You can still get Win10 for free

I also read that if you have GWX installed, you can set your system clock back to before July 29th.
 
Out of curiosity I just took a customer's unit out of inventory and did a clean install of the anniversary update on it. The unit is a 2.5 year old Toshiba Tecra Z50-A that is brand new sealed in box. It is licensed for Windows 7 Pro and Windows 8 (not 8.1) Pro. I'm a little confused. Either:

A. The Microsoft licensing servers are still approving free upgrades.

B. Since these are business machines they come with a special OEM license to still be able to upgrade from 7/8 to 10

C. Since windows 10 has been activated on another unit with the same exact model number and hardware configuration (I've done several for this customer), the hash from the activation is the same and it allows every unit with the same config to upgrade to 10.

I was expecting to be able to image Windows 10 to these units without it deactivating due to them being the same hardware config, but I was not expecting to be able to do a clean install.
 
That is surprising. Because I thought the MAC address of the network card was a big part of the activation protocol and that should be different with each PC.
 
I don't think they use Mac address because some people spoof the MAC anyway, like me, so it is not reliable.
 
"Microsoft does not acknowledge that free upgrades are still possible on machines where Windows 10 was not installed on previously. It is a rather puzzling answer that does not really address the issue at hand at all."

LOL, Microsoft doesn't want to admit that they pressured people into getting Win10 before July 29th when it wasn't needed at all.
 
The assistive tech thing and the ability to still get Win10 with a Win7/8 key thing lead me to believe MS made some sort of contractual obligation to SOMEONE that the upgrade period would end after one year, but they loopholed it with legalese and well, here's your loopholes.

I broke out an old Win7 laptop the other day that never had anything but Win7 on it, and had been in a drawer for two years, and a clean install of Win10 activated with the Win7 key. While it made me happy, I did kinda rush last week to find as many old computers as possible that were still "usable" and get Win10 activated on them. *glares at MS a bit*
 
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