If you’ve reserved a copy of Windows 10 but haven’t gotten the upgrade prompt yet, here’s a secret: you can skip the line and upgrade right now.


If you’re just looking to upgrade your computer—not do a clean install—you don’t need to wait for your spot in line. Just follow these steps:

Back up all your data first! As with any upgrade, we recommend backing up before continuing. Once you’re ready to upgrade, head to this page Select the “Upgrade This PC” option and click Next. Let the Creation Tool run through its process. It should do almost everything automatically from here on out.


After a few minutes, your computer will reboot and run the upgrade. When it finishes, you should find that Windows 10 is installed and, if you head to Settings > About, it shows as fully activated. Sweet!

Note: We’ve only tested this with a computer that had a copy reserved; we don’t expect it would work if you haven’t reserved a copy of Windows 10 for the computer you’re upgrading. And, like we said before, this likely won’t work for clean installations—only upgrades.



As with all things “unsupported”, tread lightly. If you have any doubts about this workaround, you’re best off waiting for the official upgrade notification. (Update: Apparently, this method is quietly, but officially supported by Microsoft!)

Thanks to subin, Travis Knight, and the other commenters who alerted us to this trick!