Activating Windows 10 upgrades

they made the activation changes as an easy path, for folks like me, who want to try out 10 and might get hooked (however I have some hardware soundcards/scanners that have no w10 drivers) and could not face having to perform all these slow updates (even make a fresh w7 install) to get the free invite.

I did not know, but even if they have given out some w10 retail (exclusivley for win 7/8 retail license holders ?) it may just mean they have an enormous support burden as folks ring them up, so they just handed out freebies, as opposed to there is something flawed about the authorization strategy that will persist after 29th.

Also ms do not want ongoing support cost of migrating customers, and someone on w10 has some monetary value (thread on ms invading privacy)
Ability to lock license on hardware courtesy of cpus having unique ID's, is improving also, to ensure media copyright security.
Having a big database recording 'this hardware id is authorised' seems consistant. - big brother
I do not know to what extent w10 can provide a secure media delivery mechanism such that having a w10 license will become more valuable again versus android or linux - prices for retail 10 may increase after 29th ?
 
Just wanted to vent.... My laptop has essentially forced the upgrade! I knew I should have deselected the check for updates option.

So frustrating, didn't want to upgrade.
 
Thanks , interesting some credible sources following the cnet article through to the MS pages

the feedback hub link there did not work for me, but it seems that linking your digital license to you MS account will be
useful

Some of the comments of the inssiders are more probing than cnet saying

found this on the whats new build 14372

Microsoft also indicates that there will be a few cases where users will not be able to re-activate Windows 10 at all. In these cases, Windows 10 will not re-activate because the “type of device you’re activating doesn’t match the type of device you linked to your digital license.” Microsoft does not go into details to what degree a device would have to deviate, but if you change out most of the hardware in your device, Windows 10 might perceive it to be a completely different device, and thus, not re-activate Windows 10.

Only Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro editions will be able to be re-activated in this way. There will also be a limit to the number of times you can re-activate Windows on the device although Microsoft does not indicate the maximum number of attempts that can be made. Using the Windows Refresh Tool to clean install Windows 10 will not help re-activate Windows 10 on your hardware-altered device, so don’t bother even trying.

If you decide to make hardware changes to your device in the future, you can always use your MSA connected to your Windows 10 digital license to re-activate your device with the Windows 10 Activation Troubleshooter

.......

Probably the key driver in all these activations will be the motherboard as Microsoft would consider it a new system. I suspect hard drives, video cards, ssd's will not be a problem as long as you don't do it all at once. Microsoft needs to be more forthcoming on what triggers a non activation and they should do it before they release the anniversary edition to the public next month. I am hoping if you just reinstall on the exact system won't count. I remember when I had Windows XP I had to reinstalling the whole operating system every three months or so due man errors. Eventually Windows XP would not activate and I had to call Microsoft to explain what was going on. I don't want to go back that route with Windows 10.
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so even the people in the insider builds are a bit in the dark on how it works !
 
Glaucus said:
is It Troll actually a troll. or just clueless.
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Neither, just speaking from personal experience.

Glaucus said:
Why have ms support guve n out w10 retail licenses for those having activation issues that support haven't been able to solve..
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They didn't for me. My Win 10 (free upgrade from 8.1 Pro Retail) would not activate following a system upgrade (I didn't expect it to). MS Support could not fix it and so injected a new key. Checking this afterwards revealed this to be an OEM key.

Please explain then how neither of these Windows 10 activations are hardware locked; evidence indicates otherwise.
 
hardware linked, not locked.

if you need any more prove, just read the new activation process in the anniversary update.

ms support is useless you obviusley didn't go in for armed and stood your ground.
even monkeys would be better.

plenty of people have got keys, even on this forum.
 
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Glaucus said:
hardware linked, not locked.
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Linked or locked is just semantics. The result is the same. A key which will only activate on a specific hardware hash.

Glaucus said:
plenty of people have got keys, even on this forum.
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Did they actually check they were retail rather than OEM? It took me 40 minutes of chat, remote support and a phone call just to get that. Issuing an OEM key certainly fits with the "free for the lifetime of the device" terms of the upgrade offer.

The anniversary changes sound good. It will be interesting to see if this will permit device changes for free upgrade licences after the offer has finished. Not sure it will do anything for my replacement OEM key though.
 
Glaucus said:
yes it was retail keys
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Recently? Got a link? I think MS wised-up and switched to OEM keys.

Glaucus said:
no it isn't semantics, as the new activation process in the anniversary update proves.
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I can see the new account/device linking troubleshooter helping for component changes which break activation. But what about a full system upgrade; i.e. a new "device"? Is that going to work for free upgrade licences?
 
I am playing catchup - per earlier advice in this thread, I will upgrade (on 2nd drive) to windows 10 activating from win 7 key, and then revert to win 7 boot, so effectively a dual boot scenario with both OS's activated.

[ I have now understood this is not stictly within T&C's, but can be justfied under "I am seeing if Win 10 works for me"

What about upgrading the software? The software covered by this agreement is an upgrade to your existing operating system software, so the upgrade replaces the original software that you are upgrading. You do not retain any rights to the original software after you have upgraded and you may not continue to use it or transfer it in any way. This agreement governs your rights to use the upgrade software and replaces the agreement for the software from which you upgraded.
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]

my questions :
- does the dual boot genuinely work with both win7 and win 10 simultaneously activated ?
- will it continue to function after July 29th (or is it clear MS may do something that would definitively disable either win 7 or win 10 ... or might they now ;))
 
jpaul said:
- does the dual boot genuinely work with both win7 and win 10 simultaneously activated ?
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This is not really a dual boot as only one O/S is bootable at a time. You are effectively rolling back the Win 10 upgrade (in a more streamlined way) which is perfectly legitimate. You should have no activation problems.

jpaul said:
- will it continue to function after July 29th (or is it clear MS may do something that would definitively disable either win 7 or win 10 ... or might they now ;))
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All we can go on is what MS have said, which is that once claimed, the free upgrade is valid for the lifetime of the device. They will not disable Win 7/8 as you have a right to continue to run them. I suppose it is possible that they could deactivate unused Win 10 upgrades that have not been online for a long period. But nothing has been said to indicate this.
 
IT Troll said:
This is not really a dual boot as only one O/S is bootable at a time. You are effectively rolling back the Win 10 upgrade (in a more streamlined way) which is perfectly legitimate. You should have no activation problems.


All we can go on is what MS have said, which is that once claimed, the free upgrade is valid for the lifetime of the device. They will not disable Win 7/8 as you have a right to continue to run them. I suppose it is possible that they could deactivate unused Win 10 upgrades that have not been online for a long period. But nothing has been said to indicate this.
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Well no, not really.
Once you upgrade and once the 30 day "roll-back" time is passed then you are no longer entitled to run Windows 7 or 8 as you upgraded your licence to 10.
OEM licenses (which I'm assuming the majority here are using) don't automatically come with previous version rights - retail and most volume licenses do, so you can have a Windows 10 license and run 7 etc.

So if you upgrade your 7 or 8 to 10 and then keep it for 30 days, then the old 7 or 8 licence effectively no longer exists.
 
Stoofa Thanks, yes the upgrade to win 10 on a 2nd partition is predominately to reserve and try out win 10 . I doubt I will be able to set up an efficient win 10 environment in 30days and will continue to use win 7 most of the time (and win 10 in private time at weekends) - but as you say I really need to decide 10 or 7

Also saw below -
so I could find myself without an activated win7 -
even if folks are now using win7 in the manner I plan MS could after July 29th prevent(deactivate) the return to win 10 after re-using win7 (they have assumed you have rolled back and revoke 10), or prevent the win 7 working if you were using win10 beyond the end of August (when the roll back period would end for those who took up the offer at the last minute)


There is no technical reason why Windows 10 can't dual boot, but Andre is right - LICENSING issues make it so that the upgrade to replace your existing OS is free, but it's not free to obtain Windows 10 in addition to your existing OS. It's a trade-in program.

If you want to dual-boot, legally you buy an additional Windows 10 license to add to your Windows 7 or 8 license. Each OS in a dual boot situation must be licensed.

I'm not sure exactly what controls Microsoft will put in place to disable the original OS if you attempt to dual boot it from a backup image, so it might be possible to do so, but it will violate the licensing agreement.
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personally when I set up win 7, took several week to sort out blue tooth drivers for AptX, also express card interface drivers (for sound-cards) but that maybe atypical - changing OS maybe worse than moving house / divorce etc. :)
 
jpaul said:
Stoofa Thanks, yes the upgrade to win 10 on a 2nd partition is predominately to reserve and try out win 10.
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A much safer option is install 10 on a separate disk. You can disconnect your Win 7/8 drive, perform a fresh install of 10 on the spare drive, then swap your Win 7/8 drive back in. So the two installations never see each other. This effectively achieves an upgrade and rollback without the time or risk associated with these.
 
IT Troll said:
A much safer option is install 10 on a separate disk. You can disconnect your Win 7/8 drive, perform a fresh install of 10 on the spare drive, then swap your Win 7/8 drive back in. So the two installations never see each other. This effectively achieves an upgrade and rollback without the time or risk associated with these.
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Just to confirm that I did this today with my HTPC and it worked faultlessly. I just disabled the internal drives in the BIOS and connected a drive externally using the eSATA port. Installed and activated Win 10, then disconnected and re-enabled the Win 8 disk.
 
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