Last month we discussed how Microsoft was going to approach piracy of its upcoming Windows 10 operating system. The software giant revealed that while those who have pirated Windows 7 and 8 will be eligible to upgrade to Windows 10 for free during the first year of launch, they will not be upgraded to a genuine license. The questions remained though as to how an unlicensed version of Windows 10 would operate, and now, we may have the answers.
A Microsoft support engineer recently posted the expiration dates of the current Windows 10 Technical Preview builds, which also revealed that eventually, Windows 10 will stop booting. The process starts with warnings of the imminent expiration. After the expiration date has passed, Windows will spontaneously restart every few hours. 15 days after the expiration date has passed, and assuming you survived that long without having been driven mad by the restarts, Windows will stop booting, effectively rendering your PC OS-less.
Keep in mind that this info is related to the Technical Preview, we don’t know whether the same will apply to the final build of Windows 10 but it is a possibility. The latest Windows Technical Preview (build 10061) expires on the 2nd of October 2015, and users will have approximately two weeks to upgrade before it stops booting.
The good news is that the majority of WinBeta readers are running licensed copies of Windows, so this shouldn’t concern you at all. So long as you upgrade in time, your PC should remain fully functional. Let us know in the comments whether you think stopping the OS from booting is a good move.
