Microsoft Has Closed The Windows 7/8 To Windows 11 Upgrade Loophole

The door to a free Windows 11 upgrade for Windows 7 and 8 diehards has been officially shut. Microsoft tells The Verge that using a Windows 7 or 8 product key to get a clean Windows 11 upgrade no longer works. The company originally warned about the development last month via its Developer Partner Center, informing OEM partners that "the installation path to obtain the Windows 7 / 8 free upgrade" was getting removed.

That pathway was actually more of a loophole that has been in place for years. When Microsoft introduced Windows 10 in 2015, it extended free upgrades to Windows 7 and 8 users, but that convenience was only supposed to last until 2016. For some reason, that loophole remained active for users who had a legitimate Windows 7 or 8 activation key all the way to the present day. Now with this change finally coming into effect, said keys are no longer valid and Microsoft will not activate any Windows 11 installations using them.

Needless to say, there are only two options left for users of older Windows systems: you can either install Windows 11 and then buy a product key for it via the Microsoft Store or you can buy a new PC that comes with a free copy of Windows 11 ready to boot. However, it's important to note that if your machine was purchased back when Windows 7 or 8 was the latest version of the OS, your hardware most likely does not support Windows 11.

That's because Microsoft put certain system requirements in place for Windows 11, claiming that hardware above a specific baseline will offer the best performance. The company released a digital tool that automatically checks the user's hardware and tells them whether they can upgrade to Windows 11. If your PC isn't compatible and you don't want to buy a new one, you'll need to instead upgrade to Windows 10, which Microsoft will continue to support for at least the next two years.