The July 29 deadline for PC owners to get their free upgrade to Windows 10 is quickly approaching. As time counts down, Microsoft is pulling out all the stops to ensure that users upgrade to the new OS — even going so far as to give out new laptops with Windows 10 pre-installed.
Yes, you read that correctly. Microsoft retail stores are giving out free 15-inch Dell Inspiron notebooks, but only if users go into the store for a free installation for Windows 10 between now and July 29, and a technician must be able to complete the upgrade by the end of that business day.
Of course, there is quite a bit of fine print behind the deal, which, under normal circumstances, would look too good to be true.
To start, the free installation (and potentially free laptop) only applies to PCs that are capable of running Windows 10, meaning they must meet the minimum system requirements. If not, then you may be eligible for a $150 credit toward a new PC.
An important note about this is that this deal only applies to Windows 8 laptops, leaving Windows 7 users forever in the past — an odd choice considering that Windows 7 is still a popular OS to this day (then again, that's likely why computers running it have yet to be upgraded).
Furthermore, the deal is time-sensitive. Anyone seeking to cash in on it must check in to the Answer Desk by noon local time for the potential deal to be valid.
Lastly, the offer is only valid for Microsoft retail stores in the U.S. (Puerto Rico included) and Canada, so any customers hoping to cash in at a Microsoft Store in Sydney or the UK are out of luck.
Fortunately, even if customers are unable to get a free laptop, there are still a few benefits that come after a successful Windows 10 installation. First, customers will get $20 off Office 365 Home when they upgrade to Windows 10, and the page mentions that customers could win an Xbox One when they upgrade, although they'll have to talk to a store associate to learn how.
While this is definitely a deal that many will be excited to cash in on, there's a bit of a story behind it.
This offer is the latest in a series of highly aggressive moves Microsoft has made in the past several months in order to get users to upgrade to Windows 10. For the most part, these moves revolve around deploying deceptive, malware-like pop-ups on Windows 7 and 8.1, which have tricked many a user into installing the OS whether they wanted to or not.
For what it's worth, these tactics have been successful (though frustrating for many affected users), but it apparently hasn't done enough, as Microsoft recently admitted that it would likely not reach its goal of having Windows 10 running on a certain amount of devices by mid-2018. The company proclaimed in 2015 that there would be one billion such devices by that date, but as of June, there are only 350 million.
