W7 -> W10 + hardware changout

I build my PC about 5 years ago, my first build.

I've been thinking of upgrading my MB, processor and RAM and think now is a good time to do it before I activate my W10 upgrade.

I bought Window 7 retail originally, not OEM. I have the box and have verified it as retail using the cmd line as well.

What's the best way to do this? Microsoft says I need to complete the update before I can do a clean install. It's in bold all over their site...

I've already made a bootable media via their program.

so do I...

Upgrade my old hardware to 10 via Windows Update
Deactiviate windows from my machine via cmd.ex
change out the hardware, do a clean install from the W10 disc
Enter my W7 key when promoted?

One site suggest I install 7 on my new machine, but the MB is so new, there's a few people that have reported problems getting w7 to install, so if I can avoid that, I'd prefer it.

Thanks in advance

What is likely to happen if you do a clean install of Windows 10 on the new motherboard without installing Windows 7 on it first is that Microsoft will return a message that "the product key is in use on another computer" and you will have to go back and install Windows 7 on it, activate that (probably via phone activation), then activate Windows 10. You can try it. Microsoft may activate your Windows 10, and if they don't all you have wasted is a little bit of time.

What I did when I built my new computer was installed the bare minimum Windows 7 retail on it, never connected to the internet so it did not start running any updates, activated it with phone activation, captured the genuineticket.xml file using Windows 10 gatherosstate.exe, then deleted all the partitions on the SSD and clean installed Windows 10 and activated it with the genuineticket.xml file.

Note: when you "deregister" a computer by running slmgr /upk (for uninstall product key) - the only thing that affects is the local computer itself. It does not erase or reset any records of activations of that product key stored on Microsoft activation servers.

Thank for the info.

The guy over at PC Mech forums who helped me build 5 years ago, and now is helping me upgrade - jsut said that since I made a install disc with the create media tool - that more than likely all I'll have to do is just install w10 on the new hardware, and enter my w7 product key.

Most likely he says that will work, and worse case I'll have to call and tell them I swapped out my hardware, that w7 is no longer installed on any machine with that key - and it will get pushed through.

Does that sound right?

alvehyanna said:

Thank for the info.

The guy over at PC Mech forums who helped me build 5 years ago, and now is helping me upgrade - jsut said that since I made a install disc with the create media tool - that more than likely all I'll have to do is just install w10 on the new hardware, and enter my w7 product key.

Most likely he says that will work, and worse case I'll have to call and tell them I swapped out my hardware, that w7 is no longer installed on any machine with that key - and it will get pushed through.

Does that sound right?

You would be taking your chances with whomever answers the phone at Microsoft. Simply taking an extra 30 minutes at most to install and activate a Windows 7 would 99.9% guarantee your success for activating Windows 10.

Yeah, I might do that.

I'm a little concerned, the new board is so new, that people have had issues geting W7 on it. Lots of work arounds. And if I use a m.2 drive, windows7 wont see it all.

NavyLCDR said:

You would be taking your chances with whomever answers the phone at Microsoft. Simply taking an extra 30 minutes at most to install and activate a Windows 7 would 99.9% guarantee your success for activating Windows 10.

This is accurate.

alvehyanna said:

Yeah, I might do that.

I'm a little concerned, the new board is so new, that people have had issues geting W7 on it. Lots of work arounds. And if I use a m.2 drive, windows7 wont see it all.

You don't need a full Windows 7 install with everything working. Mouse, keyboard, basic display driver and a way to store the genuineticket.xml file is all you need.

You can use Win7 retails key to install Windows 10 I have done that on my new motherboard and its activated without any problem.

@matfx, so you had old motherboard/processor with Windows 7 retail. You put in new MB/processor and went straight to W10 with no problem?

I assume you used the media creation tool to make a DVD?