Windows 10 All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 3

Which Version?

In This Chapter

Windows 10 rumors that just aren’t true

The various versions of Windows 10

Narrowing your choices

32-bit or 64-bit?

Permit me to dispel two rumors, right off the bat. Windows 10 isn’t exactly free. And it isn’t the last version of Windows.

You probably heard either or both of those rumors from well-regarded mainstream publications, and what you heard was wrong.

Here are the facts:

• If you already own a legitimate copy of Windows 7 or 8/8.1, the upgrade to Windows 10 is free, providing you upgrade during the year after Windows 10’s announced official shipping date. (If you’re running Windows 8, you have to install the free upgrade to Windows 8.1 first.)

  Contrariwise, if you’re building a new PC, you have to buy Windows 10. And if you buy a new PC with Windows 10 preinstalled, the PC manufacturer (probably) paid for Windows 10.

• Microsoft may drop the numbering system — so “Windows 10” in the future becomes, simply, “Windows” — but there will ...