Windows 10: Can windows 10 use a windows 8 OEM key?

I have a laptop that originally had windows 8 on it. In its long life the drive got formatted many times, many different OSs were installed on it and now I even have a completely different drive. What I mean to say is that there are not recovery partitions or anything like that.

What I want to do is put windows 10 on this laptop, which currently only has linux installed on it. I have a retail copy of win 10, but I don't want to use it since I have an OEM key for win 8 on this laptop and I feel like it would be a waste not to use it, since until July I can still upgrade to 10 for free. So what I'm asking is, can I just straight install win 10 onto the laptop (after wiping the drive naturally), or do I need to first install 8 that will read the OEM key, and then upgrade to 10?

Also, if win 10 cannot accept a win 8 OEM key, does this mean that if in the future (after win 10 upgrade is no longer free) I decide to wipe my drive for whatever reason, and then later decide I want win 10 back on it, I won't be able to get it since my key will only be valid for win 8 and upgrade is no longer free?

:)

 

windows 10 related

I had a laptop with windows 8 OEM copy which was upgraded to windows 10 home.

I reinstalled windows 8 with a windows 8 pro retail key and it upgraded to windows 10 pro.

how can I now go back to windows 10 which was upgrade of OEM windows 10 ?

 

Swap product keys between machines

Its depends if its a retail or OEM license. If either was running an OEM preinstalled license, this will prevent you from swapping.

If its retail store bought or was upgraded from a retail Windows 7 or Windows 8 license, you can transfer it.

If its OEM or was upgraded from an OEM Windows 7 or Windows 8 license, you can't transfer it.

How to Transfer your Windows 10 License to a New Computer

 

If the Windows 8 product key is stored in bios, Windows 10 will read that product key, install the version it is for (Home or Pro) and if installed for the first time prior to 29 July will activate. After it activates for the first time before 29 July, a digital entitlement for Windows 10 for that computer and version of Windows 10 will be stored on Microsoft activation servers and it will continue to activate for free after 29 July by retrieving the digital entitlement.

If the product key is not stored in bios, you SHOULD be able to enter the Windows 8 product key manually to activate Windows 10 the first time before 29 July - and then the digital entitlement kicks in as above.

Just make sure to install the matching edition of Windows 10. It is probably just regular plain Windows 10. Not "N" and not Single Language edition. If the computer came with "N" Windows 8 or Single Language Windows 8 - then you have to install the matching edition of Windows 10. Home and Pro come packaged together, so you don't have to pick Home or Pro to download, you get them both in the download.

 

You have two choices. In either case the Win 8.0 key will be fine. The key should be in the firmware if it is an OEM machine that originally came with Win 8.0

Win 8.0 requires that you upgrade from install media.
Windows 10 ISO Download - Windows 10 Forums

Win 8.1 will allow you to upgrade using other methods (GWX, Upgrade Now from the web)
So you could upgrade Win 8.0 to Win 8.1, then upgrade to Win10 using the other methods
... but l still suggest that you use install media to upgrade
The advantage here is that your fallback OS is Win 8.1, which is superior to Win 8.0

Read the top section - watch the video
Windows 10 - Upgrade Installation - Windows 10 Forums

>> Option 7. To Upgrade to Windows 10 with an ISO file <<

 

Slartybart, I think you might have missed this in the OP:

The easiest way for norsul to get Windows 10 on the computer is to do a clean install from a Windows 10 installation USB flash drive or DVD created either with Windows 10 Media Creation Tool or from an ISO downloaded from Microsoft Tech Bench. The clean install of Windows 10 will read a Windows 8 product key in bios and install and activate automatically if there is a product key in bios. If not, norsul SHOULD be able to install Windows 10 by clicking "I don't have a product key", picking the correct version and edition of Windows 10, clicking "skip" or "do this later" when asked for product keys until Windows 10 is fully installed. Then go to the activation screen under updates and security under settings and change the product key to the matching Windows 8 product key and it will activate.

 

Where am I supposed to get the key then? I just bought the laptop and it had windows on it. There is no key on the back or anything.

Just to be sure I understood correctly - if I get a matching installation of win 10 (most likely home), it should be content with my win 8 key, correct? i.e. I don't have to first install win 8 and then upgrade to win 10, I can just install win 10 straight away?

And yes a clean install is what I am planning to do.

 

If there is a Windows 8 key in bios, when you start Windows 10 setup for a clean install, it won't even ask you for a product key, it will just start installing after you set a couple of options like language and where you want it to install to.

After you get Windows on it you can see your product keys by running showkey from the software and apps section of these forums.

 

Navy: Yep I missed that completely. Your process description is more to the issue.

norsul:
Try these commands on your Linux box, one should show you the key (don't post the key on any public forum though)
Some will be in hex dump format, others might be more readable. Some commands might not be found - depends on the distro.

Locate MSDM table
ls /sys/firmware/acpi/tables

sudo xxd /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM

sudo hexdump -s 56 -e '"MSDM key: " /29 "%s\n"' /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM

sudo cat /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM
sudo cat /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM | strings

sudo acpidump
sudo acpidump -b -t MSDM | dd bs=1 skip=56 2>/dev/null;echo

sudo tail -c+57 /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM

 

Well, Slartybart, your knowledge of Linux far outweighs my knowledge of Windows 10 I never could understand all those commands.

 

This seems to have produced something that looks an awful lot like a product key. Thanks!