I have a friend, she has a Dell laptop that had Windows 7 and upgrade to Windows 10 when it was free
her hard drive failed and so we bought a new hard drive and are ready to reinstall
can I download Windows 10 iso and install that and would it recognized it as the same machine?
I am uncertain how it knows if 10 was installed prior
or do I need to reinstall windows 7 and then upgrade?
Digital licenses are now tied to MS accounts. If she uses one it should activate. Give it some time. If not, use the activation troubleshooter or enter her W7 keys in the Settings app > Update & security > Activation.
Use Activation Troubleshooter in Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials
Microsoft has said that "once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no additional charge.
You can also use Windows 7 product key to activate Windows 10 but you don't have to worry install Windows 10 and skip the supplying product key part for Windows 10 soon as you are online Windows 10 will activate it self.
Hi,
Last time I reinstalled 10 there was no skip
It was renamed to create a off line account
Most straight forward method still is to install without a internet connection so no new freaky terms are used by the installer :)
If she used a MS email account there shouldn't be any issues activating.
The Linked to your Microsoft Account is just an extra feature to make Activation troubleshooting and transferring a license easier. It's not a requirement for activation. I have many times clean installed and logged in with a local account and Windows activated just fine with the Digital License it already had. Once you do the free upgrade, and activate with a Digital License. That Digital License is stored on the activation server along with a hardware hash (fingerprint) of the PC.
If you clean install the same Edition of Windows 10 (Home, Pro etc) you got with the free upgrade, and do a skip entering a key. It should activate with the DL it originally got. What account you setup with makes no difference. It will just relink to that Microsoft Account. If you use a local account it just won't link. It will still activate just fine.
Quote