I am not sure what you mean... is this a question about if you should upgrade? Or how you do an upgrade? At the moment it isn't really clear what you want.
From what to what? You can't upgrade from 7 to 8.1, in that case you'll have to format the harddrive and install the new OS, from 7/8.1 to 10 you'll have to download the image from M$ and if you have a valid key you can upgrade your current OS. Guess other people might know more else you can Google and there should be 20 bazillion youtube links and howto sites that can help with it.
Because Windows 8.x is end of life and no longer sold therefore it's not a valid upgrade path unless you get installation media and a product key. Windows 10 is the current version hence a valid upgrade target, and the first time that Microsoft has allowed an OS upgrade for free. In the past saying going from 7 to 8 would have cost you a few dollars.
Is that what you are talking about (Microsift has allowed an OS upgrade for free)？ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/locations/windows-10-upgrade And for the paid method from 7 to 8,i have not found anything yet,but how about it? It is also free. https://www.windows10passwordreset.com/free-upgrade-to-windows-10.html
Windows 8.x is no longer sold so there is no legal upgrade path to it from version 7 at this point in time. In fact Windows 8.x is end of life as of January last year so Microsoft are no longer providing updates and bug fixed (outside of security related ones ). Windows 7 extended support finishes early next year so it won't even recieve security updates. The articles you have linked above talk about going from windows 7 and 8.x to windows 10. Not 7 to 8.x. TLR the only two options for you are a) stick with Windows 7 or move to Windows 10.
I made the jump to WinX last year and it went well. I’m actually quite pleased with it. They fixed all the horrible mistakes with Win8 and brought back the rock solid reliability of Win7. These days, 64 bit is the only way to go. Many programs are deprecating 32 bit capabilities and emulation is getting wonky.
That would be the best upgrade, also one that has niggles and needs some adaptation here and there but I've done it, switched to Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop and I've never looked back.
That's rather difficult if you are used to Win. I have 3 machines, 2 with old-ish Win OSs and one Linux, and at work I use Win10. While Linux is a nicely slim and trim OS and its surface is getting better, gradually, I still find the command structure very difficult. Propably for copyright reasons Linux uses a shell syntax rather different from that of Windows. It's highly annoying having to use the Thesaurus for every single command. Example: delete = del in WIN, rm (remove) in Linux list = list (WIN) // ls (Linux) Annoyingly, commands like cd (change directory) or exit are identical in both OSs so that you can never be certain whether the commands you are used to will work or not. Linux could/would be fun if someone would write a Win/Linux shell dictionary. On the plus side: it doesn't spy on you like Win10 does and it uses a fraction of Win's space, leaving you more memory and storage space.
I understand entirely. I used Unix for many years before I used DOS/Windows so using Linux is somewhat of a breeze for me.
nothing to do with copyright and everything to with shell syntax being a big part the Unix operating environment and while Linux isn't a Unix, the vast majority of it's characteristics were copied and tools ported.
A Win/Linux shell dictionary was mentioned - there are several available online if one searches. They're not going to be exhaustive though as there are many shells available under Linux with different syntaxes for conditionals, loops, case statements, and the like. I assume equivalents are provided for the simple (and I assume obsolete?) DOS command shell rather than the much richer PowerShell that is now prominent in Windows. Simple command mappings are trivial: ls <-> dir, cp <-> copy, rm <-> del, and so on.
part of the prob is possibly that when I started using computers the only language being used for all purposes was BASIC. Compilers were not yet invented. I then learned qBASIC, C, C+ C++, Pascal, Milan, DOS, PHP, HTML and am currently learning java and python. At school I learned English and Latin and afterwards a bit of Turkish, Dutch and Italian. My RAM is full At my age it's confusing and stressful to learn yet another language - regardless of whether it's a spoken language, a programming language or a shell language. While older people learn grammar easily it's remembering the vocabulary that gives us immense trouble. I think I'm simply getting too old for new languages and structures and therefore have trouble using Linux. But we should return to the OS poster's question. By now @northsouth will presumably be pretty desparate with our techno babble. Let me sum up what we have so far: Linux is a good alternative because it doesn't have all these bugs and spyware that reports everything back to MS. However, if you have installed a lot of additional software and want to keep it, you will have to stick with Windows. An upgrade from Win 7 to Win 8 is not possible - you'll need a completely new installation. Upgrading from 7 to 10 is technically possible but an installation from scratch runs smoother and more stable. Check Windows' website for free upgrades - occasionally (alas, only rarely) they offer them. However, it's mandatory that you already run an authorized Windows copy and have it registered with them. If you use a second hand computer that might pose a problem. In that case your only opportunity is to buy an official Windows copy, install and register it.