Windows 10 Upgrade

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Trench
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Windows 10 Upgrade

Post by Trench »

Just wanted to pass along some information for those who are considering or performing a Windows 10 upgrade.

Microsoft is saying that for the first year, any device currently running an activated Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 license is eligible to receive a free Windows 10 license.

In order to "receive" this Windows 10 license, you must perform an upgrade of the existing Windows 7 or Windows 8.x operating system. Meaning using the "Get Windows 10" application that was pushed out to Windows 7 and Windows 8.x, or by having a Windows 10 DVD and performing the upgrade that way.

Once you have upgraded, Microsoft will show your Windows 10 installation as successfully activated. Microsoft has recorded the hardware "fingerprint" of your machine, and is now activating the Windows 10 license based on that hardware identification.

After successfully performing the upgrade and confirming Windows 10 shows as activated, now you can re-format the hard drive (or replace the hard drive) if you want to, and perform a clean (non-upgrade) installation of Windows 10 using a Windows 10 DVD. Anyone can download the .ISO files for making a Windows 10 DVD directly from Microsoft.

When prompted for what your activation key is, simply press the "Skip" and "Do this later" buttons to bypass entering a key. Microsoft has not actually provided you with a unique activation key for your "free" Windows 10 license; you simply need the generic key Windows installs by default when you leave the key blank.

When your clean Windows 10 installation contacts the Microsoft activation server, it's the hardware fingerprint that is ultimately going to cause your Windows 10 activation to be successful for the clean installation on that machine. But only because you successfully entitled yourself to the Windows 10 license by performing an upgrade on that same machine before you attempted to perform a clean installation.

This also means that even if you don't plan to move to Windows 10 soon, if you have the ability to perform a complete backup and restore of your existing Windows installation, you may want to go ahead and perform the Windows 10 upgrade on your machine(s) now. And then just restore / revert back to the Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 operating system you prefer to stick with for now.

As such, the device will be registered with Microsoft as being entitled to a Windows 10 license (for free), even though you intend to continue running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 for now. You can always wait and do all of this later; it just may cost you $100 to buy a Windows 10 license if you don't upgrade during Microsoft's grace period.

-Trench
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Trench
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Re: Windows 10 Upgrade

Post by Trench »

Just some additional information to throw in here, since it was mentioned in the first post that after upgrading from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 successfully, you can then format your machine and install Windows 10 clean and still be automatically activated with the free Windows 10 license:

One scenario in which this /won't/ achieve the exact same Windows 10 entitlement is with regard to Windows Media Center and DVD playback.

If you have a Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Home Premium with Windows Media Center included, or if you installed the initially-free or later-paid Windows Media Center update for Windows 8.1, when you upgrade this machine to Windows 10 Microsoft automatically entitles the machine to a free copy of the Windows DVD Player app from the Microsoft Store.

This is because Windows Media Center is no longer available in Windows 10, and also because there isn't any built-in video DVD playback support in Windows 10. For users upgrading from a machine which had Windows Media Center installed, rather than making them pay US$15 for the Microsoft Windows DVD Player app, Microsoft entitles the machine to this app for free.

But if you then format your machine and install Windows 10 clean, this entitlement is lost. So if video DVD playback is important to you, either you will need to keep the upgraded Windows 10 installation, or be prepared to buy the Microsoft or other third-party DVD playback application, or find some compatible freeware that uses a (potentially unlicensed) decode for DVD playback.

More details in the Microsoft Getting the Windows DVD Player app and DVD playback options for Windows documents.

-Trench
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