Is Windows 11 a free OS?

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On October 5, Microsoft officially released the Windows 11 operating system. Is Windows 11 a free OS?

This question cannot be answered unequivocally. Windows 11 will be free under certain conditions but available for purchase at Microsoft and retail outlets.

Answer: Microsoft customers with an activated Windows 10 on their device can upgrade to Windows 11 absolutely for free. In other cases, you need to buy Windows 11 from Microsoft Official Website or in retail outlets.

Windows 11 costs around $199 for the Windows 11 Pro version. But for our readers, we have some special offers.

You can also activate Windows 11 for Free (we do not recommend this as there are chances of malware and other issues).

Will upgrading to Windows 11 be free?

There’s an easy way to check if Windows 10 has been activated:

Open the Start menu > Settings
Next, go to Update and Security > Activation

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The page that opens will indicate whether your copy of Windows 10 has been activated.

If it is reported that the activation has passed, then the upgrade to Windows 11 will be free. You can then go to Settings > Update & security > Windows Update to check if your device is prompted to upgrade to Windows 11.

Microsoft also displays an error on the page if the computer does not meet the minimum system requirements.

If you see the message “This PC doesn’t meet the system requirements for Windows 11,” you won’t be able to update your device using Windows Update. However, there are other alternative ways that we will share at the bottom.

Is the free upgrade to Windows 11 limited in time?

At the official level, Microsoft has not announced whether the offer of a free update is limited in time. When Microsoft released Windows 10, a free upgrade to Windows 10 for devices with a genuine Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 license was offered for one year. But even after the expiration of this period, the company did not disable this program, and it operates even now.

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Windows 7 and 8.1 devices can’t be upgraded directly to Windows 11. You need to run a free upgrade to Windows 10 and then upgrade to Windows 11.

Windows 11 for incompatible devices

Windows 11 has stricter system requirements than previous versions of Windows, including Windows 10, Windows 7, and Windows 8.1. Even if Windows 10 is activated correctly, a free upgrade to Windows 11 may not be possible due to these requirements.

However, even if an incompatible device doesn’t receive an offer to upgrade to Windows 11 through Windows Update, you can still install the new OS manually. Check out our instructions for downloading and installing Windows 11 on incompatible devices.

You might also face these common Windows 11 Errors- 8 Known Issues With Windows 11 and How to Fix Them