Hey there club members!

I think the dust and rumors surrounding Windows 10 has finally settled.  So I thought it would be good to give everyone a little refresher about what will happen.  And Soon.

If you are running Windows XP or Vista this info is not for you.  You won’t be able to upgrade for free.  While that may seem harsh in the light that all your friends running Windows 7 or 8.1 get this for free – your machine is probably too feeble to run it.  So don’t spend the $119.00 for the DVD upgrade.  Spend $250 on a new laptop that already has Windows 10 on it.

Here’s what we know.

On July 29 the upgrade to Windows 10 for Windows 7 and 8.1 users will begin to roll-out via the Windows Update mechanism.  Most of you running 7 & 8.1 have already seen the window-pane icon appear in the lower right portion of the task bar. If you are still running version 8.0 you’ll have to do the upgrade to 8.1 first.  I’m pretty sure Microsoft will walk you through that as well.

If you click on that icon you’ll get a couple of screens that want you to enter your email address in order to reserve your copy.  Huh?  What’s that?  Microsoft is expecting a virtual torrent of requests for the upgrade.  So their upgrade process has been highly automated.

Sometime after July 29th your PC will download a 3GB file that contains the upgrade.  Once that is finished downloading (the download might take a few days but is invisible to you) you’ll be prompted to do the upgrade.  I have no idea how long this might take for most people after July 29th.  A week?  Perhaps a month.  But if you figure 50% of Windows 7 users and 99% of Windows 8.1 then that number is huge.  Hundreds of millions of PCs.

The upgrade process might take some time.  Perhaps a couple of hours depending on what software you have installed.  It might be better to start it at night before bed instead of watching it.  I will try and have a class to watch  this in action.