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Back in July last year, Microsoft did something brave and as it was the first time the company had ever offered an upgrade of an operating system for free, you could expect people to be nervous about it. Microsoft needed to do this, in the past few years before Windows 10.

Microsoft for me had least had started to drift out of relevance while Windows 7 was good it just felt bland and then Windows 8 ruined it and it certainly alienated loads of consumers because as it turns out changing nearly every element of the user interface doesn’t bode well with customers and developers also weren’t happy with it.

At that time the Windows Phone platform had it’s little following as it still does now, but still bland. This all changed in my view with the Xbox One in 2013 and Windows 10 in 2015, this brought Microsoft back into the limelight once again as it had been in the 90s. Yes you might say the Xbox One had a rocky start as it was £100 more expensive than the PS4 but you can’t argue that now with the addition of cross platform multiplayer it’s a compelling option.

Microsoft needed something new

Sometimes it’s all about excitement, the sheer thought of what Windows 10 might be propelled Microsoft back into the headlines and conversations in the run up to the main event in January 2015 where Microsoft weren’t revealing it for the first time but showing off the advancements they had made and more importantly explaining more about it the pricing and who could upgrade. The whole event was talked about for months afterwards as Microsoft introduced HoloLens; a wearable holographic head display which could overlay images, Skype calls and Minecraft onto the real world. Also the Microsoft Surface Hub which is a huge 55-inch or 84-inch touchscreen device used for board room meeting and conferee calls.

Windows 10 Pricing

So when Windows 10 was first released, users who are running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 are eligible to upgrade for free to Windows 10. This risky move paid off, in January 2016 200 million users were running Windows 10, now 300 million people across the world are now running the latest version of Windows.

Now the important bit:

So after July 29 2016, if you haven’t upgraded to Windows 10 and want to it’ll cost $119. If you already have upgraded to Windows 10 for free you don’t need to pay anything, but if you upgrade before July 29 you get to keep it and then receive all future updates.

Microsoft explain in a YouTube clip: