Win10 Upgrade - Will this mess things up?

Namsnik

Namsnik

Namsnik

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27 Jan 2007
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I just realised that I have not upgraded all my licences.

I have a Win7 OEM licence. I believe that this is linked to the motherboard and CPU both of which I still have in use.
However on that PC I think I did a clean install of Win 8.1 and then 10 based on a non-OEM license. The product ID reported by Belarc does not have OEM in it.

So, subject to your advice I plan to:
  • Remove my existing SSD boot disk from the PC and put in a different disk.
  • clean install Win 10 using the OEM product key
  • take an image using macrium reflect
  • put my original SSD back and remove the disk with the original OEM windows
  • At a later time I will use my non-OEM licence on a different PC but am hoping that I don't need to do that today.

Q1 Will that secure me an extra licence or will it risk screwing up my non-OEM licence (eg if microsoft link it to my hardware)?

Q2 Do I need to register the OEM windows 10 with a different microsoft account?

Q3 I have another Win 8 or 8.1 licence that I haven't upgraded but I don't know which is the unused key. I have a variety of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 keys can I tell which have already been used to support an upgrade to windows 10?

Thanks for your advice.
 
nkata said:
OEM is linked to the hardware.

You do not score an additional licence.
Click to expand...
I think I may not have been clear. I am sure that I will free up a licence if I do it the right way.

I have an existing retail* copy of Win10 on 'the hardware' so I imagine that I can move it to a new pc.
I can install a clean copy of Win10 on "the hardware" today using my Win 7 OEM licence for that hardware.

Eventually I want to use the "retail" licence on a new pc that I have not yet bought

I guess my question was Must I move that "retail" licence first so that I don't confuse microsoft by temporarily having two separately licensed copies of windows 10 registered to the same hardware?




*"retail" - I guess you would call it a retail copy - it originated from Win8 bought direct from microsoft for £24.99 which I think was a special price because I had taken part in the Win8 customer release preview, subsequently upgraded to 8.1 and finally to Win 10).
 
what you suggested worked'ish for me
- have a dual boot with oem pro 7 that is upgraded to 10 in another partition (both working but strictly need to decide which to keep after 30 days)
- have a retail 7 home token used on another computer (which I infrequently use and is inconvenient to update - no spare disc space)
- made a new partition on first system installed 10 and gave it the home 7 key this activated, so I retrieved the token w/produkey, which is then reserved for when/if I update second system.
Did not yet check retail 7 home is still working on other system, but the oem 10 is still working.
I will not move this retail home 10 key to a new machine and try and use it simultaenously with old retail home 7 (effectively what you propose) but it is 'reserved'
took about 30mins
 
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