Windows 10: Can't use win 7, 8, 8.1 keys after July 29th

All I can say is I hope "you can't use win 7, 8, 8.1 keys after July 29th" for installs or activation. Auto detect Windows 10 OEM keys only. It's what I personally would like to see. It's not rocket science. When you do your reinstall, reinstall that same version, do a skip key, and it activates with the Digital Entitlement. If it has one. Reading 8.8.1 OEM keys just complicates things IMHO. Plus Windows 7 doesn't have embedded keys. And some Windows 7 keys are blocked from manual entry, OEM-SLP for example. Anyway, I do see why some want it to stay the way it is. And there are some valid reasons for doing it. I still hope they don't.

 

I wish there was some way to tell which win 7/8/8.1 key have been upgraded. I will hate after the 29th to find out one of my license didn't get the free entitlement.

 

If you log in to your Microsoft account, and go to settings/accounts/manage my Microsoft account you will find the devices licensed to your account.

 

It isn't product keys that get upgraded to Windows 10. Windows 10 upgrades are per device, not per product key.

 

Alphanumeric what do you think will happen with Windows 7 legit oem-slp keys that were upgrade to windows 10 and those that were not? I can see many scenarios that could cause issues in different ways.

 

I'll give you my take on that. On a clean install, even with the free upgrade, they are rejected if you enter them manually. Only OEM-COA keys are accepted for manual entry. The only situation where they are accepted is if you actually upgrade from an OEM Windows 7 install to Windows 10. Even then, I don't think the key is actually looked at. All that's checked is whether the system is legally activated or not. If yes, you get a digital entitlement. After the 29th it will be the same deal with one exception. If you upgrade from a factory Windows 7 OEM install, you won't get issued a digital entitlement automatically. instead it will look to see if one exists on the activation server. If yes your activated, if no, your not activated.
The thing is OEM-SLP keys are in a way, generic keys. Every Dell with 7 Home Premium has the same Dell OEM-SLP key. They are blocked from online activation even for Windows 7. OEM-SLP installs do not activate online, ever. Those keys are listed all over the Internet. They are useless unless you have the custom OEM install media, and if you have that, you don't need to know what the key is anyway. They are entered with a script during the install.

 

Nothing happens to your keys. They just can't be used to upgrade to Windows 10 anymore.

 

I don't think anything "happens" to your keys if used to upgrade, period. The Digital Entitlement is for the hardware. I don't think the key used to upgrade is even recorded with that info. I can't prove or disprove that, its just my gut feeling based on all the info I've seen. People have installed the same Windows 8 Retail on multiple PC's (one at a time with the same key) and then did the free upgrade. If the key was recorded that should fail on the second PC you tried to upgrade from that same Windows 8 retail key. They say it didn't?

 

Hi,

I'm not sure about something so some insight from other users might be needed.
I have upgraded one of my W 7 OEM laptops to W 10, it activated fine, then I made a dvd from Media Creation Tool and clean installed W 10 last August, activation went also fine (I skipped the "enter a product key" option) and when setup had finished laptop was activated ok.
When I open Settings it says that W 10 is activated with a digital entitlement.
So far so good. I called MS today and one support technician told me that it would be best ???? to go also to Settings, then use the Change Product Key option and enter the 25 digit OEM COA sticker key from Windows 7 BEFORE the 29th of July 2016.
2 questions:

1). Do I really need to perform the advised extra step Change Product Key option and enter the 25 digit OEM COA sticker key from Windows 7 BEFORE the 29th of July 2016, or not??
2) If I want to clean re-install W 10, after a few months and certainly after 29th of July 2016, and use the latest version, via Media Creation Tool, will W 10 activate with the previous digital entitlement, (so the "enter product key" option in setup is skipped as before), or not?? (if not, what additional steps might be required?).
Thank you in advance for any assistance.

Regards,

 

Go to Settings, Updates & Security, Activation tab. If the activation windows says that your Windows 10 is activated with a digital entitlement or digital license then changing the product key to your Windows 7 product key will do absolutely nothing. You already have the digital entitlement/license for that computer stored on Microsoft activation servers. That's what that window is telling you.

You will select "I don't have a product key", "skip", or "do this later" when asked for a product key. After installation is finished, and upon every boot-up, Windows 10 will calculate an Installation ID based upon the Hardware ID (unique to that computer), the Product ID (which specifies which version of Windows is installed), and the product key (which will automatically be the generic product key which is the same product key assigned when there is no Windows 10 product key entered). The first time after installation, since there was no previous Installation ID calculated because you wiped it out when you did the clean install, the Installation ID will be sent to Microsoft over the internet and matched with the Installation ID that was previously stored there. Microsoft will return the code for Windows 10 to activate itself. You don't have to do anything but connect to the internet for that to happen.

 

How would all this work with 2 hard disk drives. I have a Sata and an older IDE drive. Each has its own retail version of Win 8 upgraded to the latest version of Win 10. One version was bought direct from PC World and the othe from Microsoft.

So if I was to take down both in the future and use a Win 10 Iso, I'm assuming that the digital entitlement will able to remember two different keys and apply one to each disk bearing in mind that the disk will be the only physical difference - same motherboard etc.

 

On a clean install of Windows 10 only the unique ID created with digital entitlement is looked for and that's stored on Microsoft's servers. MS hasn't said it they will have a Upgrade version for a cheaper price than the full install the Vista and XP users had to use since Windows 10 came out.

 

Are they both Home or both Pro, or one of each? If you run showkey, https://www.tenforums.com/software-ap...7-showkey.html on each install I bet you'll find that they have the generic keys tied to the digital entitlement. -3V66T for Pro and -8HVX7 for Home. If they are both the same edition they are likely both activated with the one digital entitlement.

 

Nope. The "uniqueness" of the digital entitlement resulting from an upgrade of Windows 7/8/8.1 comes from the Hardware ID, which comes 99% from the motherboard, not the hard drive nor the Windows 7/8/8.1 product key. Again - it is DEVICES (IE: motherboards) that are upgraded to Windows 10, not Windows 7/8/8.1 product keys. The device which is upgraded is defined as: a hardware system (whether physical or virtual) with an internal storage device capable of running the software.