As some of you know, the deadline to receive a free Windows 10 upgrade was this Friday at midnight. A few months ago, I upgraded my laptop to Windows 10 as a test run to see what problems might arise before upgrading my main computer. The laptop upgrade went well, without any problems at all. I then realized that I don’t really use my laptop for anything intensive. I don’t play games on it nor do I run a media server off of it, just a few things that I actually do with my main computer. I also don’t have the same programs on my laptop that I do on my main rig, so I couldn’t even figure out if all my programs would be compatible after a theoretical upgrade. So, it wasn’t exactly a great test bed.
Of course, the deadline to upgrade caught me off guard on Friday. I guess I should have known it was coming up but I came home from work and then realized I had mere hours to take advantage. In the end, I decided not to go through with it. I’m in the middle of playing a game and if I started the upgrade, I’d have re-download the game and re-install. Since I have slow Internet, that would take at least a whole day to do the download. I also hadn’t backed up any of my data. When doing an OS upgrade, it’s always advisable to back up all your important files beforehand. I’d done none of that. Lastly, I was just lazy. As it currently stands, there’s nothing wrong with Windows 7. I think it works great. I just didn’t like being forced into an upgrade on Microsoft’s terms. I think I should upgrade when I feel like it, not when some corporate entity decides.
So when midnight rolled around, my computer stayed running on Windows 7. I was prepared to shell out over $100 to upgrade on my terms at a later date, rather than upgrade now for free. It turns out though, there is a loophole to all this anyways. According to this article, the free Windows 10 upgrade is still available to people who require assistive technologies beyond the Friday deadline. As of this writing, it appears there is no requirement to prove that you need or use such technologies. So maybe I won’t need to spend money on Windows 10 after all.