Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 10565 Insider

Charlie said:

The test pc I will use has vista and 7 dual boot. Just going to try installing on the 7 partition and see if it will accept the key.:)

And what key will you be using? The same W7 that was already activated on that machine? And will you clean install or upgrade?

I must be confused, because I thought the original problem/comment was from @Wynona:

So, what this means is that I can't use my Retail Windows 7 or 8.1 product key to install Windows 10 if I build a new PC. And yeah, I still have a couple or three Retail copies of Windows 7 Ultimate that aren't tied to any machine.

Not very convenient for me if I have to first install a legitimate Retail copy of 7 or 8.1 before I can use my key to install Windows 10.

Or do I need to read back further in this thread?

Just tryng to test if I can skip right to clean install of ten and use the key for the 7 that is already on the pc yeah you need to go back and see that I did have a little twitch with nona.

Charlie said:

Just tryng to test if I can skip right to clean install of ten and use the key for the 7 that is already on the pc yeah you need to go back and see that I did have a little twitch with nona.

Oh that will be interesting - the way I read it, the upgrade has to be accomplished first. If you successfully activate a clean install just by using the existing W7 key that was previously activated on that machine, THAT will be something!

The next one after that will be to clean install W10 on a system that has never seen an activated qualified OS, and use a retail W7/W8.x key to activate the W10 installation.

Charlie said:

Just tryng to test if I can skip right to clean install of ten and use the key for the 7 that is already on the pc yeah you need to go back and see that I did have a little twitch with nona.

That's not the way Gabe's comment reads. In order for the qualifying product key to work it must already be part of the registration of the device on Microsoft's servers. That means that you must have already done the entitlement upgrade in order to get the device registered in the first place. Don't you think Microsoft already guessed that folks would love to get a free copy of Windows 10 without ever having purchased Windows 7 or 8?

Charlie said:

The test pc I will use has vista and 7 dual boot. Just going to try installing on the 7 partition and see if it will accept the key.:)

Awww, Charlie, that's no fun! You won't really prove anything by doing that.

In order to prove your point, you need to install Windows 10 to the Vista partition (where Windows 7 has never been installed) and use a Windows 7 key.

StarFerret says she's gonna watch you do it through my monitor. :)

simrick said:

Oh that will be interesting - the way I read it, the upgrade has to be accomplished first. If you successfully activate a clean install just by using the existing W7 key that was previously activated on that machine, THAT will be something!

The next one after that will be to clean install W10 on a system that has never seen an activated qualified OS, and use a retail W7/W8.x key to activate the W10 installation.

Simrick That's right all you should need is a key , I have run into a snag with my test for now. My test pc is running a Win 7 home and my install media just completed with rufus is 10 pro. There is this thing mentioned by MS that says must be like to like for the key to work. So I am going to wipe my pc and install 7 pro then activate it and then go go. results on the marrow.

Gary said:

I doubt that it will work as planned..:)

I'm pretty sure it won't. :)