Hi, My son's Win 7 Home box updated to Win 10 twice and both times he rolled back to Win 7. Now, when he tries to update to Win 10 it says he has to pay for it. Does that mean that it wasn't activated either time?
Our intention it to format and put a fresh copy of Win 10 on.
A successful upgrade to windows 10 before 29th July should have registered a Digital entitlement for that PC's hardware on the Microsoft activation servers. As the box was originally running Windows 7 Home this digital entitlement is only valid for Windows 10 Home. Make sure you are upgrading to the correct edition - in your son's case it's Windows 10 Home. If you want the Pro version you will have to pay for it.
You may well be asked for a product key when updating to Windows 10, but there's also a 'Skip' or 'I don't have a key' option. Take this and, once Windows 10 is installed, the activation servers should recognise the hardware and activate it automatically. This should work for both upgrading the existing system or a clean install.
Before you wipe the disk clean I strongly recommend making a system image of the disk while it is still running Windows 7 (preferably on an external HDD). That way you can get back to square one if it all goes horribly wrong. You can use Windows 7's Backup & Restore to make a system image, or Macrium Reflect if you prefer. Have a look in the Tutorials section...
AFAIK, digital licences are still available online - use the COA key sticker to activate a fresh Win 10 Home install (make sure it is that, not a derivative like N or single language etc)
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