Windows 10: Win 10 No Activation

Nope, no sticker, but Windows says it is activated. Maybe Superfly will chime in and give some advice..

Cheers

 

OEM-SLP keys will (as far as I know) be rejected if you try to clean install Windows 10 with them. You need the OEM-COA key. Wait and see what superfly has to say. If its a laptop, remove the battery and have a look in the battery compartment.

 

Nope not there, nor it is mentioned in the documentation, not even in the DVD upgrade to Win 8.1 that came with it, which I never did.

 

Hi ex...

Glad you got your system working...
The OEM key may just be a dummy that was inserted during the Win7/8 transition phase, whilst OEM's were testing Win 8 activation method and not of significance.
Having said that, not having a COA sticker key is odd for a Win 7 OEM PC... nevertheless check the installed key with ShowKey's check key function to see if it is a SLP or NONSLP key - if the latter (System Builder) then it will work with a clean install of Win 10 Pro, otherwise you will need to do the upgrade or genuine ticket method.

 

Well, I went ahead and upgraded to 8.1 with the option DVD. OS is activated and this is the result for ShowKey





Looks good in my opinion. Will wait a week or so to be offered the upgrade by WU and if not I will download the ISO and upgrade from there. Good thing is that DVD comes with a complement which installs all drivers and HP utilities, (I know most are garbage, but some are useful), for Win 8.1

Will keep you guys informed of the final result when it happens.

Thanks so much for all the help given

Regards

 

Looks good to me too. One option is to go to the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool site, and instead of downloading the ISO, just select Upgrade this PC Now. I'd download the ISO anyway, but doing the upgrade now is quick and easy. I did it on all 4 of my Pc's when the free upgrade was first released.

 

I'd like to download the ISO image too..

 

Ah, so it is a Win 8 OEM ... just that Win 7 didn't recognize the Win 8 key then... I'll look into that to provide backward compatibility on Win 7 systems.

Looks good though *Wink

 

Ah so it has an OEM embedded key for Windows 8, but shipped with Windows 7 installed. That's why the keys didn't match in Windows 7. And showkey being run on Windows 7 caused the "invalid key" for OEM edition?

 

It seems so, that's why 10 didn't activate as previous OS version didn't match it's key

 

I'm not so sure? My laptop has an OEM key for Windows 8.0 Core. I did the free upgrade from 8.1 Pro to 10 Pro. Windows 10 activated with no issues. The key for the currently installed OS is used as verification on the free upgrade. It determines if you get a digital entitlement or not. On a clean install, the OEM embedded key (if there is one) determines what version of windows 10 is installed. If I clean install with stock install media I get 10 Home instead or 10 home because of the 8 Core OEM embedded key. Then I have to do a change key to upgrade to 10 Pro. I add a PID.txt file to my install media to override that and install 10 Pro instead of 10 Home. My laptop now has digital entitlements for 10 Home and Pro.

 

Could not wait for WU to offer the upgrade. Downloaded the latest ISO and installed from USB. Glad to report all is fine now.

Win10 activated inmediately and updated to latest build (10586.318), proper drivers for gfx, sound and bt .

Thanks to Superfly and alphanumeric for all the help given. I'm a happy camper now.

Cheers

 

*Thumbs If you go to Settings > Update & security > Activation > Product key, it should say its activated with a digital entitlement. That's means you can now clean install, doing a skip when asked for a key, and it should activate with no issues.

 

Splendid...thanx for highlighting the problem with Win 7 not recognizing other versions editions.