Get Windows 10 with a Win 7 licence.

Porthos · 19 Jul 2019

Kol12 said:

Thanks Bree, sounds good. It's an hp elite book 8560p with a legitimate Win 7. If a clean install of Win 10 with the Win 7 key doesn't work we can do the upgrade first which should bind the key to the notebook hardware correct?

Yes. I have also clean installed Win 10 and used the Win 7 COA to activate. (3 days ago to be exact)

Kol12 · 19 Jul 2019

Porthos said:

Yes. I have also clean installed Win 10 and used the Win 7 COA to activate. (3 days ago to be exact)

Great so I can skip straight to a clean install on a brand new SSD without doing an in place upgrade first?

Porthos · 19 Jul 2019

Kol12 said:

Great so I can skip straight to a clean install on a brand new SSD without doing an in-place upgrade first?

If you can read the COA on the laptop yes. Worst case, Since you are starting with a new SSD you will still have the original drive "just in case". I do it all the time as my job.
I suggest you do the clean install without network and choose skip key and activate it on the activation screen where it gives the change key option. Be sure to choose the correct version to install (home/Pro).

Bree · 20 Jul 2019

Kol12 said:

If a clean install of Win 10 with the Win 7 key doesn't work we can do the upgrade first which should bind the key to the notebook hardware correct?

That's not quite the way digital licences work in Windows 10*.

When you upgrade a a legitimate activated Windows 7 to Windows 10 there is no key of any sort sent the Microsoft activation servers. Rather, because W7 is already activated a digital licence for the edition you got (Home or Pro) will be stored on the activation servers along with the unique hardware ID of the PC (this is mainly the motherboard and cpu serial numbers and a few other things, but does not include the HDD). The actual Windows 10 installed by the upgrade will have a generic key, no key has been stored on the activation servers.

I would recommend the upgrade first to get a digital licence, thereafter you can do a clean install any time you want without the need for any key.

After upgrading Windows 7 to Windows 10 the PC's hardware ID is the 'key' that entitles this machine to run Windows 10. You can do a clean install of the same edition (Home or Pro) and click 'I don't have one' when asked for a key. Windows will activate from the existing digital licence as soon as it can contact the activation servers.

* in fact, it wasn't quite the way OEM Windows 7 worked either. That CoA key on the W7 machine has never been used, it's there as a backup in case you ever needed to do a clean install of W7. The actual pre-installed OEM W7 has a different key, a special one that the OEM used for all their pre-installed images. This key along with an SLP marker in the bios would activate Windows 7 off-line without needing to contact the activation servers. If you ever did a factory reset on an OEM machine this was the way it activated.

OEM: SLP = System Locked Pre-installation key - Win Vista/7 manufacturer specific keys used to mass activate those installations. Activation is off-line with a SLIC table in the firmware and matching Certificate installed together with the key.

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