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

That timing seemed odd to me. From what I've seen reported on the Yammer network, those that do the free upgrade now, have to then wait another 30 days to do the Anniversary upgrade. Because of the 30 day roolback feature. The Anniversary update will wipe out (replace) the Windows .old folder. No going back to your original OS you upgraded from. The current (free upgrade ) build will not auto update to the Anniversary update until at least 30 days have passed from the date you upgraded on. That's the theory anyway. Unconfirmed at this point, as far as I'm concerned.

 

Reports are, that agent got it wrong, it has not been extended. I can't post a link to my source, its a private site. I added an EDIT to my original post.

 

Plenty of reports on other forums if you upgrade using MCT, and use an old 7/8 key to activate it, it still works. Have not tested it myself. Run out of keys/pcs to upgrade - LOL

 

I'm almost in the same position. I'm not out of keys but all my PC's already have digital entitlements, and some have Home and Pro entitlements. I'm also running Enterprise and Education. For now, I'm just going to wait it out and let those installs that are eligible, update via Windows update. Then do some of my own testing with clean installs. I expect my Enterprise install will not update. I want to see if first hand though so I can stop saying "I think" and "as far as I know" etc.

 

You can (of course) have a home and pro digital licence (new name) on same pc, but interestingly you only see latest install as a device on MS Account. It is not yet clear if RS1 allows linking of both digital licences to your MS account if you can only see one device i.e does it only detect the latest one?

My pc is dual boot home and pro with both having digital licences. To ensure I can see both "devices", I have linked one via one MS account, and the second via another just to be on safe side.

 

That will not help. You would need new hardware or a new VM to be sure.

If you have a digital entitlement you are stuck with it (I think - at least I seem to be). I've tried removing a VM from my MS account and it still activates if I clean install without entering the key.

I don't have any more keys to try on a new VM but it certainly worked a couple of weeks ago.

 

I'm not dual booting so that device is only listed once anyway. It's not running the Insider preview either so I haven't officially linked it at all. It currently running Enterprise and activated with a MSDN MAK key (no digital entitlement). It was originally upgraded from 8.1 Pro to 10 Pro. It has a Windows 8.0 Core OEM key in the BIOS. On a clean install that key was read and 10 Home installed and auto activated with a Digital Entitlement. The double entitlement wasn't planned, it just happened as a result of the Windows 10 install media reading my OEM key. I don't ever run Home on it except by accident. And not for very long. I did a quick change key and upgrade to Pro the first time it happened. Now I just use a PID.txt file to install Pro and override the auto detection of the OEM key.

 

I can still test. One test will be to see if the Anniversary edition will auto detect OEM embedded keys. Having or not having a Digital entitlement won't affect that. If I'm prompted to enter a key I'll know it ignored the OEM key. If it installs 10 Home automatically I'll know it read it. On my PC's with no OEM keys, I'll just install 10 Home. I have two desktop PC's that only have Pro Entitlements. I'm going to install Home with a skip key, then verify its not activated. Then try one of my unused Windows 7 or 8 keys and see what happens. And another similar install on my other desktop PC entering the Windows 7 Home Premium key during the install, just to see if its accepted. I just can't do any testing with the Pro edition.

 

I can still test as well. I have a replacement stick computer coming later this week as a warranty replacement. The old stick computer was running the latest Pro insider build when I sent it in. The replacement stick computer will have Windows 10 Home on it. I'm going to attempt to activate Windows 10 Pro on it with a Windows 8 Pro product key and/or genuineticket.xml from a Windows 8 Pro clean install that I will do on it.

 

Removed now please remove your post to! *Smile

 

I'm going to quibble with your statement that it's the same.

If I park in one of those parking spots when I'm not entitled, then importantly someone else can't park there, and if they have restricted mobility or whatever, it could be a serious issue for them.

If I downloaded Windows 10 by saying I used Assisitive Technology, then I'm not disadvantaging anyone who does use such technologies (except perhaps very indirectly by making their download just that bit slower).

I'm not saying you should promote this technique, but the main problem I have with it is being dishonest.

I think it's a much less serious issue than taking a parking space which I shouldn't.

As an aside, I do wish that Windows 10 had better control of colours. I know people who use pastel shaded colour backgrounds to their windows in Word/ Excel etc. because the reduced makes it easier to read text, for some conditions such as dyslexia. Even I find it helpful sometimes, and some colour schemes I find really hard to look at.

This is really easy to change in Windows 7 or 8, but Windows 10 has a really restrictive range of colours which are mostly keyed to give High Contrast, which is exactly the opposite of what is required in this case.

I think this sort of thing is why Windows 10 will be available to upgrade for longer, hopefully until a point where they put back into Windows 10 some of the controls which were in Windows 7 and 8.

 

Agreed.

 

I just used the geniune ticket method to activate Win 10. I used my "swap" drive that has 10586 on it and activated 10 home.

No assistive method needed.

 

Had the motherboard ever had Windows 10 Home activated on it before?

 

NO, I checked and ran it online and did some updates before I inserted the Genuine ticket and rebooted again.