Can't keep settings and apps when upgrading from Windows 8.1 Pro to 10  

A volume license is a group of licenses purchased by a corporation at a bulk discount so they can license all of their computers running on their network. KMS (Key Management Service) is one method of activating volume licenses. The corporation will have their own activation server which is licensed to activate a certain number of computers. The client computers will have a certain product key installed, and for Windows 8.1 Pro it is GCRJD-8NW9H-F2CDX-CCM8D-9D6T9. The product key for KMS activation requires the computer to contact the corporation's KMS server periodically in order to remain activated.

Now, I seriously doubt that your friend's computer is a member of a corporation's internal network and legitimately getting activated by that corporation because then it would be your friend's corporation that the computer belongs to that would be responsible for upgrading it to Windows 10. So that leaves the probability that your friend is using an illegitimate KMS activation scheme to keep their Windows 8.1 Pro activated because they did not pay for a real license for Windows 8.1 Pro.

NavyLCDR said:

The product key for KMS activation requires the computer to contact the corporation's KMS server periodically in order to remain activated.

But Windows does report as activated. Does that raise any questions about your analysis, or can you be certain from what you saw in the screen dump?

Now, I seriously doubt that your friend's computer is a member of a corporation's internal network and legitimately getting activated by that corporation because then it would be your friend's corporation that the computer belongs to that would be responsible for upgrading it to Windows 10. So that leaves the probability that your friend is using an illegitimate KMS activation scheme to keep their Windows 8.1 Pro activated because they did not pay for a real license for Windows 8.1 Pro.

It turns out she bought the PC from someone with a business building PCs. Maybe they were selling illegally activated copies of Windows.

In any case it does seem to settle the question about whether it would ever be possible to upgrade to W10 without losing settings and apps.

avidscavenger said:

But Windows does report as activated. Does that raise any questions about your analysis, or can you be certain from what you saw in the screen dump?

See the highlighted info:



That shows a volume license being activated via the KMS method. Since the computer is not connected to a corporate network with a KMS server, then it is safe to assume it is being activated by illegitimate methods. Your friend will have to purchase a real license for either Windows 8.1 Pro or Windows 10 Pro. (and, actually, a Windows 10 Pro license would require a clean install of Windows 10 Pro.) There might be a product key for Windows stored in the computer BIOS, and you can use Showkey Plus to display it, if there is one:
ShowKeyPlus