5 Reasons You Should Upgrade To Windows 10 While It's Still Free

When Windows 10 officially launched in 2015, Microsoft gave Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 users one year to decide if they wanted to make the switch to the company’s new OS for free.

Well, that year has almost passed and with just under a day till the July 29th deadline, you may still be finding yourself sitting on the fence about making the jump to Windows 10.

While it is true that the OS has had somewhat of a troubling launch with compatibility issues and severe privacy issues, a year is a long time in computer-land though and during that time Microsoft has been slowly-but-surely tinkering with Windows 10, even prepping a huge Windows 10 Anniversary update that is slated to go live next week.

The bottom line is that if you do not upgrade by the 29th of July, Windows 10 will come with a hefty $119 price tag.

Personally, I was a staunch proponent of Windows 7 and resisted the change to Windows 10 for many months. However, in the time since switching to Microsoft’s latest OS, the software has won me over, retaining a lot of  what I loved about Windows 7 while still looking towards the future with integrations like Cortana.

If you find yourself still unsure about making the switch, here are five reasons that might change your mind:

(Image Source: Rahil Bhagat)

1. Access to the latest updates

It’s no secret that OS’s require a lot of patching. From malicious software to out of date code, hardly a week goes by that Microsoft does not release a patch for Windows 10. Going forward, as technology continues to grow at this lightning pace, your operating system will need to be equipped to handle the demands of tech that has not even been invented yet.

According to Microsoft’s Windows lifecycle fact sheet, mainstream support for Windows 7 ended last January and is expected to end in January 2018 for Windows 8. This means quite simply, that after January 2018, Windows 10 will be the only current Microsoft OS getting regular mainstream updates.

According to Microsoft’s Windows lifecycle fact sheet, mainstream support for Windows 7 ended last January and is expected to end in January 2018 for Windows 8. This means quite simply, that after January 2018, Windows 10 will be the only current Microsoft OS getting regular mainstream updates.

(Image Source: Blizzard)

2. DirectX 12 Support

In a nutshell, if you are a PC gamer, you need to switch to Windows 10.

DirectX is a set of software applications that deal with the rendering of video and other multimedia content on Windows based PC’s. The software is essential for PC gaming and is one of the many reasons why Microsoft Windows dominates the PC gaming market.

Microsoft has been clear from the beginning that it would notbe bringing DirectX 12 support to older OS’s.

For the next year or so, games will still be built with DirectX 11 but in the very near future, as DirectX 12 matures as a platform, I expect game studios to start migrating to DirectX 12 meaning that if you want to future-proof your gaming experience, a switch to Windows 10 will be necessary.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – APRIL 02: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella demonstrates Cortana, a new digital personal assistant function for Windows phones, as he delivers a keynote address during the 2014 Microsoft Build developer conference on April 2, 2014 in San Francisco, California.  (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

3. Cortana

When Cortana was first announced for Windows 10, I will admit to being incredibly skeptical. I assumed that this would be the latest in the line of half-baked digital assistants that I would use for a few days before uninstalling with extreme prejudice.

Nearly six months on and I use Cortana on an almost daily basis for basic tasks like scheduling and simple research. In that time, I have seen a steady improvement in Cortana’s AI with better speech recognition, faster results and more intuitive searches.

The software still has its fair share of kinks that need ironing out but with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, Microsoft is promising to make Cortana not only smarter but also to increase “her” integration with other elements of Windows and Office.

(Image Source: Windows)

4. Windows Hello

Windows Hello is one of those features that doesn’t get spoken about as much as it should.

It is, in essence, facial recognition technology that uses a special camera to allow users to log into Windows simply by using their faces.

The feature has been well received and in my own tests of Windows Hello, it was seamless and intuitive. With the upcoming Anniversary update, Microsoft plans to integrate Windows Hello beyond the log-in screen and have it work with apps and websites.

What this means for the consumer is that in the Windows 10 of tomorrow, you could log into your email or into a program simply by looking at the camera, foregoing the need for long and complex passwords.

(Image Source: Microsoft)

5. Microsoft Edge Extensions

Microsoft Edge, the successor to the company’s Internet Explorer browser, has not been the hit that Microsoft expected it to be. When it was first announced as part of Windows 10, there was some hope that its new rendering engine would make it a worthy rival to Google’s Chrome. At launch though, it was slower than expected, had minimal third party support and generally felt unfinished.

With the Anniversary Update however, Microsoft is overhauling Edge with a couple of key new features. Chief among them is third party extension support similar to the kind that Chrome uses.

Also, according to Microsoft, the Edge team has been particularly focused on improving the power efficiency (read: battery life) of Edge with some tests showing Microsoft’s browser to be the most energy efficient of all the current mainstream browsers.