Adding in here, that W10 Upgrades are not Free after July 29, 2016; so that will cost you unless you attempt the W10 Assistive Technologies upgrade, but that will only get you to W10 Home, not W10 Pro. If you go that way, the W10 AT free upgrade will not get you to W10 Pro and you'll have to buy a download or disc to get there.
And oh, by the way, you are absolutely correct, OS type upgrades are very certainly NOT risk free; as most of my Clients who attempt this scramble their computer and have to pay me to fix it. Additionally, any kind of OS upgrade whether in your same OS family (W7 Home->W7 Pro for example) or to W10 any version comes with risks. It's actually best to pay a licensed Tech to do this for you and there can be many...