Disable This PC is eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 10

Disable This PC is eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 10

If you’re receiving a pop-up on your Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 client that tells you that This PC is eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 10, then you’re probably running an OEM version of Windows. If this is happening at work and you know you should have a version of Windows Volume License, then you might have found a client wrongly imaged as Windows 10 is free to be upgraded only on OEM version of the OS (at least until today 17th of March 2016). Check out this article about Check what type of Windows License is installed.

Either ways, let’s see how we can get rid of This PC is eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 10 prompt. I set up a GPO for it, but I used the registry to make the change and not any Policy Template.

this_pc_is_eligible_for_a_free_upgrade_to_Windows_10

These are the two Registry Keys you will need to add in order to stop this from prompting again:

Subkey: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate
DWORD value: DisableOSUpgrade = 1

Subkey: HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Gwx
DWORD value: DisableGwx = 1

How I configured my GPO through Group Policy Management Editor

I created a brand new GPO and called it DisableOSUpgrade to match one of the DWORD. As I said, I configured it to update the registry of the local machine rather than selecting an existing policy. To do that, navigate through Computer Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Registry.

Simply right click on Registry > New > Registry Item.

gpo_new_registryItem

I then selected Update as the action required (this will create the key if it doesn’t exist or update it if it does). The rest is self explanatory:

  • Hive:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
  • Key Path: SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate
  • Value Name: DisableOSUpgrade
  • Value type: REG_DWORD
  • Value data: 1

Obviously you’ll have to do the same for the other key (New > Registry Item):

  • Action: Update
  • Hive:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
  • Key Path: Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Gwx
  • Value Name: DisableGwx
  • Value type: REG_DWORD
  • Value data: 1

This is how it will look like.

gpo_disableosupgrade-disablegwx

As I applied this to the root of the domain and didn’t want it to be applied on Servers, I’ve set the WMI Filtering to Workstation WMI Filter.

GPO - WMI Filtering Workstation - WMI Filter

I recommend you having a look at Microsoft’s official KB on this here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351

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