While Windows 10 is now on over 350 million devices, Microsoft still has a long way to go to accomplish its goal of one billion devices running the OS over the course of the next couple of years. As the free Windows 10 upgrade offer is ending in less than than a month, the company appears to be making one final push to persuade Windows 7 and 8.1 users to update to its latest OS. Now, full screen notifications will show up for a subset of users, touting it as "the most secure Windows ever built".
Microsoft was widely criticized for its persistent Windows 10 upgrade notifications, which some classified as nagware. Less than a week ago, a woman even sued the company (and won) - claiming a "forced Windows 10 upgrade" - for a sum of $10,000.
Now, Microsoft appears to be taking careful steps to ensure that the same doesn"t happen again by outlining the reasons behind the full screen upgrade notifications, and ways to avoid it.
According to the company, dismissing the notification will disable it permanently, and the "Remind me later" will show the offer to users again after the passage of three days. Similarly, the full screen notification will not be displayed if any of the following conditions are true:
- You have a recent version of the "Get Windows 10" app installed.
- You have selected the Do not notify me again option.
- Your computer is detected to be incompatible with Windows 10.
- You have previously uninstalled Windows 10 after you upgrade.
- Your Windows 10 installation failed and rolled back.
- You have hidden the "Get Windows 10" app notifications.
- You have disabled the Windows 10 upgrade or you have disabled the offer screen through registry key settings.
With that being said, if you haven"t upgraded to Windows 10 yet, but plan to do so, now is probably the best time, keeping in mind that the OS won"t be offered for free after July 29, 2016. After this date, Windows 10 Home will be priced at $119, while the Pro edition will be available for purchase at $199. It is also important to note that users who upgrade to Windows 10 for free will also be eligible for the Anniversary Update when it starts to roll out on August 2, at no extra cost.