Windows 10: Valid Win7 Product Key not accepted by Win 10 upgrade

Having upgraded my laptop and Surface Pro to Win 10, my neighbour asked me to do the same for his laptop running its original OEM applied Win7.1 Home premium.

Unlike my 2 machines, when the win10 upgrade gets to the Product Key entry screen, there is no "Skip" option and as the valid product key is not deemed valid by the upgrade I have to cancel the installation.

I have repeated the upgrade about 3 or 4 times using both the usb I used for my own installs, and also downloading the upgrade tool on his laptop and downloading the upgrade package locally and installing from there.

The same result, no Skip option, and no acceptance of the valid license key.

Any ideas please? There does not even seem to be a way to contact Microsoft about this.


Cheers
Mike

:)

 

Windows 10 Free Upgrade will not accept my Windows 7 Product Key as Valid

Notified Windows 10 Upgrade was ready to install...ran it. On Startup it wants the Microsoft Product Key. Didn't see that coming, all info I read on the Upgrade process nothing ever mentioned about having your Product key available to complete Upgrade.
I would have thought that would have been verified during the scanning process to validate my device as having a Valid Product Key.

I entered my Win7 Product Key and its shows it as not a Valid Key. Can't be, I took it right off the Win7 Package Win7 came in. It showing if not validate w/i 30 days the OS will stop running.

My research shows some user updating from Win8 to Win are also reporting this same issue (and with Win8....no one has a Product Key as it is built-in and hidden in BOIS of the Device.

Is Microsoft aware of this issue? It may be only isolated cases where this is happening but none the less...its real. My Valid key is not working......its has to be a Microsoft issue......

 

Windows 10 Free Upgrade will not accept my Windows 7 Product Key as Valid

Notified Windows 10 Upgrade was ready to install...ran it. On Startup it wants the Microsoft Product Key. Didn't see that coming, all info I read on the Upgrade process nothing ever mentioned about having your Product key available to complete Upgrade.
I would have thought that would have been verified during the scanning process to validate my device as having a Valid Product Key.

I entered my Win7 Product Key and its shows it as not a Valid Key. Can't be, I took it right off the Win7 Package Win7 came in. It showing if not validate w/i 30 days the OS will stop running.

My research shows some user updating from Win8 to Win are also reporting this same issue (and with Win8....no one has a Product Key as it is built-in and hidden in BOIS of the Device.

Is Microsoft aware of this issue? It may be only isolated cases where this is happening but none the less...its real. My Valid key is not working......its has to be a Microsoft issue......

 

Hi,

is your neighbours win 7.1 fully updated, if it is

have you tried the media creation tool
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/9...-download.html
see option 2 and select upgrade if you don't want to save the files

 

Hi Paul
Thanks for your kind reply.

Yes the laptop was fully up to date (after about 2 days and 20 restarts!) with the Get Windows 10 icon displayed.

I had actually tried Option 2 as suggested - using the local method and also using the iso on a bootable usb.

Both these methods caused the issue described *Sad

Cheers
Mike

Regards
Mike

 

this is a bit more fiddly, but I did this on one of my machines, it was 8.1 so not sure if 7 is exactly the same

I copied the install.esd file from the windows.~bt folder that the update creates
then followed these steps to create the ISO
ESD to ISO - Create Bootable ISO from Windows 10 ESD File

once that was created I ran the setup in it from inside windows
it didn't prompt me for any key, not even a box for one, it just upgraded my machine to 10

 

I upgraded my OEM Windows 7 desktop PC with the Media Creation Tool. I used the "Upgrade this PC now" option. I don't remember being prompted for a key though? If I was, skip must have worked, I was able to do the upgrade. On a clean install after that I was prompted for a key and was able to use the skip option.

 

recheck to see what version of windows your neighbor is running, and make sure that you only use the correct Win 10 version.
no 32 bit on a 64 bit machine
no Home version on a Win7 Pro version
etc.

 

Very good point. If its 7 Home Premium, and your trying to upgrade to 10 Pro, that may be the issue. The Upgrade This PC now option I mentioned above will install the correct version automatically.

 

Run winver from a elevated command prompt on the Win 7 computer, what does it tell you.
Should be something like this:



Then you'll know for sure what version you are upgrading.

 

I am having the same problem upgrading a friend's Win 7 PC. He has the same Win 7 version that I had. I used the same thumb drive on my computer to upgrade my PC to Win 10. No problems there. My friend's upgrade gets to the same screen asking for a activation number. There is no skip option available. I posted this to let the OP know he is not alone with this problem. If anyone has a fix please let us know.

 

Are you booting from the media? Or are you running setup.exe from the mounted ISO?

Can you tell us what you are doing in EXACT detail? Don't be vague, describe each step you take exactly.

 

I think there is probably something going wrong with the upgrade that won't allow Windows 10 to activate once it is upgraded if it is even asking for a key... but, you can try this:
Install Windows 8.1 without a Product Key | PCsteps.com

It would be a very interesting survey to know how many people who have activation problems after upgrade were asked for a key during the upgrade and how many weren't. I've upgraded 7 computers via all the options available and have not had a single one even ask for a key to be entered and all of mine have activated with no problems. I am willing to bet that if the upgrade is even asking for a key there will be activation problems after the upgrade - if the upgrade was started from within the old operating system and not from a DVD or USB that was used to boot with.

 

I did all my upgrades via the Media Creation Tool's "Upgrade this PC now" option. Wasn't prompted for a key. One was windows 7 OEM and the others 8.1 Retail.

 

Me too. Worked flawlessly. Both 8.1