Windows 10: Windows 10 won't accept Product Key from Arvato supplied Windows 8 Pro

I purchased the $40 Cdn copy of Windows 8 Pro that Microsoft offered when 8 first was coming out. It was fulfilled by Arvato Digital Services, a company that Microsoft uses for these purposes. That product key activated fine and was upgraded to Windows 8.1

I am now trying to upgrade to Windows 10 and it refuses to accept the product key I was supplied. I tried to back out of the install and even with the memory stick removed it still tries to continue the install. I've tried both a clean install and an upgrade and it keeps rejecting the product key.

Has anyone run into this before and if so what might be the fix?
Thanks.

:)

 

Use Old Windows license for Win 10

Currently I own a Windows 10 Home edition laptop. However due to my specific requirements I need a pro version. Can I use Windows7 Pro/Windows8 Pro product key after buying it from amazon to upgrade my Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro (By changing the
product key to that supplied by vendor for Windows 7 Pro/Windows 8 Pro.

I don't wish to install Win 7 Pro/Win 8 Pro and upgrade again cause that will be a tedious process and the end results are the same.

 

Windows 10 upgrade to Pro

Hi Andre,

This is the product key that came with my Windows 8 Pro version. When I installed Windows 10 'Microsoft' accepted this as my Windows 10 Pro key.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Roger

 

You must do the upgrade first - do not put any key in at all. Hit the bypass [skip]. If your 8.1 is activated then sometime after you get 10 installed it will activate . Once that gets activated you can then do a clean install. The license will be tied to your computer hardware.
Jim

 

Upgrade 8.1 first. It should activate - check to make sure. Then clean install. Do not enter a product key click skip.

 

run the setup.exe from within your current windows 8.1 OS to perform an UPGRADE

 

This computer has had 8 and then 8.1 running on it since both were released. I did not get the upgrade to Windows 10 icon on any of my 7 computers, so I downloaded the Win 10 installer packages and wrote them to memory sticks using Microsoft's Media Creation Tool. I have used this USB memory stick installer to run the upgrade on 4 of my computers without a problem, but on this computer, the only one with the $40 Windows Pro Arvato supplied Windows 8 package, I have this problem. When I try to install it wants the product key but then says it can't validate it.

 

verify it is Pro and not Home
Only other reason, can think of why asking for key and not activating upgrade..

Pro download - Pro upgrade
Home download - Home upgrade

Here is the MS download for the retail version (contain both Home and Pro - unlike media tool, that only downloads either, or)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/softw...load/techbench

 

After 3 restarts without the memory stick it went back into setup and continued without asking for validation. It is just in the final stages now of finishing up. I checked System and it shows Windows 10 Pro and it is activated. Haven't seen anything like this on any other install. I wonder if it was whatever mechanism MS uses to validate keys went down for a while? At any rate, it seems to be fine now. Thanks for assistance.