For all of you who you are excited about the up and coming release of Windows 10, which should land on the 29th of July, you may be pleased to know there’s a way you can bag yourself a free – fully activated copy, without even owning Windows 7 or 8 first!
Microsoft have released news stating that all early adopters, i.e. those who sign up for the Windows technical BETA program, will be eligible for a free activation upon release. The technical BETA program (dubbed insider) gives you access to pre-release software, and is aimed at software developers. However, it’s freely available to anyone and very easy to join.
There’s one caveat in Microsoft’s recent announcement.. That is, in order to keep your copy of Windows 10 updated and activated you must be willing to stay subscribed to the ‘insider’ program. Thus meaning you will see early and be ‘forced’ to test early releases of future OS updates as and when they come along. Now, for some, who love living life on the bleeding edge, may think that that’s a fair deal.. Where as others, may want to steer clear of it for now. It’s fair to say the technical BETA release of Windows 10 has not been without it’s far share of BETA issues!
If you understand the above and would like to bag your copy anyway, all you have to do is head over to insider.windows.com and sign up for an account, if you don’t already have one. Once you’ve signed in, select the relevant ISO for your language preferences and the download should commence. You will also need to make note of your activation key, which can be located just above the list of ISO’s.
Once you’ve downloaded and installed the technical BETA, you will need to make sure you sign into Windows with the same account you used to download it from the insider site. This will make sure you will get access to the full release of Windows 10 on the 29th. Whats more, you will be given the chance of a completely fresh install at the time – so you can mess around with your Technical BETA as much as you like!
Going forward, you will then be presented with future BETA releases using the normal Windows Update technologies!