How to get your free Win10 upgrade and keep using your old Windows

[bill]

http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-lock-in-your-free-windows-10-upgrade-and-keep-using-your-old-windows-version/ [zdnet.com]

How to lock in your free Windows 10 upgrade and keep using your old Windows version

The year-long free upgrade offer for Windows 10 ends on July 29. But what if you're not ready to upgrade yet? Here's how to claim your upgrade so it's available at no cost when the time comes.

TL:DR
Upgrade to Win10, and then revert to your preferred version of Windows.

[tangor]

Sounds like a dream, right?

Not.

You have a 30 day revocation (revert to Win7 or Win8x) and if you do that and extend beyond that period you're toast. Do I know that for a fact? No, but IANAL either and neither is the person who wrote this. But I have no doubt that the Win10 Upgrade Free was (and is) conditioned on a 30 day trial and, if rejected, nullified any future FREE upgrade.

IOW, I wouldn't take this to the bank.

[tangor]

I suspect I am partly right in above. After all, just tonight, MS sent as an optional update to my ROLLED BACK TO SEVEN machine the Get 10 App. Guess they aren't giving up on me yet. :)

[IanCP]

Ah! Windows Upgrade...

Background to this: As some folks here might know, in my alternate life I am a marine radio operator [volunteer] at a Marine Rescue organisation in Australia.

When Windows upgrades began to roll out all those months back I alerted the big cheeses at my base that all their beloved Windows 7 machines online would go to windows 10. All the external PC gurus, including head office implied Ian was talking through his hat.

I simply replied "OK what would I know".

On one mission critical machine online 24/7, I silently entered the settings and prohibited updates. Yes there is a risk with Defender, but there is other ant-virus software. The loss of this machine means loss of visual representation on a big screen of many vessels, including our own and other search vessels. It is called AIS, automatic identification system, and coupled with GPS and navigation software is pretty good for locating vessels equipped with it. A kind of radar for the uninitiated.

Armed with approximate co-ordinates of a vessel in distress [without AIS] we can give our rescue vessel headings and progressive corrections to get within the general vicinity. They have on-board radar to then detect almost a tin can at one nautical mile.

Anyway a couple of shifts back I noticed two machines had upgraded to Window 10 - one was online live weather radar, the other weather reports. Neither were rendering well in Chrome on split screens. With nothing better to do I gave a telephone briefing to seniors and caused considerable angst...

But we were properly assured it can't happen! Yep, and it was implied I didn't know what I am talking about [evil grin] did I?

Windows Updates - a barrel of fun every day, the gift which I find just keeps on giving.

[bill]

I left one household machine untouched just to see if this surreptitious upgrade would hit. Always deselected the Win10 upgrade option, but let it receive automatic updates. Last night I was hit. Might be a good test box.

[J_RaD]

properly secure your machine.... disable the update service.

[tangor]

Just check out the updates. This time around MS is not "hiding" the Get Win10 app or the associated system eval for Win10 app (two files). Send them hidden but keep a watch for them to come back!

[Hoople]

properly secure your machine.... disable the update service.

MS has a special site where you can selectively download an installer to apply a specific update to machine that has no internet connection.

FWIW I had neglected to bookmark it, my bad...

[IanCP]

MS has a special site where you can selectively download an installer to apply a specific update to machine that has no internet connection.
FWIW I had neglected to bookmark it, my bad...

And I am just as bad for doing that. You didn't mean this one [complicated perhaps out-of-date]

Searching, Downloading, and Installing Updates
[msdn.microsoft.com ]

[IanCP]

This could perhaps prove useful for some...

To temporarily prevent the driver or update from being reinstalled until a new driver or updated fix is available, a troubleshooter is available that provides a user interface for hiding and showing Windows Updates and drivers for Windows 10. You can obtain and run the "Show or hide updates" troubleshooter by downloading it from the Microsoft Download Center.

The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:

Download the "Show or hide updates" troubleshooter package now...

[support.microsoft.com ]

[J_RaD]

MS has a special site where you can selectively download an installer to apply a specific update to machine that has no internet connection.

FWIW I had neglected to bookmark it, my bad...

Find it if you can....but really once you patch up to current standards, browsers, flash, user stupidity, lead to failure not patches.

you want a trouble free system, give them all non admin user accounts that require the admin password for software install.

problem solved! even on a 300 year old un patched system.

sys admin GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, help desk noooooooooooooooooooooooo.