Windows 10 free upgrade offer ends on July 29th

300 million of us slurped it for free. Anyone left willing to pay US$119/£99.99?

Microsoft has announced that the free all-you-can-eat Windows 10 upgrade buffet will close forever on July 29, and that after that you'll have to pay for all the fun of its latest operating system.

US$119 is the price Redmond has set for the Home version of the operating system. A sales person in a live chat session on the Microsoft online store told us the UK price will be £99.99 while Australians will pay the quaint price of AU$161.10.

Microsoft always promised the free upgrade was not forever, suggesting it would run for a year. The program's been a success: the company today said 300 million devices now run the OS and it looks to have captured between 15 and 20 per cent market share. Windows 8.x has been the big loser, but even Windows 7 use is declining in business.

Redmond's now hustling the holdouts to upgrade in the few remaining weeks Windows 10 will be gratis.

The upgrade program's been quite generous: even a Netbook that shipped with Windows XP qualified for the program, and Windows 10 made it behave rather better than it had for years.

Microsoft says Windows 10's launch has gone better than any it's done for years, too, with many millions signing up for the services it offers and some six billion queries sent Cortana's way since launch. ®