Windows 10: Activating windows 10 after major hardware change help

Too bad you didn't have an Insider Pro edition to upgrade over! That would require seeing the last build just prior to the 10240 build we now run to be installed and activated with the new board in place. Then you could easily upgrade to the 10240 Pro RTM now seen.

I might need to sign up all over again here since the last activity was downloading one of the early DP builds at the top of the year and not getting much change to even get more then a fast look at that on a VM! When still finding I had that saved it would no longer run having expired several months ago!

But in your situation there perhaps grabbing the 10525 Pro build and seeing that activated first would then allow you to slap on the 10240 Pro without any activation problem. Otherwise you need other Pro install to upgrade over or be stuck with 10 Home since that is the upgrade path for you at the moment without buying 10 outright! Here i went for all three editions of 7 grabbing a discount on the Pro edition full version dvd set back in 2010 when needing it for the second build I put together for remote access.

Originally I had went with the Ultimate edition back in October 2009 and later set up a family member with the Home Premium. The upgrade to 10 however won't be seen on the 7 HP case however since the phones lines got messed up while that was on dial-up until possibly cable is put in. That leaves only the 10 Home upgrade there!

So you see you are now in the same boat until finding an alternative like a discounted 8 Pro deal perhaps unless by chance either getting the 10525 on and can then go back for the 10240 Pro or buy a 7 or 8 upgrade cheap! Some places including the place where I found one 7 Pro OEM disk set cheap is now gone and apparently having seen numerous complaints while I had pointed a friend there a few years ago for the old case I passing along as gift. Another place has the 64bit 7 Pro listed available for download where you get sent an email with the product key and links for downloading both the 32bit and 64bit flavors. I don't have any intel on the site itself however and that is going for $67.99 at Purchase Windows 7 Pro 32 Bit with SP1 Dell Disk | Windows 7 Pro 32 Bit

If I was going to need to buy anything now it would simply be going for the full 10 Pro usb stick and calling it a day when not having anything to upgrade from. So if you end up needing to buy the choice is either 10 Pro for $140 someone mentioned on one thread(still haven't seen the price list) or look for a deal on 7 or 8 Pro media. You can still give the download a chance however while that will have to be a clean install since you can't upgrade Home to Pro directly!

 

You guys are probably aware and/or this might be out of date or inaccurate. But never-the-less:

And

Source: http://dellwindowsreinstallationguid...-free-upgrade/

 

With 10 Home on as well as being signed up for the Insider program you should be able to go for the Developer builds. The link for the MS page is seen on the first page at the link there How to use Windows Insider Preview - Microsoft Windows


The guide for getting developer builds however should be looked over if you haven't seen that already on how to go about enabling the Get started option found in the Start>Settings>Update & Security>Advanced options. Insider Builds - Start or Stop Receiving in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

The "Unofficial" can be looked over in a VM for safekeeping using the latest VM Player or Virtual Box since the 10130 64bit Pro should weigh in at about 3.8gb according to the source there.

If that doesn't work out you can still try for the 10525 which would still be seeing a developer build however. And the Unofficial download of the 64bit Pro 10130 build came in at 3,64gb not 3.8gb! Years back some of us screened some unofficial 7 downloads and found them laced with malwares! The smart move is either to buy or go for a developer Pro build rather any shaky sources!

 

I had a similar issue, Win7 -> Win10 free. Then I swapped out most of my hardware... cpu, mb, memory, psu. I lost activation with windows 10 the following day with some random error Called support etc they wouldn't allow me to activate they provided me two solutions. And I believe they then blocked my (auto generated win10 from free upgrade) key so after that I received the 0xC004C003 error in the activation screen.


#1 Buy windows 10
My Answer: No it was suppose to be free!


#2 Reinstall your computer with windows 7 and then upgrade to windows 10 and migrate all your programs and data
My Answer: No! That would take forever! Too much work, instead please allow my windows 10 to activate with what it has (they said no etc, they wouldn't give me a "free" key)


So after some searching didn't find a solution but I found the method of doing a clean install with windows 10 using the GenuineTicket.xml and decided to merge that idea with a clean install of windows 7 on a different hard drive.... IT WORKED! *Smile


[My Solution- Does not involve reinstalling your primary system]
1. Disconnect all your hard drives
2. Connect an old hard drive you no longer need the data on
3. Install previous version of windows (in my case it was Win7 Ultimate x64 Upgrade)
MAKE SURE YOU DO THIS USING YOUR NEW HARDWARE!

• Because I had the upgrade media, during the installation I unchecked the "activate when online" checkbox (whatever it was called) and did NOT enter a product key, because the upgrade key wouldn't work anyway
• Then after installation completed....
  • I opened up "regedit.exe" navigated to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/
  • Changed the MediaBootInstall value from 1 to 0
  • Opened a command prompt (cmd.exe) with "Run as administrator"
  • Ran the command "slmgr /rearm"
  • Reboot!
  • After reboot I had to install my network drivers so I could activate windows...

4. Activate previous version of windows

• I went into the Windows activation program (WinKey, typed activation) entered my product key and then online activation worked fine. If it doesn't call them etc get it activated!

5. Now that the previous windows version was activated I needed to generate the GenuineTicket.xml that Windows 10 uses to accept the previous windows Upgrade. Here are the steps...

• Insert your Windows 10 Installation media (Mine was Win10Pro 64bit on a USB drive)
• I navigated to :\sources\ (you may need to navigate to :\sources\64 or 32 depending on your installation media)
• I copied :\sources"gatherosstate.exe" to my desktop, and ran it with "Run as administrator" I don't think you need to as admin but I did it anyway.
• "gatherosstate.exe" generates a file in the same directory (desktop) called GenuineTicket.xml automatically. If this file does not appear almost instantly your windows version may not be activated still or reboot or Sorry I dunno.
• Copy the GenuineTicket.xml to a usb drive (I just made a folder on my win 10 install media and saved it there)

6. Shut down your computer, disconnect your temporary hard drive, reconnect your primary hard drives
7. Start up windows 10 (not install media just what you've been using since activation failed)
8. Copy your GenuineTicket.xml to this existing folder C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\ClipSVC\GenuineTicket
9. Reboot!
10. Muhahahahaha hah haha ah ahah ah ahah ha a Windows 10 Pro says its activated. I did not have to reinstall my primary system or apps etc


Hope this works for anyone else viewing this!

 

You could also do the same procedure with a single hard drive by replacing steps 1 and 2 with - 1. Shrink the operating system partition to make room for a new partition 2. Create new partition in the empty space to hold a new installation of windows. 3. Install a previous version of operating system onto the new partition.

Then when you are done and activated on the original Windows 10 - delete the temporary partition and expand the system partition back into the free space.

 

^ that should work also. *Smile I'm paranoid about my data so I had preferred using an old hard drive sitting around apposed to messing with my partitions etc

 

I wish there was a way to create favorites on this forum - your method would definitely be at the top of favorites!

 

You can create a favorites folder in your subscriptions and then move whatever thread into it.

 

Well, how 'bout that! Didn't know that . I think I'm just going to start putting my favorite posts in my browser favorites. I've never used browser favorites before, so a good excuse to start!

 

On the Seven Forums at one time there had been a guide for extending the trial period for 7 upto 120 days legally which was removed to avoid any type of problem with MS! You won't be seeing any like there for 10. During the first week after the wait to get 10 on finally resulted in tending to another upgrade to repair the first type of install the activation servers were bogged down literally and the repair wouldn't activate. So I gave the rearm code used previously for the 7 RC builds and it took!

When later seeing a clean install of 10 go along side 7 Pro on the second desktop before upgrading over 7 there it wouldn't work! The MS servers had no record of 10 being on that machine until it saw the upgrade take place and then activated the clean install within a few system restarts. By then after that first week the servers were no longer tied up and each install since has been found activated when first arriving at the desktop. When later swapping the 4gb of Mushkin Enhanced memory out as I may have mentioned earlier for 8gb of Kingston Hyper X Fury the activation was temporarily lost but came back in a couple of days on it's own without the need for any tricks. That was a minor hardware change while a major one is expected to see a clean install follow another upgrade over the previous which then needs a clean install of that.

"Got ya runnin' in them der circles do we?!" which breaks down to simply do it and get it done with! When I wasn't able to resize an OEM primary on the laptop that was upgraded the simple solution was to "NUKE THE DRIVE"! That was after the initial upgrade and two clean installs were all found activated but still couldn't shrink the primary down just a bit about 80gb to allow for a second backup part on the single drive model. Still went from the 32bit 7 Home Premium to 64bit 10 Home!

 

Is switching from a hard drive to an SSD a major change?

I talked to Microsoft tech support on the phone today and they told me the only way to clean install and activate W10 on an new hard drive without a product key would be to buy a key for $100. What happens is I bought my laptop with 8.1 and then upgraded to 10. Now I want to switch to W10 and I don't know what to do. I hear some people say it will automatically activate but not according to the guy I talked to at MS. (I found my W10 key with Magic JellyBean but I'm not sure if that would accepted either on clean install)

 

No that is not a major change. Install Windows 10 as you normally would. Skip all prompts that asks for a key. The key you got from "Magic JellyBean" is a generic useless key. When installed as along as the motherboard is the same it will activate on its own. This is assuming you have gone though and previously done the Windows upgrade before swapping drives.

 

+1 for logicearth, That is correct.

 

10 is being offered as a "Free Upgrade Over" the previous version that once activated automatically to the system you have there can be installed fresh without worry and without any key period. The person you spoke with was apparently trying to get you to pay outright for a purchase of 10 rather then explaining how to go about upgrading first and once activated seeing the clean install take place.

Anyone in support is there to get you to buy not explain shortcuts to an end. And it doesn't matter that it was MS or some other software company since the goal is to market the product. In fact when using the same key the ShowKey tool displayed on the second desktop here putting clean install onto a new second primary before upgrading the 7 Pro there the activation server simply blocked it as expected! That was derived from the hardware profile ID seen with the first desktop. A new key was generated with the upgrade afterwards but still can't be entered on the next clean install. The "skip" button is used on the enter product key now screen!

 

I'm not sure how relevant this is, but I'll relay my recent experience.
Yesterday my sister dropped off her Win7 notebook which wouldn't boot (/BCD error).

Tried Linux Live USB for diagnostic, even that errored-out (which was a first for me) - eventually removed the offensive HDD and hooked it up in my ultrabay - turned out the system reserved partition became RAW...

Backed up the remaining partiions ( took an age - which should have alerted me to the quality of the HDD) - anyways deleted all partitions and put it back it into her notebook.

Installed Win7 and activated, but as with the backup it slowed to a snail's pace. Decided then to grab the Genuine ticket and turf that HDD and replace it with an old one I had.

Installed Win10 clean on that, added the genuine ticket - went online - got the key blocked error - ignored it and proceeded with the apps installations - once that was completed and rebooted - Win 10 was activated.

Unfortunately checking that HDD also showed some bad clusters, so purchased a new SSD and installed Win 10 - it activated immediately online.