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Failed to validate product key problem strikes again
Hello I have done many Win 10 upgrades without any problems but my current problem has taken 2 days out of my life!! without a solution. Here is the situation.
I created a USB media drive using the Media Creation tool and have used it this week to successfully upgrade Win 8.1 systems so I know it works just fine. So yesterday wanted to upgrade a Win 8.1 system which is a full retail set up and has been activated for 2 years and still shows up as activated. I inserted the USB stick and ran the SETUP.exe file as usual to start the upgrade process and yes, the USB files were for the correct edition, after the usual pre-amble I got the message "Something Happened ---failed to validate the product key"---and of course it all stopped. Did this several times with same result. So to really verify that the Win 8.1 installation was OK I got the installation verified by Microsoft and it was just fine.
First question----- why is it rejected ? any fixes ? as I see it many times on the Forums etc.
I now tried booting from the USB and doing the upgrade that way and selected the Upgrade route for installation declining to enter a product key and this then started to behave normally. Now I did not have enough time to do anything more so terminated the installation process after a few seconds. I was asked if I wanted to quit and said yes. I then returned to the Win 8.1 system and turned the PC off . Today I decided to do the installation and Booted from the USB again and went through the initial stages but the process stopped telling me that it had previously started an installation and to "remove the installation media" then reboot to normal Windows, then insert the Installation Media and continue the upgrade. This was the first time that I have ever seen this message so assumed that when I plugged in the USB stick again it would continue on its own somehow but it did nothing I then ran the SETUP.exe file again but then up comes the Something Happened unable to validate product key.
So another question is ---what do I have to delete to remove the aborted installation history that Windows has remembered so that I can continue a fresh upgrade process.?
Thanks for any help as I am now at a standstill
Regards