IT pro for over 20 years here.

Having the latest and greatest software isn't a big deal for most people, but it is important to always have software that is still receiving security updates from the manufacturer. Windows 7 was very good and still works well, but you need the security fixes so upgrading is important.

Doing the upgrade is generally easy and seamless although it can take a while so set aside some time and get a good book. The Key though is to make sure that your system is powerful enough to handle windows 10.
Manufacturers LOVE to sell new computers that are low on memory because 90+% of people will replace them when they get too slow rather than upgrade the hardware.

For windows 10 I would recommend at least 16GB of RAM and a minimum of 64GB of free space on your harddrive.

If your 5 year old machine doesn't meet those specs you would probably be best served with replacing it.
If you aren't sure about the specs on your computer, you can post the brand, model # and serial # here and I can probably find them for you.

You can download the iso media from Microsoft and burn it to a DVD.

I’m the OP of this thread and wanted to follow up on the update to Windows 10. Thankfully it worked for me. I did back up my entire C drive to several places just in case, but the update From 7 to 10 worked and kept my existing computer and programs intact with a few exceptions. I had to reinstall the Microsoft office software and play around with Norton Antivirus to get it working again.

Yes I did it last week and it worked well and no additinoal cost. Just beware it takes a while -- like hours -- with lots of rebooting and so on. I had to uninstall 1-2 programs that I hadn't used in years anyway.

I did mine overnight and went to bed and let it do its thing.

A few points:

Windows 7 will continue to work after this month. There just won't be any public bug fix or security patches. This may not be a problem for you, so leaving things as-is might be a viable option.

Five years is roughly the expected lifespan of typical PC desktops. If you depend upon this computer, now might be a good time to consider replacing it.

Are you running 32-bit or 64-bit Windows? This could make a difference in what is supported in the future. If you are running 64-bit Windows 7, then the chances are good that your software will run properly under Windows 10.

You should have good backups, anyway. If not, start with that.

Has anyone successfully updated their PC from windows 7 to windows 10 on their own and did it work?

My PC is about 5 years old, is still working fine but it is still running windows 7. I need to either update it to windows 10 or buy a new computer with windows 10 and transfer everything from my old computer to the new one, which I don’t really want to do. And before mid January when Microsoft ends support for windows 7. I’m just trying to figure out if I’d have a successful outcome updating my existing computer and still have my software functional. I’d make sure to back up my important files to the cloud and external drives just in case.