[SOLVED] How long can I delay installing Windows 11 (free upgrade) on my acer laptop? :P

[andrepartthree]

Hi guys .. apologies if this question has been asked elsewhere... from what I'm seeing on my informal google search there are people complaining about issues when they upgrade to Windows 11 which I know isn't surprising since it just came out and is probably full of bugs and issues that have yet to be resolved with us the hapless user as guinea pigs for this purpose ... I have an Acer Aspire E15 series laptop (model number is E5-576-392H ) ...

I'd like to put off the Windows 11 upgrade for as long as possible in an attempt to let MIcrosoft work all the bugs out ... I don't think Microsoft has given an "official" date as to when they'll stop offering the free upgrade to Win 11 ... but would it be safe to say I could wait until say September 2022 ? (I've heard some rumors Microsoft will give it about a year from the release of Win 11 for people to do the free upgrade).

Also has anyone here performed the upgrade on an acer laptop and if so any problems using the " update to Win 11 using Microsoft windows update?" method? I know a clean install would be the better way to go but honestly I'm a bit nervous about the laptop "hiccupping" and not seeing the product key that I know is supposed to be hardwired into the motherboard or bios or whatever on laptops that come with Win 10 already preinstalled. Although of course I have no idea if just using the windows update method would help any with this to begin with.

(my laptop claims it is Win 11 compatible according to Windows update and is prompting me to update to Win 11 ... hopefully the laptop is telling me the truth! ... definitely upgrading from the 6 GB the laptop comes with to 16 GB of ram though when I do install Win 11, desperate attempt to stop the laptop from slowing down when the presumably more power hungry Win 11 gets installed ... honestly the only reason I'm ever bothering is Microsoft's assertion that they'll stop rolling out security patches for Win 10 come Oct 2025 otherwise I'd happily stick with Win 10 forever).

Thanks in advance to anyone who reads this and replies !

 

[hotaru.hino]

The Windows 10 key is good for an upgrade whenever you want, as far as I know. If you want to ride out Windows 10 until 2025, you can do that.

 

[andrepartthree]

The Windows 10 key is good for an upgrade whenever you want, as far as I know. If you want to ride out Windows 10 until 2025, you can do that.

Thanks Hotaru ... you know I was wondering about that... if you go off Win 10 for example, they only offered the "upgrade to Win 10 from Win 7/8 through Windows update" for so long but... even years after they stopped doing that , if you did a clean install of Win 10 and entered say a legitimate Win 7 product key that you had running on your old PC, it still worked (to the best of my knowledge it still does). Mind you this was back in the day when a PC manufacturer was kind enough to actually print the product key on a sticker that came on your PC in ye old Win 7 days, to the best of my knowledge they don't do that anymore ...

Of course the problem with an acer laptop and it's preinstalled Win 10 is that they don't tell you what the product key is so it makes me wonder if the same option is available .... clean install of Win 11 even up to say the year 2025 and the acer laptop will just automatically pop in it's hardwired product key... or maybe the acer laptop will just say " Nope, you missed the boat , the time for free upgrades is over go buy a Win 11 license" ....

 

[USAFRet]

How long can I delay installing Windows 11

Basically, forever.

Win 10 is still supported until Oct 2025.

Unlikely any 'free upgrade' will not be viable while your current laptop is still working.

The free upgrade from Win 7 to 10 was supposed to end in 2016(?)....it still works today.
Indeed, a currently valid Win 7 license will upgrade to Win 11.

 

[Gerald.nsn]

Hi,

As long as you want, basically.

Yes, officially they will not support W10 after 2025 but it will still be possible to use it and have the same feature you are having today... as it happens with the old versions of W7/8 (you will be surprised how many people are still using those)... also with all these bugs they are facing now... better to wait a bit.

Cheers

 

[Colif]

windows 11 isn't as bad as everyone is making it out to be. I can't tell difference between it and 10 so not sure what everyone is concerned about. If PC can run it, I don't get why you wouldn't

If it offers an upgrade and you say no, it stops asking but if you ever change your mind you can easily run the windows upgrade assistant on the win 11 download site, and it will upgrade you.

 

[andrepartthree]

Basically, forever.

Win 10 is still supported until Oct 2025.

Unlikely any 'free upgrade' will not be viable while your current laptop is still working.

The free upgrade from Win 7 to 10 was supposed to end in 2016(?)....it still works today.
Indeed, a currently valid Win 7 license will upgrade to Win 11.

USAFRet thanks this is so reassuring ... if I understand you correctly, even for computers that had Windows 10 preinstalled in it (like say my Acer laptop)... in theory if my Acer laptop was running say Windows 7 or Windows 8 and I was to go tell it to go check Windows Updates, it would say " Hey you can upgrade to Windows 10 right now if you want to" even today long after Windows 10 was first released? If so that's great news ! ... that would imply they'd do the same thing with Windows 11

Hi,

As long as you want, basically.

Yes, officially they will not support W10 after 2025 but it will still be possible to use it and have the same feature you are having today... as it happens with the old versions of W7/8 (you will be surprised how many people are still using those)... also with all these bugs they are facing now... better to wait a bit.

Cheers

thanks for that Gerald ... my concern is the security updates not being released for Win 10 after Oct 2025 ... for example the Wannacry virus apparently infected people who were still running Win 7 despite those users having up to date security software (say Norton/Symantec or Mcafee or AVG or what have you) ... to be honest my wife is not the most savy computer user so I need to guard her like a hawk as far as keeping security updates on her laptop (the acer laptop I'm talking about is really her own not my own) up to date and to be on the safe side I keep Norton installed on it too.

windows 11 isn't as bad as everyone is making it out to be. I can't tell difference between it and 10 so not sure what everyone is concerned about. If PC can run it, I don't get why you wouldn't

If it offers an upgrade and you say no, it stops asking but if you ever change your mind you can easily run the windows upgrade assistant on the win 11 download site, and it will upgrade you.

Colif thanks very much for this ... that is some super useful info, that bit about just doing a google search for the windows upgrade assistant on the Win 11 download site I will be sure to make a note of that ... it's good to hear that you are not having problems with Win 11 at all .. but I did some google research and there are some people posting some real horror stories about certain parts in their computer not working because they don't like Win 11 (laptop or PC freezes up and won't boot, problems with the display, problems with getting online)... obviously the people most likely to post online are the people having problems of course so who knows they could be in the minority (or to put it another way not sure how many people are posting " Windows 11 is awesome go download it now ! " just like that out of the blue ) ... that's why I'd be much more comfortable putting off the Win 11 upgrade for as long as possible to give Microsoft maximum time to be informed of and to work out the bugs in it.

I am wondering if , like this article says, it is necessary to have 16 GB on my wife's acer laptop for Win 11? Specs for the acer laptop are processor : i3-8130U Dual-core 2.20 GHz (maximum turbo speed 3.40 GHz ), RAM 6 GB DDR3L SDRAM ... I'd be tempted to swap out the 2 GB ram stick for an 8 GB stick and leave the other 4 GB slot in there to save myself $45 (would much rather buy directly from amazon than some 3rd party seller) but that means I have 4 GB ram running in one slot and 8 GB ram running in a different slot and from what I understand it's a lot better to have two identical sticks of ram running in both slots

https://www.makeuseof.com/is-4gb-ram-enough-for-windows-11/

(guy basically says he tried Win 11 with 4 GB of ram and it did NOT go well for him at all )

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006YG8X9...4b46-b402-3ccf91f90ebc&tag=microncsus-20&th=1

(ram stick I was talking about - but note that the current 4 and 2 GB sticks of ram in there are Hynix brand so if I left the 4 GB Hynix in there and plopped in a 8 GB kingston to replace the 2 GB Hynix that would be two different manufacturers for each ram stick ... the Hynix "stats" are

" FMB-I Compatible with
HMT451S6DFR8A-PB
Replacement for Hynix
4gb Ddr3l 1600 So-Dimm
Memory " )

 

[USAFRet]

USAFRet thanks this is so reassuring ... if I understand you correctly, even for computers that had Windows 10 preinstalled in it (like say my Acer laptop)... in theory if my Acer laptop was running say Windows 7 or Windows 8 and I was to go tell it to go check Windows Updates, it would say " Hey you can upgrade to Windows 10 right now if you want to" even today long after Windows 10 was first released? If so that's great news ! ... that would imply they'd do the same thing with Windows 11

It won't automatically tell you any more, but you can do it, for free.

And apparently a Win 7/8/8.1 license is also viable to activate a new WIn 11 install.

 

[Colif]

And apparently a Win 7/8/8.1 license is also viable to activate a new WIn 11 install.

makes sense, more people on new and its less who will ask for support on older os. They just want people on as few versions as possible. Probably still a lot of die hards on 7.

 

[rynftw]

what are the key features of windows 11?

 

[USAFRet]

what are the key features of windows 11?

Its 1 more than 10.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

what are the key features of windows 11?

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/features

 

[andrepartthree]

what are the key features of windows 11?

This might also be of interest - and it was written by tom's hardware ... (bookmarked it for future reference )

https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/worst-windows-11-features-fix-them

 

[orlbuckeye]

Powershell script to tell you the key

Option Explicit
Dim objshell,path,DigitalID, Result
Set objshell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
'Set registry key path
Path = "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\"
'Registry key value
DigitalID = objshell.RegRead(Path & "DigitalProductId")
Dim ProductName,ProductID,ProductKey,ProductData
'Get ProductName, ProductID, ProductKey
ProductName = "Product Name: " & objshell.RegRead(Path & "ProductName")
ProductID = "Product ID: " & objshell.RegRead(Path & "ProductID")
ProductKey = "Installed Key: " & ConvertToKey(DigitalID)
ProductData = ProductName & vbNewLine & ProductID & vbNewLine & ProductKey
'Show messbox if save to a file
If vbYes = MsgBox(ProductData & vblf & vblf & "Save to a file?", vbYesNo + vbQuestion, "BackUp Windows Key Information") then
Save ProductData
End If
'Convert binary to chars
Function ConvertToKey(Key)
Const KeyOffset = 52
Dim isWin8, Maps, i, j, Current, KeyOutput, Last, keypart1, insert
'Check if OS is Windows 8
isWin8 = (Key(66) \ 6) And 1
Key(66) = (Key(66) And &HF7) Or ((isWin8 And 2) * 4)
i = 24
Maps = "BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789"
Do
Current= 0
j = 14
Do
Current = Current* 256
Current = Key(j + KeyOffset) + Current
Key(j + KeyOffset) = (Current \ 24)
Current=Current Mod 24
j = j -1
Loop While j >= 0
i = i -1
KeyOutput = Mid(Maps,Current+ 1, 1) & KeyOutput
Last = Current
Loop While i >= 0

If (isWin8 = 1) Then
keypart1 = Mid(KeyOutput, 2, Last)
insert = "N"
KeyOutput = Replace(KeyOutput, keypart1, keypart1 & insert, 2, 1, 0)
If Last = 0 Then KeyOutput = insert & KeyOutput
End If
ConvertToKey = Mid(KeyOutput, 1, 5) & "-" & Mid(KeyOutput, 6, 5) & "-" & Mid(KeyOutput, 11, 5) & "-" & Mid(KeyOutput, 16, 5) & "-" & Mid(KeyOutput, 21, 5)
End Function
'Save data to a file
Function Save(Data)
Dim fso, fName, txt,objshell,UserName
Set objshell = CreateObject("wscript.shell")
'Get current user name
UserName = objshell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%UserName%")
'Create a text file on desktop
fName = "C:\Users\" & UserName & "\Desktop\WindowsKeyInfo.txt"
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set txt = fso.CreateTextFile(fName)
txt.Writeline Data
txt.Close
End Function

 

[andrepartthree]

Powershell script to tell you the key

Option Explicit
Dim objshell,path,DigitalID, Result
Set objshell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
'Set registry key path
Path = "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\"
'Registry key value
DigitalID = objshell.RegRead(Path & "DigitalProductId")
Dim ProductName,ProductID,ProductKey,ProductData
'Get ProductName, ProductID, ProductKey
ProductName = "Product Name: " & objshell.RegRead(Path & "ProductName")
ProductID = "Product ID: " & objshell.RegRead(Path & "ProductID")
ProductKey = "Installed Key: " & ConvertToKey(DigitalID)
ProductData = ProductName & vbNewLine & ProductID & vbNewLine & ProductKey
'Show messbox if save to a file
If vbYes = MsgBox(ProductData & vblf & vblf & "Save to a file?", vbYesNo + vbQuestion, "BackUp Windows Key Information") then
Save ProductData
End If
'Convert binary to chars
Function ConvertToKey(Key)
Const KeyOffset = 52
Dim isWin8, Maps, i, j, Current, KeyOutput, Last, keypart1, insert
'Check if OS is Windows 8
isWin8 = (Key(66) \ 6) And 1
Key(66) = (Key(66) And &HF7) Or ((isWin8 And 2) * 4)
i = 24
Maps = "BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789"
Do
Current= 0
j = 14
Do
Current = Current* 256
Current = Key(j + KeyOffset) + Current
Key(j + KeyOffset) = (Current \ 24)
Current=Current Mod 24
j = j -1
Loop While j >= 0
i = i -1
KeyOutput = Mid(Maps,Current+ 1, 1) & KeyOutput
Last = Current
Loop While i >= 0

If (isWin8 = 1) Then
keypart1 = Mid(KeyOutput, 2, Last)
insert = "N"
KeyOutput = Replace(KeyOutput, keypart1, keypart1 & insert, 2, 1, 0)
If Last = 0 Then KeyOutput = insert & KeyOutput
End If
ConvertToKey = Mid(KeyOutput, 1, 5) & "-" & Mid(KeyOutput, 6, 5) & "-" & Mid(KeyOutput, 11, 5) & "-" & Mid(KeyOutput, 16, 5) & "-" & Mid(KeyOutput, 21, 5)
End Function
'Save data to a file
Function Save(Data)
Dim fso, fName, txt,objshell,UserName
Set objshell = CreateObject("wscript.shell")
'Get current user name
UserName = objshell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%UserName%")
'Create a text file on desktop
fName = "C:\Users\" & UserName & "\Desktop\WindowsKeyInfo.txt"
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set txt = fso.CreateTextFile(fName)
txt.Writeline Data
txt.Close
End Function

Thank you so much for this but.. and I feel really stupid asking this , but ... I'm guessing I would search for the powershell program in Windows, run that and then copy this and paste it into powershell? (or that's what a quick google search tells me since I've never used powershell before ) .. I tried it as an experiment on Windows 8 and it didn't appear to work, saw a bunch of red text that seemed to be indicating errors... but I do appreciate you posting this ! More than likely just user error on my part

 

[USAFRet]

Thank you so much for this but.. and I feel really stupid asking this , but ... I'm guessing I would search for the powershell program in Windows, run that and then copy this and paste it into powershell? (or that's what a quick google search tells me since I've never used powershell before ) .. I tried it as an experiment on Windows 8 and it didn't appear to work, saw a bunch of red text that seemed to be indicating errors... but I do appreciate you posting this ! More than likely just user error on my part

Are you looking for the Windows license key?
If so, this application can extract it for you.
https://www.belarc.com/products_belarc_advisor

 

[andrepartthree]

thanks so much USAFRet ... this worked ! ... though confusingly it gave me two product keys, "Windows 10 home (prior license)" and " Windows 10 home (x64)" .. I will make a note of them both ! Thanks again !