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Also on whether WinXP users are going to qualify for the free upgrade?

My lodger's old laptop is in desperate need of something before I let it have more open access to my local network... (I've been thinking Ubuntu but that might take a little more retraining so Win10 might be preferable if free and it'll run OK on that elderly machine without driver and/or CPU/RAM/space resource issues)

> Also on whether WinXP users are going to qualify for the free upgrade?

Nope. There is no upgrade path from XP -> Windows 10. You will have to go from Win7/8 to qualify for the free upgrade to 10.

I imagine, despite what they say publicly, that at least some cracked copies of 7 and 8 will pass whatever upgrade qualification checks they have in place.

In 2012, when they offered cheap (£/$15) 7 -> 8 upgrades it was effectively open to anyone who was willing to lie about having bought a machine running Windows 7 in the last X months. Windows 8 could then be installed on any machine using the product key provided.

You pay for Windows 10 and an upgrade from a illegitimate Windows 7, I believe.