Microsoft reported on May 5, Thursday that free upgrades from old versions of its operating system to Windows 10 will end on July 29. The tech giant is keeping its promise that the offer of a no-charge upgrade from Windows 7 or 8 would last just one year, and that date marks Windows 10's first anniversary. After the summer date Windows users will have to pay $119 to update their OS to Windows 10 Home or install it on a new device.   

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Microsoft made the bold move of offering the free upgrade after Windows 8 failed to excite consumers and developers. On the other hand, the latest Windows version is running on 300 million devices, which is 100 million more units than in January.  

Windows 10 has been installed faster than all past versions of the Microsoft OS, according to The Wall Street Journal. In addition, WSJ Personal Tech columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler discovered that it was a wise upgrade for most people using older versions of Windows.   

Microsoft reported some other facts related to Windows 10. The Cortana digital assistant has answered over 6 billion questions, and Windows users spent more than 63 billion minutes using the Edge browser in March, according to Engadget.

In the past it's been a shrewd move to wait until Microsoft has fixed bugs and optimized its newest OS. However, Windows 10 was quite stable at launch, and it is possible the platform could get excellent native apps in the future. The OS is certainly a step up from Windows 8.

Historically the release of a new version of Windows was followed by a spike in desktop/laptop sales. However, PC sales continue to drop to all-time lows, which in part forced Microsoft to start charging for Windows upgrades.  

In related news, in March Microsoft released a patch for PCS running Windows 7 that caused computers with Asus motherboards to crash in some conditions.  

However, when Microsoft changed the patch's status to "recommended" on March 12, all Windows 7 users with Automatic Updates received the software fix. This resulted in more Asus PCs freezing and sometimes not booting up.  

Here are hidden features for Windows 10: