People have starting having messages appearing on their computers appearing to be from Microsoft about Windows 10. The offer is to reserve a free upgrade and get about July 29.
This is a real offer, but Microsoft is using a different approach to send it out. It appeared in the task bar on my Windows 7 with a Windows looking icon. Microsoft says they are only sending to machines who meet the minimum requirements.
Is it really free? Yes the upgrade is free for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 users and is only available to them for one year. This is a full feature upgrade and is not time bombed. If you are going to upgrade to Windows 10 you will have to do it before July 2016 to get a free upgrade. Otherwise it will cost you.
I have not used Windows 10 yet but all the information I have seen, it looks good. The Start menu is coming back but it will also still have the Metro interface (the phone looking interface) for those who liked that in 8.
To get the free upgrade you will have to be running Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or Windows 8.1 with update. If you are running Windows 7 or 8 and do not meet these requirements, all you need to do is run Windows Updates and you will get all the updates and then qualify. If you have not run updates in a while and have updates turned off from installing, this may take a while and several times running Windows Updates until you have them all.