trying to do the free upgrade

I finally decided to take the plunge and upgrade to Win 10 by clicking the icon in the tray by the clock. After clicking it a window appears telling me to wait. I have for over 24 hours and it does nothing. Tried several times but still the same thing. I gave up and downloaded the free ISO from Microsoft and burned it to a flash drive. The installation went fine. Everything works well EXCEPT it won't accept my product key from the sticker on the bottom of my laptop to activate. Never had a problem with the Win 7 activation using the key. Am I missing something? Thank you.

Did you UPGRADE or do clean install? Is it the latest version?

Go to here and download this key finder for Windows, then check your key with the key this displays.
https://www.tenforums.com/software-ap...7-showkey.html
Also make sure when you upgraded your OS that you upgraded with the SAME version you had originally Home for Home, Pro for Pro. If those are all correct, then sometimes you just might have to call Microsoft, and explain your problem.
If your windows key was not legal, this would also be a reason too.

collieman said:

I gave up and downloaded the free ISO from Microsoft and burned it to a flash drive. The installation went fine. Everything works well EXCEPT it won't accept my product key from the sticker on the bottom of my laptop to activate. Never had a problem with the Win 7 activation using the key. Am I missing something? Thank you.

1. Your profile says " Win 10 9926 ". That's Insider Preview build and a very old one. It came out on Jan 25th, 2015. I assume you have updated to at least a newer build since then ?

2. Failure to activate probably because you did not pick the same Windows edition, or language, or bit version.

Please try again except this time use the Tech Bench link to download the ISO file.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...brrWLRbagYCa0w

scroll down to Select Edition > click the pointer at the right and select Windows 10 > click Confirm.
click the pointer and select Language > make sure you pick the same language the computer is now running > click Confirm
select the bit version, 32 or 64-bit. Make sure you select the same bit version as the computer is now running.
at the bottom, click the pointer next to Save > click Save As > navigate to a folder of your choice > click the chosen folder > click Save
The iso will start downloading to your chosen folder.

**** Backup all the files you want to keep first ****

Burn the ISO to a bootable media and do a Clean Install.
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1...n-install.html

You will be asked for a product key. Use the SKIP or the "I do not have a product key" option and continue.
After installation is finished, you can then use your Win 7 key found at the bottom of your laptop to activate.

collieman,

WAIT. Don't do what I asked you. Not yet.
Please answer the follow question...........

You said " Never had a problem with the Win 7 activation using the key. "
What key is that ? A Vista ? An XP ?

Got it! I think. I'm waiting for updates now to see if they will kill the start menu , the ability to right click and kill the internet like I've seen before. It was me that didn't use the right version (home in this case) of the OS causing the problem. Activation was no problem. My thanks to you guys for your help.

collieman said:

Got it! I think. I'm waiting for updates now to see if they will kill the start menu , the ability to right click and kill the internet like I've seen before. It was me that didn't use the right version (home in this case) of the OS causing the problem. Activation was no problem. My thanks to you guys for your help.

Glad to hear that you found the problem!!! Yes sometimes people forget and download the wrong version to upgrade. It happens. Take care, Mike. :)