You know - current computer on Win 7 retail, upgrade to win 10, but then change computers. Is the retail license retained and thus transferable to the new computer or is it tied to the original hardware thing.
I don't have the definitive 'I've done it, it works' answer. But I did get through to MS support, who seem to suggest it should be OK, albeit might need activation assistance (although seemed to be swimming a bit through tech support misunderstanding so YMMV).
scaryjim (20-01-2016)
Well thats straightforward then...
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Everything that I had read suggested that the only way to use a free upgrade of Windows 10 was to install the original version of Windows and then upgrade to it, unless you're reinstalling Windows 10 onto exactly the same hardware configuration.
It would make sense with a retail Windows 7 license that you could install it on a different piece of hardware, and then upgrade to Windows 10.
I've seen nothing (until today) to suggest that you could use a non-Windows 10 key to activate Windows 10 directly.
That MS support seems a bit all over the place at times. And as both of you have said, at the very least it's clear as mud.
I recently tried to install a windows 8 license on a machine that I had lost the disk for. Gave up and bought another license because it was it was a bloody nightmare.
Microsoft are sooooooo bad at customer service.
Could you not download the ISO file? I did this recently without any problems, from here:Originally Posted by Biscuit
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/home
Its Win 8, not 8.1. Thats the big issue!
There is loads of guides on the net about using a Win 8 key for Win 8.1 but I couldnt get anything to work.
*Duplicate*
That's strange - mine was a Windows 8 key, & it installed & activated perfectly on a Windows 8.1 ISO...
How does it work if you want to fresh install windows 10 if you only have a win 7 key?
You fresh install windows 10 and activate using win 7 key.
Why\how win 10 activates can be strange at times as in another thread I wanted to see AAMOI if win 10 would clean install on my computer, I already had win 7 on it....anyway in the beginning of the win 10 install it asks for a key and I clicked "haven't got one"...well at the end it was activated with digital intitlement.....the only explanition I can think of is:- in the clean install it looked at my HD and saw win 7 was activated and it was happy.
2nd computer gigabyte P965ds3p, 7770 E2140@2.9ghz, corsair HX520 6 years stable, replaced now with E8400@3.9ghz and will overclock more when I'm bored.
My Win 8 key isn't accepted during a Win 8.1 fresh install, instead I use a generic 8.1 key matching the edition I have (e.g. Windows 8.1 Pro Retail). Once installed, I punch my Win 8 key in to the activation wizard when it asks for it, job done.
On a separate note, I'm going back to uni in Febuary to do a masters and naturally to make the most out of the extortionate tuition fees, I've already picked DreamSpark clean of all the good bits. That's 12 Win 7/8 licences I've now scrounged from MSDNAA and Dreamspark in the last 7 years
As I now have a comfortable surplus of keys, I'll upgrade one to Win 10 to see what happens and will report back once I have results.
EDIT: For future reference...
I left my laptop with a fresh Win 7 install for three hours to update so I could upgrade to Win 10, nothing happened except it sat at 100% CPU and RAM usage while absolutely thrashing the HDD.
Needed to apply this patch, noting this isn't he first time I needed this patch to update a fresh Win 7 install :/
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3102810
Last edited by DDY; 22-01-2016 at 02:45 AM.
My testing is complete and Windows 10 will apparently accept and activate with any Windows 7 or 8/8.1 key
Regardless if the key has been used on other machines, in-place Win 10 upgraded or not, OEM or retail. I deliberately installed Win 10 on machines that have very different hardware to which the 7/8 keys were previously used on. Drives were wiped clean between tests.
The only question which still bothers me, will this still work after the free Win 10 offer expires?
EDIT: One thing to note, I did have to call MS activation for two activations, that's with the Win 7 and Win 8 retail keys, both were not in-place upgraded, but were themselves used to activate Win7/Win8 installs a few hours before trying them again on a fresh Win 10 installs on different hardware. Everything else activated automatically.
Last edited by DDY; 22-01-2016 at 02:11 PM.
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