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Microsoft: Here's what you'll cough up for Windows 10 next year

Retail pricing revealed

Most Windows users will be eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 10 when it ships on July 29, but they'll only have a year to claim it. After that, they'll need to pay – and Microsoft has now revealed how much.

Essentially, full retail copies of Windows 10 will be priced the same as Windows 8, the software giant confirmed to El Reg via email on Monday.

A copy of Windows 10 Home will retail for $119, while a single license of Windows 10 Pro will go for $199.

There will also be a Windows 10 Pro Pack available that will upgrade a Windows 10 machine from the Home edition to the Pro edition and will retail for $99.

That last item may even prove popular with some customers who avail themselves of the free upgrade from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. The upgrades only get you to the version of Windows 10 that corresponds to the version of Windows you had already – so if you have Windows 7 Home now, the free upgrade will only get you to Windows 10 Home, not Pro.

Pricing for the Education and Enterprise editions of Windows 10 gets trickier, as they will only be available through volume licensing programs. Copies of Windows 8.1 Enterprise will not be eligible for the free upgrade, however.

Microsoft says the retail versions of Windows 10 will be available online and in stores, although it's not clear whether the boxed copies will come with install media or just a card with a license key for the downloadable version.

Discounts will likely be available. Online retailer NewEgg has had a page up listing OEM versions of Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro at $109 and $149, respectively.

Meanwhile, Redmond has been urging Windows users to take advantage of the free upgrades ASAP, even going as far as to nag them with an app in the taskbar that lets them "reserve" their upgrades.

Microsoft has confirmed that you'll still be able to get the free upgrade whether or not you reserve a copy, but it seems the software giant reckons it's better to start pushing you now than risk the kind of slow adoption rates it saw with Windows 8. ®

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