If you have Windows 7 installed on your computer or laptop, you need to be aware that this operating system is nearing his end life of support on January 14, 2020. So, upgrading to Windows 10 is the best way to stay protected.
What End of Support means? It means that Windows 7 won’t receive updates, neither security update, this is according to Microsoft.
If you’re a consumer, there’s no option to get updates or security update, the only way is to upgrade to Windows 10. If your computer/laptop belongs to a company, then the company may be willing to pay the cost to upgrade to Windows 10. Companies has the option to pay a fee to maintain support after Jan. 14, 2020. But this is an option that’s only available to businesses.
There are some options to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. One option is accept the risk, second option is to buy a new Windows 10 license for 140 dollars and there’s a last option and it is that Microsoft gave Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users an entire year after the launch of Windows 10 (until July 31, 2016) to upgrade to Windows 10 for free, and then until the end of 2017 to use an assistive loophole to gain access. However, Microsoft apparently never turned off the Windows 10 upgrade servers. So, you may end up lucking out: You might be able to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 for free!
The first thing you should do is to go to the Windows 10 download page here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
If you have a Windows 7 PC, simply visit the Windows 10 download page, and download the upgrade tool onto your PC. (You’ll have to accept the license terms.) Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, and Home Premium will upgrade to Windows 10 Home, while the other Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate editions will be replaced with Windows 10 Pro.
You can either perform an in-place upgrade to upgrade to Windows 10 directly on the PC, or else download the tool onto a separate USB key (with at least 8GB of free space) or onto a CD-R or rewritable DVD. The latter option will allow you to upgrade multiple PCs.
Note that you’ll still need a valid Windows 7 license for the tool to work. If, for some reason, Windows doesn’t detect the license on the machine, you may need to enter it manually. You may need to dig out the old Windows 7 license key—our license-key tutorial can help out here, especially the section on using the Magical Jelly Bean Key Finder. You may also have the license key tucked away on a sticker on the laptop or desktop. (The product key should be five sets of letters and numbers, formatted like this: xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx)
Be sure to back up everything you wouldn’t want to lose: documents and photos, at a minimum. That means copying those files to a backup hard drive, DVD, or the cloud. This is a “better safe than sorry” scenario: By default, Windows will preserve the apps, settings, and files when it upgrades your system to Windows 10. (You can also back up your files in Windows 7 and restore them later in Windows 10.)
We can’t say how long the process will take. From downloading the tool and the necessary files, and performing the upgrade, and possibly downloading any additional patches, it’s a good idea to allot at least an hour to the process, perhaps more. The process will also be complicated by how fast your broadband connection is, and whether your PC uses a spinning hard drive or SSD.
Once the process completes, it’s time to check on the status of your files: Were your photos preserved? Your documents? It’s at this point that you may want to copy back the files you backed up, if they aren’t there. Double-check applications, including antivirus programs, to make sure the license keys are still intact. It’s also a good time to familiarize yourself with how to set up a new Windows 10 computer and how to personalize your PC, just to be sure you’re taking full advantage of Windows 10.
If you’re upgrading on older hardware, Windows 10 may run more slowly than Windows 7, just due to the increased load on your processor and hard drive. Resetting your PC may help: Click the search box in the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen, then type in reset or reset my PC. That will take you to the Recovery menu in the Settings, where you’ll have the option of reinstalling Windows yet again. That may help improve performance, but it will also take even more time to complete.