The Clean Install Question. Reading Between The Lines.

An OEM key will have the letters OEM somewhere in the 25 number/letter chain.

Having started this thread, I'm afraid to say that at this point (today) all these questions have become somewhat hypothetical for me.

I still can not get W10 to install on my Dell Vostro i5 (I tried an upgrade install a couple of months ago and that took seven hours and was unusable with CPU pegged out at 100% all the time). Today I followed the latest link in the tutorial to get the current build and install using the clean install/fresh format route. It has failed.

https://www.tenforums.com/installatio...tml#post250391

alphanumeric said:

Yeah, sorry for taking this thread off topic.

Not at all :)

I've learnt and gleaned a huge amount from the discussion here.

You can also run slmgr /dlv as administrator to see whether you are OEM or RETAIL channel.

Windows8 and 8.1 has not been beset with the various nefarious techniques to achieve activation unlike with Windows 7 and earlier, where with the help of certain websites, it was possible to run a pirated Windows as if it were legitimate, so MS are fairly confident with the Windows 8 license/product key/activation technology. Especially when users don't need to know what the product key is, and most will never know.

The Windows 8 upgrade also had qualifying systems and upgradeable systems which were not necessarily the same. It was quite possible to use your qualifying OEM Windows 7 Home Premium to obtain an upgrade at £($)14.99 and apply that upgrade to a Consumer or Release Preview dual booting on the same machine. Neither of the OSs would become inactivated.

I do not expect this to change with the release of Windows 10 upgrade.

For instance, it is possible to mount the .ISO for Windows 10 10130 from within Windows 8.x, navigate to the \sources folder on the virtual DVD drive, and then run the setup from there to clean install Windows 10 Insider Preview to an empty partition, and as Mystere says MS do not track the activated status of keys - they will not know if you still have Windows 8.x running as well as your new install of Windows 10 IP.

Same thing if you, next month, upgrade your Insider Preview Windows 10 with the .ESD or .ISO you have reserved for your qualifying Windows 8.x - as long as the machine hash is correct, the upgrade will work, and you will never run them both simultaneously, and Microsoft will never check.

The reality is that you are still using a MS product, you will boost the Windows 10 statistics for Windows OS Market share, and put another nail in the XP coffin.