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People Are Obtaining Windows 7 Licenses For the Free Windows 10 Upgrade

Posted by Soulskill on from the cheap-is-relative dept.

jones_supa writes: Windows 7 has quickly started increasing its market share of desktop operating systems, nearing 61%. If you're wondering why this is happening when Windows 10 is almost here, the reason is this: Windows 10 will be available as a free upgrade for those running Windows 7 and 8, and the new OS will have the exact same hardware requirements as its predecessor, so the majority of PCs should be able to run it just as well. Because Windows 7 was launched in 2009, a license is more affordable than for Windows 8, so many users are switching to this version to take advantage of the Windows 10 free upgrade offer.

7 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Assumptions are the mother of all ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nice theory, but it's not 'the reason' unless it is proven to be. What about the people replacing XP or Vista? And the disappointed 8.x users switching to 7?

    1. Re: Assumptions are the mother of all ... by mattwarden · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Technically the reason is the reason regardless of whether you have yet proved it is the reason.

    2. Re: Assumptions are the mother of all ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      lol. I purchased several with the express intent to not upgrade.

    3. Re:Assumptions are the mother of all ... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If I could find a good high-end laptop that came with vanilla Windows 7 instead of 8 and all the pre-installed extra junk, I would be throwing money at the supplier and begging them to sell me one. That has far more to do with avoiding more recent versions of Windows and their kindergarten, touch-obsessed UIs than it does with wanting a cheap upgrade when 10 ships.

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  2. Alternatively by clickety6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Alternatively, people have seen that Windows 10 is just as bad as Windows 8 and are hurrying to buy Windows 7 licenses as the only decent version of Windows with a reasonably long remaining support window...

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  3. Err, okay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let's apply Occam's Razor:

    People are buying Windows 7 instead of Windows 8 because the former is cheaper and most people seem to prefer it.

    Sure, they get Windows 10 as well. Woohoo. If it's unusable for the first year, their fallback OS isn't Windows 8.

  4. Re:You can still buy Windows 7? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Yep, software resale is legal in the EU, so you can buy used Windows licences. Of course, you can probably just get them for free at the local rubbish dump... Maybe that's why Microsoft stopped printing the key on the stickers for OEM copies. Can't recycle them if the machine is dead and won't give the key up.

    In places where resale isn't legal Windows 7 costs the same as Windows 8 and Windows XP. Microsoft keep the price the same of the lifetime of the product, it's never discounted.

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