Cactus Music
I think they just ended that free update for anybody using accessibility features. I was going to use it again for a friends laptop but it ended sometime in February.  And it was only the Home version. 
 
Be warned, with Laptops that came with W7 ( or 8.1?)  you most likely won't have drivers for a bunch of the accessories like the card reader or web camera. Also often Function keys do not work. W 10 won't have the drivers and if you try and use the originals W10 will tell you it already has the correct drivers so your hooped. This has happened for me on 3 W7 laptops. Seems fine on desktops which don't have those things anyhow. 

OK thanks for that. The laptop is an Asus hi end from around 2012 or 2013? Came with Win 7 installed. I upgraded to win8.1x64. So I guess I will skip the laptop. It's fast as hell with nvidea card, 16gb ram and 2 hard drives. I removed the optical and put in a second drive. was easy.
 
So I will attack my desktop. It's the one that really needs a fresh install of something. I had bought a win 8.1x64 full version dvd about a month ago. I'll keep that for the laptop. 
 
*******So anyone know of a cheaper way for win 10 pro? I mean legal.
 
Thanks to all you guys for the great info.much appreciated!
Stratman68
 
 
 

stratman70
 
So I guess I will skip the laptop. 

You should be fine with the laptop, I have 2 that are likely older than that one (Both came with Win7) and no problems what so ever with drivers etc. Windows 10 works much better overall on both of them. You can always roll it back if there are problems, or make an image first, but I think you'd be fine.
 
I'd never go back on any of the 6 machines (3 desktops, 3 laptops) I upgraded to Windows 10 way back when it came out, it's just so much better, faster, stable as a rock than Windows 7 or 8 in my experience.

*******So anyone know of a cheaper way for win 10 pro? I mean legal.

Check eBay for a reseller, I got genuine W10 Pro key for about 10GBP. It registered fine and has been getting updates now for well over a year.

Pete

stratman70
So I will attack my desktop. It's the one that really needs a fresh install of something..

 
If you don't mind updating or upgrading Windows more regularly than usual, then you could join the Windows Insider program.
(The free offer for assistive technology users officially ended on Jan 16, 2018, after they offered an upgrade extension. I made a blog post about this back then.)
 
As others have mentioned, depending on the age of your desktop, hopefully all drivers will work or be back compatible with that machine.
If you are really motivated to use the machine with Windows 10, and you are considering paying the full price for Windows, you might consider getting a cheap PC which comes with Windows 10.
 

 I have an older desktop and laptop (one purchased second hand and one home built, both in 2011). The desktop was upgraded from Windows XP to Win7, then to Win10, Both upgraded to Win10 with no issues at all (no fresh install for me). If you're worried about the silent background hoodoo that happens with this OS then most can be turned off inside Windows itself, and just the critical updates will get through. Which you should let happen anyway. You can also set the updates to do their magic when you want. Win10 Pro will let you have full control over all updates and let you install them or not if you want the greatest control.
Worst case scenario, there are those that disconnect from the net while using Cakewalk. I am one of these if I'm doing mission critical recording work, but with most mixing tasks I just leave the net connected.
As others have mentioned, just make sure drivers are available, although most information I've come across suggests drivers that work with Win8 will also work with Win10 so keep that in mind.
I think Win10 is a great update, and is almost as good as the WinXP to Win7 jump. I do like working with it and there is a lot more good stuff happening both right in front of you and behind the scenes. My only issue I have with Win10 (and you may find this being a bit of a techie yourself}, there is a lot of jumping between different parts of the OS when dealing with settings. It used to be you would open Control Panel and almost everything you needed was close to hand. Now, there are at least two major parts to changing settings. It's like Windows have tried to make tablet, laptop and desktop users happy with one version of Windows. I guess this is the way of the future so we'll have to suck this up for a while until/if they can get this right.
Good Luck!

I have no "tweaks" or disable any reporting on Win 10 Pro and really no problems.  I do disable the Internet when I record as I found that can cause dropouts at times (the "phone home"??).  Latency Mon shows a very clean PC even with the Internet enabled. 
 
I also have the Windows Insider program and get the advanced Win 10's.  I had the new V1803 for about a month and had no problems with it.  But, my PC is relatively current hardware and fully Win10 compatible.  I do support on some computer forums and find that older hardware is iffy, some work OK (or at least OK for the user) and others do not.  One of the Win 10 major "Creator" upgrades invalidated some older hardware and the newer upgrades will not install on those and the users are stuck at an old Win 10 version.
 
 
 
 

One other thing to consider is any hardware interface you may be using. I used Win 10 for a while and couldn't use my main interface (M-Audio MobilePre). Tried all different ways to get it to work with no luck. Went back to Windows 8.1 and keep it off line (doing Windows 10 offline updates was a pain too - my Internet is not very good at all. Download updates from the library wifi onto the Linux laptop and bring it home). Since then have had no issues.