Any way I can move from Win8.1 Enterprise to Win10 insider preview for free?

[slipslip]

I'm a student, and my university installed Windows 8.1 Enterprise on my personal laptop. I'd like to upgrade to Windows 10 (Pro, preferrably), but I likely won't do that if I have to pay for it myself. My understanding is that Enterprise versions won't get free upgrades to Windows 10 come July 29th.

Is there any way that I can do this for free? I'm signed up as a Windows Insider, but I haven't installed any builds yet because this is my only machine and I'm finishing my dissertation--- can't afford for anything to go wrong right now! (Also, while I'm pretty tech-savvy, I'm not an IT professional, and I wouldn't know where to begin if something truly failed.)

Thanks!

 

[Harrie-S]

Which version of windows was on your laptop before your university put the enterprise version on it?
If this was a win7 or 8 then you could reinstall this and you would be able to get the free W10.

(You,personal, can not get a free upgrade for the enterprise version because it's "not yours" it's a volume license so your university could update the license to W10 and then your laptop could go to W10)

 

[slipslip]

Thanks, that's kind of what I figured, but I hoped there was some way to get around the whole enterprise thing.

 

[DavidinCT]

Thanks, that's kind of what I figured, but I hoped there was some way to get around the whole enterprise thing.

If you have a license on the bottom of your machine, you could install VMware player on your laptop, install the version of Windows that is under your laptop, do windows updates till you get the notification. Then when it finally comes down, rebuild your laptop with the license from your machine.

You wont be able to upgrade but, you will be able to get Windows 10 for free....isn't that what you wanted ?

 

[coolqf]

A couple of points:

• Win8.1 Enterprise qualifies you for Win10, but when the IT department that gave you Win8.1 is ready to deploy it.
• Win10 insider preview is free, but it can expire...

The question is, did you computer come with Windows preinstalled? If yes, which one? If it did, then you can do what was recommended in an earlier post and get a free Win10 upgrade.