Why you should upgrade to Windows 10 before July 30

If you’re a Windows 7 or Windows 8 user reading this article before July 30, 2016, you have less than one week to get Windows 10 for free. At 11:59 p.m. UTC-10 on July 29 (2:59 a.m. Pacific and 5:59 a.m. Eastern on July 30), the free Windows 10 upgrade will no longer be available. After that time, you’ll have to get Windows 10 the old-fashioned way: buy it outright ($120 for Home and $200 for Pro) or buy a new computer that comes with it.

There’s really no reason not to upgrade. In fact, if you upgrade and you don’t like Windows 10, you can simply downgrade back. Within the first month of upgrading to Windows 10, you can go back to your previous version of Windows (Settings => Update & security => Recovery) quite easily. And even if you wait more than a month, you can often choose to restore your device to factory settings or simply reinstall an older version of Windows with the original installation media.

So if you’re biggest deterrent to upgrading is that you’re worried about hating Windows 10, get a better reason. Give Windows 10 a shot yourself and decide by actually using it.

As for why you should upgrade, there are plenty of reasons, all of which depend on what you use your PC for. Windows 10 is the latest and greatest from Microsoft, so naturally it has the smoothest performance, latest features, best security, and so on.

Furthermore, Windows 10 is a service. As we wrote in our deep dive on how Microsoft is still building Windows 10, this means it is constantly getting new features and improvements, long after its launch back in July 2015.

In fact, the biggest Windows 10 update is just on the horizon. The Windows 10 Anniversary Update is scheduled for release on August 2.

As such, if you upgrade for free before July 30, you’ll soon get even more new features and improvements. And you’ll still have paid nada.

If you don’t upgrade before July 30, you won’t get any of that without handing over your wallet.

For your reference, here’s everything you need to know about upgrading to Windows 10.