The Redmond company absolutely wants you to switch to Windows 11. It has just formalized the withdrawal of Windows 10 licenses from sale on its website in a few days.
If you’re thinking of getting a proper license of Windows 10 from Microsoft’s website, hurry. Microsoft has just officially announced on the pages dedicated to Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro, the cessation of license sales for these two operating systems on its site from January 31, 2023.
Although support for this operating system runs until October 14, 2025, you will officially no longer be able to buy Windows 10 from the Microsoft site. Instead, the American giant suggests switching to Windows 11, which will thus become the only operating system that can be purchased directly from the Microsoft site.
Windows 10 still activatable with old Windows licenses
The end of the sale of Windows 10 licenses on the Microsoft site does not mean, however, that it will be impossible to obtain the precious sesame. You can indeed always find some from third-party resellers who will certainly still have some on their hands for a few months or even a few years.
But you might not even need to go that far if you really want to install and activate Windows 10 on a freshly reset or rebuilt PC. When Windows 10 was released, Microsoft allowed users using a Windows 7/8 PC to migrate to Windows 10 free of charge. Officially, Microsoft explained that this procedure would only be possible for a certain period of time, but , the Redmond company has never closed the floodgates. So, if you still have a Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 machine, you can still upgrade your PC to Windows 10 for free. This will require downloading the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool utility and running it for the upgrade to be offered to you.
Another solution also exists, especially if you have just performed a clean installation of Windows 10 on your PC without having purchased a dedicated license. You can indeed activate your copy of Windows 10 using the license of an older version of Windows in your possession. For several years now, Microsoft has not been very careful about the use of old Windows licenses to activate newer ones. As proof, it is even still possible to activate a copy of Windows 11 Pro using the Windows 7 Pro license.
Ars-Technica
