>>I will buy Windows 10 Pro Download (from Amazon) for $180 and see it takes me. I will create an image of the C: partition first.
>
>Before shelling out to MS I'd check if the free update from 7 to 10 is still available - esp. as W11 threatens.
>Follow Tores advice for a new SSD, but twice original size.

As far as I know, Microsoft never bothered to disable the free upgrade option after the free upgrade period had officially expired. If I'm not mistaken the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool still has the option for "upgrade this computer" when downloading the Windows 10 installation. I also do recall that I'd done this by selecting the other option to create a "generic" install through the tool to download the installation media (selecting "upgrade a different computer") on one computer and using the downloaded install disc on a different computer to upgrade from Windows 7//8/8.1 to Windows 10. The only downside with this is that you'd be downloading around 5GB of data -- and depending on your Internet service you could encounter throttling (i.e. your Internet speed will get reduced due amount of traffic), or you may get near or exceed data cap (which tends to happen with residential plan with some carriers -- at least that's the case here in the USA).