Cost of Upgrade from XP to Win10Pro

Josey Wales said:

You can install anything you want.

That is a trivial statement that is useless. I can, but in order to be able to use it indefinitely, without nagging and spending $ I can only do it with the proper key and not all machines come with it.

Josey Wales said:

Not if you are in the Insider Program. At any given time I can run 4 different versions. You said that your issue is solved so mark this thread solved.

No matter how much you try to make your answers relevant to my problem, they were and are not. It seems to me that you are the one not listening.

Josey Wales said:

Not if you are in the Insider Program. At any given time I can run 4 different versions. You said that your issue is solved so mark this thread solved.

Right, my Insider Preview machine with the latest Build [V.1703 Build 16199.1000] shows an expiration date of 12/04/17, the longest term I've had yet.

Josey Wales said:

No you can do an in place up grade re install. It is in the tutorials look it up.

I don't need to upgrade, I need to downgrade.

Josey Wales said:

Read

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials

Are you saying that I can use a 1511Pro ISO to repair in place a 1703Pro installation? What does such a repair mean, mixing stuff from both versions? If that were possible -- which I doubt -- I would suspect problems. To avoid them there would have to be a fresh install of 1511, not a repair.

All: I think part of the issue and the reason for the question is because it definitely has been the case with past Windows versions (before digital entitlements) that certain product keys only worked with later versions of installers. I know that with both Windows XP and Windows 7, there was a point at which MS exhausted all possible product key combinations for a certain version (e.g. Win7 Ultimate Retail, or WinXP Pro OEM) and so they had to start issuing product keys from another block that earlier versions of Windows installers would not recognize as a valid key. Those keys would only be recognized and activated by, say, Windows XP Pro OEM with SP2 slipstreamed in, and not by a Windows XP Pro ISO without SP2 that had been pressed before that product key was generated. It wasn't like MS was purposefully trying to prevent you from installing XP without SP2, or 7 without SP1...they had simply run out of keys at some point and needed to generate new ones that there was no way to retroactively make older versions of the setup routine recognize as valid.

I suspect that with the new digital entitlement system, everybody here is largely correct in stating that a computer with a Win10 digital entitlement will properly activate with any version of Win10, even older versions. Where the answer becomes murkier is when we start talking about Windows 10 installations that are activated via an actual Windows 10 product key, and not via a digital entitlement generated by MS from a Win 7/8.1 activation. It is definitely *conceivable* that at some point, product keys generated by MS for Windows 10 will only work and be recognized by installers for versions of Win10 released after a certain date...again, not because MS is trying to be malevolent, but just because of the laws of mathematics. It's also *conceivable* that such a thing has already happened; however, I personally suspect that not enough Win10 product keys have been generated and sold/distributed at this point for this to be an issue, and any Win10 product key to-date will likely be recognized by the Win10 install routine going all the way back to 1507. This is only a guess, of course.

If OP is planning to purchase a used machine that already comes with Win10, it is probably OEM/BIOS activated anyway and I don't forsee him having problems installing and activating any version of Win10 on it that he wants to (putting aside debates about whether it is a good idea or not).

-- Nathan