If you merrily breezed by the repeated attempts Microsoft has made in the past to try and encourage to upgrade, it’s hoping one last final nag will get the job done. If you’re still running Windows 7 or 8.1, look down at the bottom right-hand corner where your icons are: You’ll likely see the familiar upgrade icon, though it’s now highlighted with a yellow marker.
Opening up the upgrade panels greets you with a revamped interface — how exciting! There’s now a countdown timer, acting as if some sort of catastrophe will take place in just over a week’s time. There’s even a handy bullet-pointed list of great reasons to upgrade to Windows 10. It’s free, “familiar and easy,” and “designed for speed,” we’re told (via InfoWorld).
Microsoft’s efforts aren’t stopping there, though. It’s also pushed out a patch which pops up a purple, full-screen advert for Windows 10. “Sorry to interrupt,” it begins, before reminding you that you have until July 29 to register your free copy of Windows 10.
“Microsoft recommends upgrading to Windows 10,” it says, as if that should be a surprise at this point.
Although Microsoft received a lot of praise for its initial release of Windows 10 for free to those with valid Windows 7 and 8.1 licenses, it’s taken a lot of flak in recent months for its pushy upgrade tactics. At one stage it made the update “recommended,” without telling anyone, which meant that simply closing the upgrade box would actually begin the download and install; something that caught a lot of users off guard.
For those looking to avoid both of these nagging messages, they are considered recommended updates in their own right, and should download automatically on a lot of machines. Look out for and block KB 317304 if you want to dodge them.
Still, if you haven’t upgraded to Windows 10, Digital Trends has a number of good reasons why you should.
Editors' Recommendations
- Scores of people are downgrading back to Windows 10
- Microsoft finally kills this legacy Windows app — for good this time
- The next big Windows 11 update has a new hardware requirement
- Surface Pro 10: all the major changes rumored for the new model
- The most common Windows 11 problems and how to fix them
