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Win 8 Pro upgrade jumps from $40 to $200 come February 1

Existing Windows licensees have until January 31 to get Windows 8 Pro on the cheap. After that, the promo price vanishes and upgrade costs head upward.

Headshot of Mary Jo Foley
Headshot of Mary Jo Foley
Mary Jo Foley
Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 30 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008). She also is the cohost of the "Windows Weekly" podcast on the TWiT network.
Mary Jo Foley
When Microsoft announced last year a "limited time offer" for Windows 8 upgrade pricing, some thought -- or at least hoped -- the discounted price might be indefinite.

Microsoft officials announced on January 18 that this will not be the case.

After January 31, the $40 upgrade price will end. Starting February 1, the Windows 8 upgrade (from previous Windows home/consumer SKUs) will cost $120. The Windows 8 Pro upgrade will cost $200.

Currently, Microsoft is charging $40 for an upgrade license to Windows 8 Pro from Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7.

Testers who've been working with Windows 8 preview builds also have been eligible for the $40 upgrade price. The Windows 8 preview builds (Developer Preview, Consumer Preview, and Release Preview) all expired earlier this week. After that time, users with those builds will notice that Windows 8 will restart every hour "until they've installed a released (RTM) version of Windows," a Microsoft representative confirmed earlier this week.

Here's information on what users upgrading from XP, Vista, and Windows 7 can expect to migrate (and not) when upgrading to Windows 8.

This story originally appeared on ZDNet under the headline "Microsoft's Windows 8 upgrade promotion really is ending on January 31."