Need A Bit Of Help..

Once you've got hold of the w7 media, must be same version as you had eg same as what your key is for.

Reboot PC and enter BIOS, change boot order according to whether w7 is on bootable USB or DVD.

Save BIOS changes and reboot.

Follow w7 install, you can select the same hdd that currently has w10 on but choose to delete it's partitions so it shows one lump of unallocated space and hit continue.

At some point it will ask for a product key so enter your w7 key.

When you're back into w7 let it do some of the upgrades, I think it needs to have at least upgraded to service pack 1 (SP1) and needs to have activated before doing the in place upgrade to w10.

Once it upgrades to w10 you also need to wait until it has activated and then if you want you can then do a fresh install (custom install I think is how it is termed in the installer, 2nd option down).
 
Sounds like you had an oem version of w7 so that's odd that it has activated on a different pc since. If it were a retail licence then the MS site should have enabled you to redownload although that may have only applied to physical retail copies eg boxed copies.
 
As far as I know? I followed the steps in your first post, pressed custom and chose my SSD to install it on.

I don't have that option, already looked at that, this is so frustrating :(
 
You need someone you can borrow a w7 disc from that is the same version as you had.

Or

Try MS support and see if they will swap your w7 key for a w10 key so you can activate then your fresh install.
 
In that case if you fire up the old pc does it have a recovery partition or any pre installed app on it so you can burn a recovery disc from that old pc?
 
Alternatively you could try connecting the drive out of the old pc to the new pc and see if it will boot from it. If it does you can try doing the w10 upgrade on it whilst it's in your new pc. As long as it works to get the upgrade done and activated you can disconnect it again then and reconnect you're newer drive that already has w10 on and hope it then activates.
 
Some prebuilt systems come with their own software for creating recovery media. If it does then there should be something aptly named in the start menu somewhere. Otherwise it's worth a try if it will boot in the new system.
 
Last edited:
Probably not as it will most likely have an OEM version of the OS on it. Same goes for the PC in the garage, if it's OEM then it becomes end of life along with the hardware it came with.

I think it's highly likely that your prebuilt system in the garage has an OEM OS on it and thus that license would only be any good for that PC.

If your old OS is OEM and the PC you're building now doesn't have the same motherboard then you need to buy a new license. You can buy a new W7 OEM license if you're happy for it to die with the new PC or buy a new retail license of W7 or 8 or 8.1 which is probably cheaper to do than buying W10 as you can still do a free upgrade from any of those. If you go down the retail license path you will be able to reuse the OS on a new system when you no longer need it to be on your current new system.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom