Windows 10: How to get product key of old OS (Win 7) after upgrading to Win 10?

In addition to my previous post:

I refuse to believe that MS has intentionally created a system where someone could for instance go around the village, house to house, PC to PC asking "Don't you have a qualifying OS for Windows 10 Free Upgrade? Don't want to pay for it? No worries, give me a few bucks, I install and activate Windows 8.1 with my product key on your PC and upgrade your PC to 10 for free!", then continues to next house to do the same, with this "reusable" 8.1 key.

Logically thinking this can't be the case, can't be how MS intended it to work.

 

It's a free upgrade, that some may not like, or that some software may not play well with. There needs to be an out so you can go back to what worked before. Rollback works (for 30 days). If they blocked the old key Rollback wouldn't work would it? You'd go back but be un activated. How do you think it would go over if Microsoft then said, oh you want to go back to your old OS, well your going to have to buy it again, have a nice day. Makes perfect sense to me why they didn't blacklist your old key, and to a lot of other people here. If you upgraded from a factory OEM-SLP Windows 7 install they can't blacklist the key anyway, it's already blacklisted to begin with. They don't activate online. That same OEM-SLP key is used on millions of PC's by that OEM. Are you going to kill activation for all those PC's using that same key, even if they didn't do the free upgrade?

 

I suppose the easiest way to check how many attempts you can try/use before the key needs to be verified is to run the MGAdiag tool, certainly for W7. not sure about W8

Roy

 

I've done numerous clean installs, using the same key on the same hardware and never had an activation issue. Some were even back to back installs. Windows 7, 8 and 10. I've swapped hardware too with no issues. Pretty well everything except the motherboard. OEM and Retail setups. The only phone activations I've had to do was after using the code on the COA sticker on an OEM PC. IMHO, the average Joe shouldn't need to worry about. If your only doing a reinstall once a year or every few years, it shouldn't be an issue. I clean install several times a year sometimes.

 

I think our technical discussion scared-off the OP...he hasn't got back to me.

 

If so it's most probably my fault. My apologies.

Would be interesting to know if the keys of the underlying qualifying OS remain reusable after the 30 day rollback period. The "test" I performed had a flaw to start with in its logics, I did not think it through before performing it; of course the rollback must be possible the promised 30 days. No excuses, I just made a mistake, had logical error in my thinking and posted according to that. That in my test the product key did not work after the upgrade was apparently a pure coincidence which then made me to believe in my faulty theory even more.

Repeating something I have already said a few times, I refuse to believe that MS knowingly created a "Free 10 Dispenser", install Windows 7 or 8.1 and activate it with the same (retail) product key as many times as you want to, on as many computers as you want to, and upgrade all of them to 10 for free, to get 3 or 5 or 11 computers running an activated Windows 10 with one product key.

 

It's fine, appreciate your time and effort, and honesty above all...

All being said, I'm also a bit surprised at the leaking net - even pirated Window 7 installs get upgraded via digital entitlement... getting to the target of devices is one thing but surely there has to be a cut-off point.

 

There must be a balance between enforcement, usability, and customer satisfaction. Once a computer is activated, Microsoft cannot require repeated contact with Microsoft to keep it activated. My computer goes on deployment on a ship with me and it won't be connected to the internet for 9 months or more and most of the time it would be extremely inconvenient and expensive, if not impossible to call Microsoft.

Microsoft can't just block a key because it has been used to upgrade because customers who do upgrades sometimes want to go back. And when they do go back, if they just stick their system restore disks in the computer and hit the Next button, which first step is a wipe of the hard drive - how is Microsoft going to get informed that the upgrade Windows was uninstalled?

Then we get OEM keys moving around. Sure, Microsoft can program activation to be computer specific for certain product keys but they also have to spend money to develop that and test it. All Joe Customer knows how to do is put in his system restore disks and hits next and it refuses to activate because of some glitch in the activation system, so he calls Microsoft already mad only to be told, sorry Joe, your product key has been blocked in error...

Look at the technical problems and customer dissatisfaction that Microsoft has faced with the Hardware ID entitlement activation that they have put in place with Windows 10. And this is, for the most part, something that Microsoft is giving away for free!

There's a lot more to consider in the big picture than just preventing Joe from using his product key to activate his neighbors computer. And Microsoft does do limited tracking on the product keys and does block online activation if the key is used too many times in a certain period of time. But, if I have a retail product key it is not illegal for me to install the product key on ten different computers in one day - so long as I remove it from the previous computer first - but notification to Microsoft of the removal is the problem. Format C:\ does not send a notification to Microsoft that a product key has been removed. So they compromised - I call them and tell them it is installed on only one computer and they activate it.

 

My 10 Pro install was past the 30 day rollback period when I reinstalled the original 8.1 Pro.

 

Same with me and Windows 7.

 

Now that is interesting,
I was under the impression there was a scheduled Task, that was due to be run to remove the window.old file,
MIND YOU that was 30 days AFTER the upgrade was installed.

Roy

 

Why would you refuse to believe that? Microsoft has always erred on the side of the consumer in this regard. Even when they probably know for sure the customer is doing the wrong thing, they still allow it in most cases.

Activation is primarily designed to do two things. 1) Keep honest people honest and 2) Prevent mass dissemination of keys over the internet.

They're willing to let dozens, maybe even hundreds of activations on a single key, because certain kinds of people do that a lot.. Developers, for instance, have MSDN keys and they often reinstall that OS over and over, such as when you have a dynamically spawned VM for testing purposes.

Another use cases is sales teams, where they go into a company, and setup a demo system on their internal network. They often use the same key to create their "demo" installations. People use this software in all kinds of crazy ways that is legally allowable, and MS has to err on the side of trusting them to do the right thing.

MS typically only completely invalidates a key when they detect it being used by thousands of different installs within a short period of time. They will often disable automatic internet activation in a shorter time period, but phone activation will still work.

 

I did a clean install, not a rollback. Kari was wondering if the keys got blocked after the 30 day period ended. I was just confirming they weren't. As far as I know they are never blocked as a result of doing the free upgrade.

 

So there is no chance to get the key once you reinstalled the OS?

P.S It is indeed a way out to find windows 7 product key.

 

The last comment on this thread was more than a year ago. Perhaps you should ask your own question.

But to answer your question, no. Probably not (depending what you mean by "the key")