4 ms·

Even though the free upgrade offer has supposedly ended, it's super easy to upgrade to a fully legal copy of Windows 10 for free. It's a giant side door that MS

Even though the free upgrade offer has supposedly ended, it's super easy to upgrade to a fully legal copy of Windows 10 for free. It's a giant side door that MS has intentionally left open. Just google it.

Stratoscope 9y ago
For the curious, it sounds like you may be referring to the "assistive technologies" upgrade. Anyone who uses any kind of assistive technology is entitled to a free upgrade. And they do mean any kind, and they don't ask what you use: "We are not restricting the upgrade offer to specific assistive technologies. If you use assistive technology on Windows, you are eligible for the upgrade offer." https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/windows10upgrade https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/windows10upgra... If you're worried about the ethics of saying you use an assistive technology when you don't think you really do, take a look at the Windows 10 Ease of Access settings. Anything in there obviously qualifies you, and many of them can be useful for just about anyone. For example: Do you get tired of the crazy Windows 10 Start menu animation, and the downright awful cursor animation in Word and Excel? (Really, what were they thinking: when you click on a cell in Excel, the box cursor animates from the old cell it was on to the cell you clicked on! Who in the world cares about the old cursor location when clicking on a new cell? And when you type text in Word, the blinking cursor animates across the screen as you type instead of moving in sync with your keystrokes like every other program in the world.) You can fix that: Ease of Access / Other Options / turn off the "Play animations in Windows" setting. What if you have a high-DPI display and find the default one-pixel cursor width a bit hard to see? You can make it thicker in that same panel. Have a keyboard with a numeric pad and would like to be able move the mouse cursor using the numeric pad? Ease of Access / Mouse / turn on Mouse Keys. Don't have a numeric pad, or you would like to be able to move the mouse cursor from the home row keys? Get my JKLmouse program that gives you IJKL or HJKL mouse cursor movement: http://www.jklmouse.com/ http://www.jklmouse.com/ - forgive the shameless plug, but it is really useful to be able to move the mouse cursor precisely pixel by pixel. MouseKeys or JKLmouse let you do that, and either one also qualifies as an assistive technology. (And sorry my installer isn't signed, but if you prefer, you can get the source code from GitHub and run it under AutoHotkey - just put a shortcut to the script in your Startup folder.) Have a high-DPI display and want the better support that Windows 10 offers for it? Or do you ever use a screen magnifier to see individual pixels - either the one built into Windows or one of the many others available? Same story. Anything along these lines legitimately qualifies you for the upgrade, so you don't have to feel guilty for clicking the "Yes, I use assistive technologies" button.
- SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
  I'm on Windows 10, but if I go to "Windows Ease of Access" folder on the Start menu, the On-Screen Keyboard is listed. (That's a common tool that you didn't list by name -- it's one I use.)
- yuhong 9y ago
  I think they were once threatening to enforce it, but they probably don't care about it anymore.
- sogen 9y ago
  The animated cursor also appeared on Excel for OSX, I wanted to kill someone (but I went with plan B and downgraded to a previous Office version).
  - Stratoscope 9y ago
    They did finally add an option to the Mac version Excel 2016 to turn off the cursor animation. It's in the Excel preferences panel, not a systemwide setting like on Windows. I don't recall whether it was in Excel 2016 all along or if they added in some update, but the option is definitely there now in the Mac version.
    - sogen 9y ago
      Thanks, will re- install!

Stratoscope 9y ago

For the curious, it sounds like you may be referring to the "assistive technologies" upgrade. Anyone who uses any kind of assistive technology is entitled to a free upgrade. And they do mean any kind, and they don't ask what you use: "We are not restricting the upgrade offer to specific assistive technologies. If you use assistive technology on Windows, you are eligible for the upgrade offer." https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/windows10upgrade https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/windows10upgra... If you're worried about the ethics of saying you use an assistive technology when you don't think you really do, take a look at the Windows 10 Ease of Access settings. Anything in there obviously qualifies you, and many of them can be useful for just about anyone. For example: Do you get tired of the crazy Windows 10 Start menu animation, and the downright awful cursor animation in Word and Excel? (Really, what were they thinking: when you click on a cell in Excel, the box cursor animates from the old cell it was on to the cell you clicked on! Who in the world cares about the old cursor location when clicking on a new cell? And when you type text in Word, the blinking cursor animates across the screen as you type instead of moving in sync with your keystrokes like every other program in the world.) You can fix that: Ease of Access / Other Options / turn off the "Play animations in Windows" setting. What if you have a high-DPI display and find the default one-pixel cursor width a bit hard to see? You can make it thicker in that same panel. Have a keyboard with a numeric pad and would like to be able move the mouse cursor using the numeric pad? Ease of Access / Mouse / turn on Mouse Keys. Don't have a numeric pad, or you would like to be able to move the mouse cursor from the home row keys? Get my JKLmouse program that gives you IJKL or HJKL mouse cursor movement: http://www.jklmouse.com/ http://www.jklmouse.com/ - forgive the shameless plug, but it is really useful to be able to move the mouse cursor precisely pixel by pixel. MouseKeys or JKLmouse let you do that, and either one also qualifies as an assistive technology. (And sorry my installer isn't signed, but if you prefer, you can get the source code from GitHub and run it under AutoHotkey - just put a shortcut to the script in your Startup folder.) Have a high-DPI display and want the better support that Windows 10 offers for it? Or do you ever use a screen magnifier to see individual pixels - either the one built into Windows or one of the many others available? Same story. Anything along these lines legitimately qualifies you for the upgrade, so you don't have to feel guilty for clicking the "Yes, I use assistive technologies" button.

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
I'm on Windows 10, but if I go to "Windows Ease of Access" folder on the Start menu, the On-Screen Keyboard is listed. (That's a common tool that you didn't list by name -- it's one I use.)
yuhong 9y ago
I think they were once threatening to enforce it, but they probably don't care about it anymore.
sogen 9y ago
The animated cursor also appeared on Excel for OSX, I wanted to kill someone (but I went with plan B and downgraded to a previous Office version).
- Stratoscope 9y ago
  They did finally add an option to the Mac version Excel 2016 to turn off the cursor animation. It's in the Excel preferences panel, not a systemwide setting like on Windows. I don't recall whether it was in Excel 2016 all along or if they added in some update, but the option is definitely there now in the Mac version.
  - sogen 9y ago
    Thanks, will re- install!