win10 not free for oem machines

Maybe going back to school for some is needed. The process is not that hard to understand.

adamson said:

Maybe going back to school for some is needed. The process is not that hard to understand.

Agreed.

derekimo said:

You don't need SP1 to upgrade to 10,
Only to upgrade through windows update do you need SP1.

Hi - so win7 seems fine, and I did check for updates, got lots of those OK. Between my install being from the only win7 ISO MS offers at the moment, plus the updates, it must be ok to be upgraded now. But I am very cautious after this experience though, so no more ISO for this laptop!

I was hoping to see that annoying 'get win 10' that pops up bottom right, so I could follow the 'normal' upgrade path, but so far nothing. Is there a way to indicate to MS that I would now find that popup most acceptable? Or get the win10 licence key I should obviously have before upgrading?

ognik said:

Or get the win10 licence key I should obviously have before upgrading?

You don't use a license key for the upgrade - by any method of upgrading.

Here's an article how to get the "Get Windows 10 Icon":
How to get the Windows 10 upgrade icon if it's missing - CNET

Even after you get the icon in your taskbar, nobody has gotten the upgrade that way in a while that I am aware of. Most people now are complaining, "I've had this stupid icon on my taskbar for a month now, when will I get Windows 10?"

NavyLCDR said:

Here's an article how to get the "Get Windows 10 Icon":
How to get the Windows 10 upgrade icon if it's missing - CNET

Thanks, but tried all 3 methods, rebooted, waited .... and still no win10 icon.
I gather the 'key' gets stored in the hardware somewhere, so once win10 is reserved you have that 'key permanently in the pc ... so then I might use the win10 ISO with more confidence ...

ognik said:

Thanks, but tried all 3 methods, rebooted, waited .... and still no win10 icon.
I gather the 'key' gets stored in the hardware somewhere, so once win10 is reserved you have that 'key permanently in the pc ... so then I might use the win10 ISO with more confidence ...

No. There is no key.

The free Win 10 upgrade must be installed as an upgrade over the qualifying OS (7 or 8.x). That will activate. The information about the hardware is retained on the Microsoft activation servers. You may then re-install (including a clean install, and including switching architectures between 32 and 64 bit), and Win 10 will activate again online on the same hardware.

Don't worry about using the ISO. That is the only means I've used on my 3 devices. One of them was a laptop from 2008 with an AMD processor and nVidia motherboard chipset. Other than a small struggle with drivers for that relic, all went smoothly.

A clean install of Win 10 on any machine having an earlier version will not activate. You have to do the upgrade first and then do a clean install if you want. It doesn't matter if it's OEM or not. Acer was wrong.

Also, .iso's of any Windows version will not accept an OEM product key. You have to reinstall from the manufacturer's recovery media. The OP would have to do that, then upgrade to 10, then clean install if desired.

bobkn said:

No. There is no key.

The free Win 10 upgrade must be installed as an upgrade over the qualifying OS (7 or 8.x). That will activate. The information about the hardware is retained on the Microsoft activation servers. You may then re-install (including a clean install, and including switching architectures between 32 and 64 bit), and Win 10 will activate again online on the same hardware.

Don't worry about using the ISO. That is the only means I've used on my 3 devices. One of them was a laptop from 2008 with an AMD processor and nVidia motherboard chipset. Other than a small struggle with drivers for that relic, all went smoothly.

Gotcha. Still no win10 icon on the laptop, not looking promising ....

Dch48 said:

Also, .iso's of any Windows version will not accept an OEM product key. You have to reinstall from the manufacturer's recovery media.

That is incorrect. Windows 8.1 will install from the ISO and use the Windows 8 product key stored in bios or entered manually.
Download Windows 8.1 Retail and OEM .iso | The Unofficial Windows 10 Reinstallation Guide

I've got a vanilla Windows 8.1 DVD burned from the downloaded ISO and it installs just fine with OEM product keys.

ognik said:

Gotcha. Still no win10 icon on the laptop, not looking promising ....

The Get Windows 10 icon has proven, historically, to be the least reliable method of upgrading to Windows 10.