Three days after Microsoft releases Windows 10 to the general public on July 29, I am making a special trip to my Mom’s house to personally upgrade her Windows 8.1 laptop.



I can’t wait, and neither can she. After spending years learning how to get stuff like online banking and email done in Windows XP and Windows 7, she’s been completely flummoxed by the radical changes in Windows 8.1, which removed that familiar Start menu and replaced it with a Start screen.

David Pogue called it “TileWorld” and pretty neatly summarized why my Mom’s not the only one who’s been confused by her Windows PC over the past couple years.

So consider Windows 10 Microsoft’s apology, and listen for the word “familiar,” in the video ads that you’ll see over and over for the next few months. Given the enormous marketing budget Microsoft has put together, you will hear a lot about it unless you check into a monastery at the top of a mountain.

On my week-long road trip, I’ll be visiting a lot of friends and family, and I fully expect to be peppered with questions about Windows 10, with “Should I upgrade?” at the top of the list. Here’s what I’ll be answering.

Here’s what you need to know to decide whether to upgrade.

1. Yes, it’s really a big deal. And yes, it’s really free.

Windows 10 is the next major release of Microsoft Windows. It is also, in a sense, the last major release of Windows, because with Windows 10 you’ll get updates and upgrades automatically, for free, for as long as that device is alive.

And those updates will be free, in an offer that’s good for a full year after that July 29 launch date, on your existing PC, unless you’re one of the few holdouts still clinging to Windows Vista or XP. You already get a deal like that with your smartphone, your web browser, and (ahem) your Mac. Apple stopped charging for upgrades a few years ago. Now your PC is joining the always-up-to-date crowd.

If you are running Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 or Windows 8.1, you’ve probably already seen the Get Windows Now notifications, which began popping up last month. Reserve your copy now, and the new version will download automatically sometime after July 29.

I’ve checked the fine print carefully: There’s no catch, no secret gotcha. This is not a trial version, and you won’t get a bill next year or the year after that.

2. It has a Start menu.

No one knows just how big the I Hate Windows 8 Club is, but I suspect that the guy who developed the most popular Start menu replacement program for Windows 8 probably has two Teslas and might even have earned enough for a private jet by now.

So the mere fact that Windows 10 has a Start menu might be enough to win you back to Windows, or at least convince you to try the upgrade on your PC.

If you do, you’ll make TileWorld vanish. Well, almost. When you first start Windows 10, you’ll find yourself at the familiar (there’s that word again) desktop, where you can click the Start button and find all your old programs, plus a few new ones.