Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss Intel's Go PC campaign, Samsung delivering via drone in Ireland, Avatar's success in China, Ikea's new audio catalog, and more.

Our guest this hour:

Dr. Pam Hurst-Della Pietra, Founder and President of Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development

Clifton in Toledo Ohio and asked: "Question about my laptop. I understand Windows 7 doesn't work anymore on my computer. Do I need to purchase a new computer to get Windows 10, or can I download it?"

https://media.blubrry.com/into_tomorrow/content.blubrry.com/into_tomorrow/03-26-2021-H3S4.mp3

Cliffton, the vast majority of computers that could run Windows 7 can run Windows 10.

Microsoft buried an obscure mention of the computers processor needing to support PAE, NX, and SSE2 to be able to run Windows 10, but their main official line was the requirements are the same as they were for Windows 7.

That means that you almost certainly dont need a new computer to run Windows 10, and Microsoft has free software that will run a check for you and confirm that (and that software is probably already in your computer if youve kept it updated).

There is some bad news, though, for a pretty long while Windows 10 was a free upgrade to anyone that had Windows 7. Microsoft was pushing really hard to move people to Windows 10 after Windows 8 flopped, and they offered it as a free upgrade.

Unfortunately that period ended in 2016 (Windows 10 has been around for while).

We have heard reports of people being able to upgrade and activate Windows 10 with their Windows 7 key, so you may get lucky, but officially the free upgrade period is over and has been over for years and you should expect to need to spend the price of a new license.

Windows 7 is no longer supported by Microsoft, so upgrading even if it does end up costing you the price of a new Windows 10 license is probably worth it anyway, just to continue to have upgrades and patches.

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