Windows 10 can still be had for free, weeks after they claimed to have closed the last free-WX loophole

BTW, I've just decided to start abbreviating Windows 10 to "WX," which is both shorter and consistent with GWX branding already used by Microsoft. For brevity and consistency, I'll also be using "W#" for earlier versions (i.e. W7, W8, W8.1), and simply adding the appropriate suffixes for other flavours of WX when needed for clarity (WX-Home, WX-Pro, WX-Core, WX-S, etc.).

It took Microsoft until two full weeks after their Dec. 31st deadline, and change, to finally close the Assistive Technologies loophole, which allowed users to upgrade to WX for free if they were willing to say that they used any kind of Assistive Technology... up to, and including, hot keys. You might thing that the end of the last of the Microsoft's officially free WX offerings would mean the end of stories about how you can still get WX for free.

Well, you would be wrong. Check out the "most relevant" result that Google News returns for "Windows 10."

Yes, that's Forbes, with yet another piece on how WX can still be had for free, now two weeks after the last free WX window was allegedly closed.

Windows 10 was free for a year after launch for anyone who had an older version of Windows. For those who missed this transition period it was possible to get an upgrade right up until the end of 2017, a loophole Microsoft has now closed - although it wasn't much of a loophole, as the company knew all about it.

However there are other ways to upgrade to Windows 10 that don't involve getting the upgrade assistant from the official site.

Yes, apparently this has always worked... meaning that this also isn't much of a loophole, since Microsoft clearly also knows all about it, i.e. working as intended.

It's unclear as to why this works, but if you have a product code for an old version of Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 you should be able to enter this into a copy of Windows 10 and get an activation. You will be given access to the version of Windows 10 that matches the original product key. So Windows 8 Pro will get Windows 10 Pro, while Windows 8 Home will get, you guessed it, Windows 10 Home.

Hmmm.... so it's possible to upgrade from W7-Pro to WX-Pro? It's a shame the GWX app didn't work the same way; I might have been tempted to switch.

Right about now, you might be wondering why Microsoft would still have a WX upgrade left open that's large enough for an auto-truck to drive through? Well, Microsoft themselves are pretty quiet on the issue, but Forbes' Ian Morris has some ideas:

As I pointed out in my article about the closing of the accessibility loophole, I don't think Microsoft really cares about end users getting free upgrades. It makes more money from OEM sales of Windows 10 on new laptops and revenue from corporate users than the slender pickings of home users. Indeed, Microsoft makes more money - and more margin - on selling cloud offerings these days.

Windows isn't a cash cow when it comes to home users, so I suspect there's a lot of give built into the system.

Which makes a lot of sense, actually. It's just a shame that Microsoft are being so disingenuous about it all. I mean, they could easily partner with PC-OEMs to promote new PC sales ("Get the most out of Windows 10 with the latest AMD/Ryzen hardware!"), while also continuing to let tech-savvier users upgrade for free if they still want to... and without the fucking hard sell, this time. Because, honestly, the hard sell of the GWX campaign was a big part of the continued appeal of W7, which culminated in Microsoft simply switching over users who didn't take active steps to avoid the unwanted "upgrade," even after they'd repeatedly refused Microsoft's malware-laden Home version of WX.

Hell, Microsoft even have a better product to give away than they did a few years ago, with more features and (crucially) better privacy protections, and even better privacy tools due to be added to the platform in a couple of months. And if I can also use my W7 Professional license to upgrade to WX-Pro, rather than the gimped Home version, to gain even more features and even better privacy tools... when, that becomes one hell of a sales pitch, doesn't it?

So, what's the problem?

Well, the problem is that PC sales have now been declining, year-after-year, for six years and counting, and Microsoft clearly ruffled the feathers of their hardware partners badly enough by giving WX away for free in the first place, and then continuing to give it away for free even after the GWX campaign allegedly ended. And since they now need those same hardware partners to help them sell Microsoft-branded "Mixed-Reality" headsets, they're engaging in this PR shadow-play instead, pretending to have ended the free WX giveaways, while still continuing to give WX away for free to those that are willing to do some research.

Which is stupid, because anyone interested enough in WX to be researching ways to still switch for free will already have made the switch.

Also, PC sales are still declining anyway, even as Microsoft lets a beauty of a PR opportunity wither on the vine.

It's so frustrating. This is Microsoft's chance to (a) say that they're sorry for the egregious bullshit that their GWX campaign turned into, and (b) make amends by once again offering WX to anyone who wants it, for free, for the foreseeable future, with peoples' privacy concerns having been (mostly) addressed, and even giving users of "Professional" W7 & W8 SKUs a free upgrade to WX-Pro.

In fact, they should be doing that last, anyway; it's not like they don't know which users already upgraded to WX-Home from earlier W#-Pro versions. No more hard sell tactics, no more bullshit attempts to squeeze a few extra dollars out of consumers, just a genuine free upgrade offer, of the kind that a company might make when they have some confidence in their product.

Of course, there's still the issue of Cortana, which Microsoft are still pushing relentlessly (a registry hack is required to disable Cortana, when it should be a menu option), and Microsoft's continued insistence that users rely on Edge and Bing (combined with Cortana's always-on, default-for-all-search status, this has actually caused a slight uptick in Bing search traffic... all with no apparent increase in consumers actually choosing Bing... which is horseshit). And there's Microsoft's habit of trash-talking competitors' products from the fucking task bar, and the fact that turning off all the advertising in WX is a chore to do. And there's the relentless pace of major updates, which are hella disruptive when they happen, and only controllable for WX-Pro users. And...

Well, by now you get the point: WX still has quite a way to go. But Microsoft are a lot closer now than they've ever been to offering a value proposition that W7 users might actually find appealing enough to switch to... so naturally MS are relying on 3rd parties to get the word out for them, rather than just making a straightforward appeal to W7 users, asking them to give WX a second chance. Because apparently that's just how Microsoft roll.

If you're planning on trying out this ongoing free upgrade not-offer, then I can only recommend that you follow the advice that Ian Morris lays out in his Forbes piece, and make sure you've backed everything up six ways from Sunday. I also recommend waiting until the new Diagnostic data viewer and deletion tools have actually been rolled out to WX's live versions, as opposed to only being available to Insiders, and you should still be using Spybot's Anti-Beacon or something similar to kibosh the data collection that you can't simply disable, if you're still concerned about it. But if you're the sort of person who used to wipe their hard drive and do a clean install of their OS of choice, just to improve performance, then it might actually be worth doing now... really, for the first time since WX was released.

It's just a shame that Microsoft don't want to talk about it, anymore.