Now that W10 is a free upgrade for 7/8/8.1 users, will the technical preview have an expiry too?

[Ved S Shah]

Asking this questions makes me sound like a newbie, but I'd ask it anyway. As per yesterday's event, windows 10 would be a free upgrade for all Windows 7/8/8.1 users. Hence, if install a technical preview, will it have an expiry date or can it be used indefinitely? Will the product key of my 8.1 get a license for Windows 10?

Responses would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[SpaceyO]

Ed Bott answers a similar question in the comments on his Preview of the next build on ZDNet-

@I2k4 The clock will reset with the new January Preview. You need to upgrade the Tech Preview to the January release and then to any future releases. The final expiration date should be several months after the official release, giving you plenty of time to do an official upgrade.

 

[daredevildan]

The last "tech preview" I participated in was Vista. I did a clean install so not an upgrade from a previous version of Windows. When it became a final release I was able to update my preview version of Vista to final release then afterwards would get the messages that I need to enter a key or purchase one but the software was still usable during that time.

 

[poit57]

When Windows 8 launched with a discounted upgrade price, the discount was offered to those running the preview as well. It was the full retail version of the software, but I think there were some restrictions on which operating systems could do an inplace upgrade versus which had to do a clean install.

With the upgrade being free this time, I'd imagine that they want to be a little more strict on qualifying for the free upgrade. You would probably need to either reinstall your original OS or provide a valid product key for one of the qualifying Windows versions.