Can't use win 7, 8, 8.1 keys after July 29th

zooburner said:

Yes it's misleading, you will still be able to use your Window's 7/8/8.1 key to activate the version it was originally intended for

The only difference is the Upgrade install app won't be free.

alphanumeric said:

You Cannot Activate Windows 10 Using Windows 7, 8, 8.1 Product Key After July 29, 2016

I hope/assume that includes OEM 8/8.1 embedded keys, as in it stops looking for them on a clean install.

A clean install looks for your digital entitlement for Windows 10 not a previous key.

alphanumeric said:

That's what were hoping happens.

Right now once you do the free upgrade that PC gets a digital entitlement. That's stored on the activation server. You can then clean install, do a skip when asked for a KEY, and activate with the digital entitlement. Microsoft along the way decided to let you clean install with a Windows 7 or 8/8.1 key, without having to upgrade first. They even went so far as to have the Windows 10 install media check your BIOS for OEM keys.
On my laptop, that has a Windows 8.0 OEM embedded key, I don't get any option to skip entering a key or select Home or Pro. 10 Home is installed by default. Even though I originally did the free upgrade from 8.1 Pro and got 10 Pro. I then have to take extra steps to upgrade from Home to Pro, or modify my install media to install Pro instead of Home. for me, now that I know what to do, its no big deal. I just add a PID.txt file to my install media. Which I'll likely do anyway just to speed things up on a clean install. If they stop looking for 8/8.1 keys though, it will make life easier for others wondering why it did that. Why didn't I get the selection menu?

New with the Anniversary Update: To stop alot of the activation failures and need to call MS.

Home or Pro versions are part of the Digital Entitlement. That is one of the reason MS is adding a link from Digital Entitlement to your MS account. Previous if you did an anytime upgrade from Win 10 home to Pro after the activating linking to your account will show you have Pro now and Pro will be activated without having to call MS.

Debbie said:

Sorry if this has been answered before. (Am asking this on behalf of a friend who doesn't want W10 in spite of my encouraging her to upgrade) - After 29th July will the GWX icon in notification tray go away, stop giving reminders to upgrade or what?

Yes supposedly it will go away.

alphanumeric said:

That's what were hoping happens.

Right now once you do the free upgrade that PC gets a digital entitlement. That's stored on the activation server. You can then clean install, do a skip when asked for a KEY, and activate with the digital entitlement. Microsoft along the way decided to let you clean install with a Windows 7 or 8/8.1 key, without having to upgrade first. They even went so far as to have the Windows 10 install media check your BIOS for OEM keys.
On my laptop, that has a Windows 8.0 OEM embedded key, I don't get any option to skip entering a key or select Home or Pro. 10 Home is installed by default. Even though I originally did the free upgrade from 8.1 Pro and got 10 Pro. I then have to take extra steps to upgrade from Home to Pro, or modify my install media to install Pro instead of Home. for me, now that I know what to do, its no big deal. I just add a PID.txt file to my install media. Which I'll likely do anyway just to speed things up on a clean install. If they stop looking for 8/8.1 keys though, it will make life easier for others wondering why it did that. Why didn't I get the selection menu?

Yeah - sums it up nicely.

Look forward to seeing what happens when you try to upgrade windows 8 on a pc where digital licence was established after the free period ends as we discussed in

Reupgrading after the free period ends. - Windows 10 Forums

orlbuckeye said:

A clean install looks for your digital entitlement for Windows 10 not a previous key.

Not at the moment. It looks for OEM embedded keys during setup. If one is found its used. I verified it myself on my laptop. Once you log in, it then checks for a Digital Entitlement. If there isn't one already, one is created for that PC. You won't see this behavior on a Windows 7 PC because they don't use embedded keys. Do a clean install on an OEM Windows 8/8.1 PC and it will use the OEM key. I get 10 Home on my laptop when I'm actually entitled to 10 Pro. I did my free upgrade from a Retail 8.1 Pro install.

NavyLCDR said:

A clean install first looks for product keys stored in BIOS/UEFI firmware.

After July 29th, nothing will change on the Windows client end (local computer). Clean installs and upgrades will continue on the local computer exactly the same as before. What will happen is that Microsoft activation servers will stop handing out new digital entitlements for free. It's a whole lot easier for Microsoft to flip that one single software switch on their server than it is to rewrite the activation code in Windows released to the public.

That will be the first step. It won't matter what install media you use, no more free upgrades. The anniversary update will "likely" have all the free upgrade code striped out. Crosses fingers.

alphanumeric said:

Not at the moment. It looks for OEM embedded keys during setup. If one is found its used. I verified it myself on my laptop. Once you log in, it then checks for a Digital Entitlement. If there isn't one already, one is created for that PC. You won't see this behavior on a Windows 7 PC because they don't use embedded keys. Do a clean install on an OEM Windows 8/8.1 PC and it will use the OEM key. I get 10 Home on my laptop when I'm actually entitled to 10 Pro. I did my free upgrade from a Retail 8.1 Pro install.

I wonder if it is a bit more subtle than that i.e. it checks for a key and if it finds one, it still activates with a digital licence and you still get a generic 10 key. It could be effectively reupgrading very time, reregistering the digital licence each time. No way to tell as end result is the same. I could see this possible being more efficient though .

In any case, if it does not find a key, it has to search for the digital licence anyway.