows 8 users WOULD get the update installed but Windows 7 users would have to manually select optional updates to get it. If you don’t see the free upgrade offer then you need to open Windows Update and install KB3035583.
The ability to reserve a free upgrade is only available for users of the Home and Professional editions of Windows 7 and Windows 8. In other words, users who have the Enterprise edition of Windows 7/8 installed on their machines won’t see the free upgrade offer.
If you’re a small business that has Windows 7 or 8 Professional installed on your PCs and you don’t want your users to be prompted to reserve a free upgrade of Windows 10? I suspect that there will soon be a way to block the free upgrade offer using Group Policy or by configuring local policy or even by editing the registry, but there has been no confirmation or comment about this from Microsoft. We’ll keep you informed as July 29th gets closer.
For more information on Windows 10 you can check out this post from CNN:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/22/technology/windows-10-review/index.html
