Install W10 Pro without having a key yet ?

Hi All,
My latter part of the problem ('accessing' MS account), was not a hurdle in getting activated, it was just MS suggesting we could have the online/connected/whatever logon, instead of just having a local logon.
On re-reading your posts, I now believe that was what most of you were telling me.
So it is now fully installed, and activated(as most of you were saying it would be).

Thanks again for all of your help. It was much appreciated,
Rob
PS

AddRAM said:

But why put a 40 GB hard drive in it ??
Go buy at least a 256 GB SSD.
SSD 850 PRO 2.5" SATA III 256GB Memory & Storage - MZ-7KE256BW | Samsung US

I am on the pension and my rent takes up 56% of that pension.

RobDownUnder said:

Hi All,
My latter part of the problem ('accessing' MS account), was not a hurdle in getting activated, it was just MS suggesting we could have the online/connected/whatever logon, instead of just having a local logon.
On re-reading your posts, I now believe that was what most of you were telling me.
So it is now fully installed, and activated(as most of you were saying it would be).

Thanks again for all of your help. It was much appreciated,
Rob

Very good, Rob, and you're welcome.

How exactly did you install and activate? Skipped filling in keys and do it afterwards? It activated by itself? Run the troubleshooter?

Yes, it would be called an MS (online) account vs a local account. There are pros and cons to both.

HippsieGypsie said:

Very good, Rob, and you're welcome.
How exactly did you install and activate? Skipped filling in keys and do it afterwards? It activated by itself? Run the troubleshooter?
Yes, it would be called an MS (online) account vs a local account. There are pros and cons to both.

I am 75 and the one thing that does not work is my memory.
I installed with the DVD, which was fairly painless, and it even had Cortana chatting to me as it did it.
I think I skipped entry of key (I recall it saying I could do it later).
I briefly (incorrectly) suspected that the prompting to 'connect to the MS account' was for activation. Which I am now pretty sure was not for activation.
So it seems that it activated by itself automatically

RobDownUnder said:

I am 75 and the one thing that does not work is my memory.
I installed with the DVD, which was fairly painless, and it even had Cortana chatting to me as it did it.
I think I skipped entry of key (I recall it saying I could do it later).
I briefly (incorrectly) suspected that the prompting to 'connect to the MS account' was for activation. Which I am now pretty sure was not for activation.
So it seems that it activated by itself automatically

Thanks for posting that. I can relate to the short-term memory problem.

All in all, glad it went well for you. You may want to mark this thread as solved.

HippsieGypsie said:

All in all, glad it went well for you. You may want to mark this thread as solved.

I did that a few hours ago.
I looked in the usual places to see if the thread was marked 'Solved'
I could not see that anywhere.
Except at the top left of the page, the green label was(and still is) now saying 'mark unsolved'.
It has been showing that for the few hours, since I attempted to 'solve' it

RobDownUnder said:

I did that a few hours ago.
I looked in the usual places to see if the thread was marked 'Solved'
I could not see that anywhere.
Except at the top left of the page, the green label was(and still is) now saying 'mark unsolved'.
It has been showing that for the few hours, since I attempted to 'solve' it

Ok. my apology. I didn't notice it.

The best of luck to you. Happy computing. :)

RobDownUnder said:

AddRAM said:

But why put a 40 GB hard drive in it ??

I am on the pension and my rent takes up 56% of that pension.

40GB will be a little tight on space. There may not be enough free space to perform the upgrade when Fall Creators Update comes along. If so, there are several things you can do that may increase the free space. One is to check to see if your system is running as a Compact OS. It probably already is, but you can compress it if it isn't. The other is to use Disk Clean Up to its fullest extent.

Compress or Uncompress Windows 10 with Compact OS
Open and Use Disk Cleanup in Windows 10

RobDownUnder said:

I briefly (incorrectly) suspected that the prompting to 'connect to the MS account' was for activation. Which I am now pretty sure was not for activation.

Microsoft can't understand why anyone would not want a Microsoft Account, so they put it as a big and obvious default choice as your first account when installing. The local account option is small and unobtrusive, Microsoft would prefer you not to spot it lurking there :)