The story of Windows 7 has officially come to an end. However, it's logical to assume that many users will continue using that operating system as long as their main applications still get support (such as browsers). Now, what exactly is needed to upgrade to Windows 10 for free? Personally, I always recommend the "nuclear option" (that is, wipe everything and install from scratch), but if you have a well-updated Windows 7 SP1 installation, relatively clean and with a legal activation, the in-place upgrades still work...
On January 14 we bid farewell to what was probably Microsoft's best operating system. A strong statement considering MS-DOS, Windows 98 SE, and Windows XP, but that's how big Windows 7's impact on our digital lives was. Of course, the transition process is far from over. Some companies have surely decided to pay for extended support, and even end users can access specific benefits (for example, Chrome will work on Windows 7 until July 2021).
So... there are three options: defend the Windows 7 trench until the last day, make the jump to Windows 8.1 (with extended support until January 10, 2023)... or surrender to the Borg collective. Windows 10 awaits us, and if there's something positive in all this, it's that there's still a route to transform Windows 7 licenses into Windows 10, free and legal. Everyone expects Redmond to eventually block that resource, but if the possibility exists, why not take advantage of it?
The folks at MajorGeeks offer two alternatives. Both are "silent" (they don't require user intervention) and rely on PowerShell in one way or another, but the first is an automatic script, and the second has a certain manual profile. Regardless of what we select, we must open PowerShell with administrator privileges and type "Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted" to release execution restrictions.
Then we download the script from MajorGeeks (Chrome may show a security alert, but it's a false positive), right-click on the file '7-10 Silent.PS1', and confirm opening with PowerShell. All it does is download Microsoft's official tool Win10Upgrade.exe and run it with silent modifiers. This creates two new folders in the root of drive C, one called 'Temp' and the other 'Windows10Upgrade', where Windows 10 installation files are downloaded. If you want to see the process log, it's named 'upgrader_default'.
If for some reason the automatic method doesn't work, the solution is to reproduce the script's function by hand. Once "Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted" is established in PowerShell, we download the Windows10Upgrade9252.exe program from Microsoft's servers, save it in an easily accessible folder (for example, c:\temp), press the Windows key + R to open the Run box, and type: "C:\temp\Windows10Upgrade9252.exe /quietinstall /skipeula /auto upgrade /copylogs C:\". Remember to change the initial path if the program was saved elsewhere.
If everything goes well, between 30 and 45 minutes later, the Windows 10 installer will tell us it's ready to continue. Make sure there's enough space on drive C (downloading the installation files takes about 5 GB, and you'll need another 40 GB). In summary, this free Windows 7 to Windows 10 background upgrade has three general requirements: Windows 7 SP1 with its hotfixes up to date, a correct and legal activation of that system, and needless to say, a backup of your personal files (things can go wrong, you know).
If an error arises along the way or you can't meet the aforementioned conditions, I only recommend one thing: follow the classic method. Back up your files, recover your Windows 7 key, create a Windows 10 installation USB drive, bomb Windows 7 from orbit, install the correct version of Windows 10 on the clean disk (from Home Premium and below the equivalent is Windows 10 Home, otherwise it's Pro), and use the Windows 7 key to activate Windows 10 after it's installed.
That should generate a digital license associated with the motherboard. And if you can't activate it... it's not the end of the world either. Its only restriction is the lack of personalization and the watermark in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
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