How to tell if a PC has been 'upgraded' from 7 or 8.1 to Windows 10

trinaz · 06 Nov 2015

Have a new laptop that has Win 10 Home pre-installed...no recover disk was supplied. Is there a way to see if this laptop is a clean/fresh factory install of Windows 10 Home....or was upgraded at the factory from a Win 7 and/or Win 8.1 ? It was sold as a Windows 10 Home laptop ?

Thanks....TRinAz

Superfly · 06 Nov 2015

trinaz said:

Have a new laptop that has Win 10 Home pre-installed...no recover disk was supplied. Is there a way to see if this laptop is a clean/fresh factory install of Windows 10 Home....or was upgraded at the factory from a Win 7 and/or Win 8.1 ? It was sold as a Windows 10 Home laptop ?

Thanks....TRinAz

I'm not one to promote my own app, but ShowkeyPlus will give you the info you need.

If it has an 'Original key' - it was a upgrade.

LMiller7 · 06 Nov 2015

Why do you suspect that the OS was upgraded? I see no reason why any manufacturer would do this. The only reason why an upgrade is done is to preserve settings and applications in the previous OS, something which the manufacturer has no interest in.

A manufacturer or large organization would not normally install an OS the way individuals do. It is just too time consuming for large numbers of computers. Most likely the hard drive had the OS installed from an image.

trinaz · 06 Nov 2015

LMiller7 said:

Why do you suspect that the OS was upgraded? I see no reason why any manufacturer would do this. The only reason why an upgrade is done is to preserve settings and applications in the previous OS, something which the manufacturer has no interest in.

A manufacturer or large organization would not normally install an OS the way individuals do. It is just too time consuming for large numbers of computers. Most likely the hard drive had the OS installed from an image.

Thanks Thanks LMiller and Superfly...We have had this new laptop for a month and still have not been able to login to Windows 10 Home. Searches have shown that this is a common problem out there...and particularly if the system was upgraded from 8.1 to 10 ?

Doesn't seem likely a manufacturer would toss out a bunch of 8.1 outdated systems if they could get rid of them at a discounted price with Win 10 Home Installed ?? When we called the manufacturer...they simply said it was our fault we couldn't log in and we were pretty much on our own ??

Bink has been helping me but I'm still getting use to the terminology used in 10 vs the straight forward options in 7 Pro

Thanks...TRinAz

Thanks...TRinAz

NavyLCDR · 06 Nov 2015

trinaz said:

Thanks Thanks LMiller and Superfly...We have had this new laptop for a month and still have not been able to login to Windows 10 Home.

You have had a new laptop for a month that you have not been able to log into?!!!!! Wow, I would have taken that back the first day.....just me.

Ztruker · 06 Nov 2015

Fill out your system specs please. That will help us help you.

See here: How to See Your System Specs with "System Info"

With that info we can show you how to restore the computer to it's Factory new state so you can setup a user account and get logged in.

I agree with NavyLCDR though, return it and get a new one, maybe even a different manufacturer.

alphanumeric · 07 Nov 2015

There should be a keyboard key you can press on boot up to do the factory reset. That will put it back to the OOBE, Out Of the Box Experience. It will be like it was the first time you turned it on. Need more info on why you can't log on? Like when this happened? What message you get, what screen you see. Have you ever been able to log on since you first turned it on? Etc.