So just for giggles I was playing around with an old Windows 7 VM I had lying around.
Bearing in mind this VM has not been powered on since around the middle of 2012...
I wondered what'd happen if I did the in-place upgrade as I've been hearing talk that even though the free upgrade periods have ended (including the "extended-extension" for users with accessibility requirements), that the activation process still works.
So I did an in-place upgrade from the official MS site and lo' and behold as part of the upgrade process, it went off and activated the copy.
Windows 7:
Windows 10:
Of course, your mileage may vary, MS may turn this off etc etc. but for anyone still with Windows 7 who is on the fence (or anyone wanting to buy a cheap OS - get a copy of 7 off of say, Amazon, and do the in-place upgrade while it still works) this looks like it's still a way to get Win 10.
I verified it's a different key as well between 7 and 10.
Bearing in mind this VM has not been powered on since around the middle of 2012...
I wondered what'd happen if I did the in-place upgrade as I've been hearing talk that even though the free upgrade periods have ended (including the "extended-extension" for users with accessibility requirements), that the activation process still works.
So I did an in-place upgrade from the official MS site and lo' and behold as part of the upgrade process, it went off and activated the copy.
Windows 7:
Windows 10:
Of course, your mileage may vary, MS may turn this off etc etc. but for anyone still with Windows 7 who is on the fence (or anyone wanting to buy a cheap OS - get a copy of 7 off of say, Amazon, and do the in-place upgrade while it still works) this looks like it's still a way to get Win 10.
I verified it's a different key as well between 7 and 10.