Windows 10 Pro Upgrade from Win 8.1 Pro license key

tamo said:

I believe we were all misled a bit by Microsoft when we thought we could use our genuine windows 7/8/8.1 key to do a clean install but it cant be done as far as I can understand .

Microsoft never made any such claim or even close to it.

NavyLCDR said:

Microsoft never made any such claim or even close to it.

Agree!! I was one of those hoping this would be allowed, but to date, there's been no indication from MS that they're going to allow this.

NavyLCDR said:

Microsoft never made any such claim or even close to it.

Well maybe they could have made it clearer that one cant perform a clean installation of windows 10 using the embedded uefi/bios product key . I see post after post all over the place with people trying to do just that and failing .

tamo said:

Well maybe they could have made it clearer that one cant perform a clean installation of windows 10 using the embedded uefi/bios product key . I see post after post all over the place with people trying to do just that and failing .

"You upgraded to Windows 10, but didn't have a previous version or the correct edition of Windows installed (error 0xC004F061)

If you see error 0xC004F061 when you try to activate Windows 10, it means one of the following:

• You're using a product key to upgrade to Windows 10, but a previous version of Windows wasn't installed on your PC. To update, you need to have Windows 8 or Windows 7 already on your PC.
  If you formatted or replaced your hard drive, you won't be able to use a product key to update to Windows 10. You'll need to install your previous version of Windows, and then reinstall Windows 10."
  
  I don't think it gets much clearer than that , quoted straight from Why cant I activate Windows 10? - Windows Help
  

Hellishdream said:

I don't think it gets much clearer than that , quoted straight from Why cant I activate Windows 10? - Windows Help

Unfortunately, people won't read that until it's too late.... but, I'd be willing to bet a dollar against a doughnut that all they would have to do is call Microsoft Activation Help phone number, give them the product ID their computer shows and get the return code to activate it.

NavyLCDR said:

Unfortunately, people won't read that until it's too late.... but, I'd be willing to bet a dollar against a doughnut that all they would have to do is call Microsoft Activation Help phone number, give them the product ID their computer shows and get the return code to activate it.

I do agree Ms could have made the clean installation a bit easier. However it is FREE after all , so I would expect some hiccups with attempting to clean install a "free upgrade"

Ztruker said:

though we don't know yet what happens with a retail version you purchase. There has top be some validation method, I wonder what it is?

When you install a retail version, you would enter the retail key for it when prompted during the install. This would allow Windows 10 to activate itself using a hardware ID not found on the MS Activation Server - and then just like the upgrade, I would be willing to bet the new hardware ID would then be stored and future installs on that same PC would not require a key to be entered.

Windows 10 first looks on the activation server to see if the unique hardware ID is present for that version of Windows 10 (pro or home). If it is, it activates. If it doesn't find that unique hardware ID on the activation server, it looks for an authorized method of adding it - such as it was a qualified upgrade installed, or a valid license key was manually entered. Then it will store the hardware ID on the activation server for future activations.