Windows 10: Activation problem

Dumb me, I forgot that there was an original Lenovo recovery partition. I ran it and it loaded W8 on the computer. Now I am removing the bloatwear and I think I have to update to 8.1 and then can I use the media creation tool to upgrade to W10?
Len

 

You can leave the bloat ware there just get the 8.1 activated then upgrade to W10 it should activate then do a clean install of W10 no bloat ware left.

 

Exactly! You only need Windows 8.1 on there for the length of time it takes the Media Creation Tool to get Windows 10 for you. If you want to skip a step and you are sure which version of Windows 10 you will get, you can go ahead and create a Windows 10 install USB or DVD. Insert that as a normal storage device and run setup.exe from within Windows 8.1 to do the first upgrade. Once that is done AND ACTIVATED, then boot from the USB or DVD and do a clean install. You only need the Windows 10 upgrade with all the bloatware on there long enough to get an activation.

To verify activation before a clean install, from a command prompt type slmgr /dlv

You should see license information via the retail channel and no information about expiration.

Then type slmgr /xpr

That should say "This machine is permanently activated"

If you get those results in Windows 10 that is as safe as you can be to clean install Windows 10 on the same computer.

 

Thanks, doing the W8.1 update now.

Len