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

alphanumeric · 01 Aug 2016

lx07 said:

That will not help. You would need new hardware or a new VM to be sure.

If you have a digital entitlement you are stuck with it (I think - at least I seem to be). I've tried removing a VM from my MS account and it still activates if I clean install without entering the key.

I don't have any more keys to try on a new VM but it certainly worked a couple of weeks ago.

I can still test. One test will be to see if the Anniversary edition will auto detect OEM embedded keys. Having or not having a Digital entitlement won't affect that. If I'm prompted to enter a key I'll know it ignored the OEM key. If it installs 10 Home automatically I'll know it read it. On my PC's with no OEM keys, I'll just install 10 Home. I have two desktop PC's that only have Pro Entitlements. I'm going to install Home with a skip key, then verify its not activated. Then try one of my unused Windows 7 or 8 keys and see what happens. And another similar install on my other desktop PC entering the Windows 7 Home Premium key during the install, just to see if its accepted. I just can't do any testing with the Pro edition.

NavyLCDR · 01 Aug 2016

alphanumeric said:

I can still test.

I can still test as well. I have a replacement stick computer coming later this week as a warranty replacement. The old stick computer was running the latest Pro insider build when I sent it in. The replacement stick computer will have Windows 10 Home on it. I'm going to attempt to activate Windows 10 Pro on it with a Windows 8 Pro product key and/or genuineticket.xml from a Windows 8 Pro clean install that I will do on it.

echrada · 01 Aug 2016

Removed now please remove your post to! :)

DavidY · 01 Aug 2016

NavyLCDR said:

We are NOT going to promote using the upgrade offer for those using accessibility technology as a path to upgrade for people who don't use/need accessibility technology. That is the same as using a family member's handicap tag to park in a handicap parking spot when the family member is not with you.

I'm going to quibble with your statement that it's the same.

If I park in one of those parking spots when I'm not entitled, then importantly someone else can't park there, and if they have restricted mobility or whatever, it could be a serious issue for them.

If I downloaded Windows 10 by saying I used Assisitive Technology, then I'm not disadvantaging anyone who does use such technologies (except perhaps very indirectly by making their download just that bit slower).

I'm not saying you should promote this technique, but the main problem I have with it is being dishonest.

I think it's a much less serious issue than taking a parking space which I shouldn't.

As an aside, I do wish that Windows 10 had better control of colours. I know people who use pastel shaded colour backgrounds to their windows in Word/ Excel etc. because the reduced makes it easier to read text, for some conditions such as dyslexia. Even I find it helpful sometimes, and some colour schemes I find really hard to look at.

This is really easy to change in Windows 7 or 8, but Windows 10 has a really restrictive range of colours which are mostly keyed to give High Contrast, which is exactly the opposite of what is required in this case.

I think this sort of thing is why Windows 10 will be available to upgrade for longer, hopefully until a point where they put back into Windows 10 some of the controls which were in Windows 7 and 8.

NavyLCDR · 01 Aug 2016

DavidY said:

I think it's a much less serious issue than taking a parking space which I shouldn't.

Agreed.

Porthos · 01 Aug 2016

I just used the geniune ticket method to activate Win 10. I used my "swap" drive that has 10586 on it and activated 10 home.

No assistive method needed.

NavyLCDR · 01 Aug 2016

Porthos said:

I just used the geniune ticket method to activate Win 10. I used my "swap" drive that has 10586 on it and activated 10 home.

No assistive method needed.

Had the motherboard ever had Windows 10 Home activated on it before?

Porthos · 01 Aug 2016

NavyLCDR said:

Had the motherboard ever had Windows 10 Home activated on it before?

NO, I checked and ran it online and did some updates before I inserted the Genuine ticket and rebooted again.

groze · 01 Aug 2016

A little off topic.
This is just for information only & I mean no offense to anyone. Just because they can walk, doesn't mean they are not handicap. I have some knee issue & I limp I could possibly get a handicap placard but I don't. They will see me walking but may not be able to tell that I limp.

Nickynoo · 01 Aug 2016

Now Im confused...
I need to do a clean install, I have upgraded from windows 7 pro to windows 10 pro and have digital entitlement. Does this still mean that I can use the setup app to install windows 10 (skipping the asking for a key section) but choosing not to keep any files or apps - basically start at the beginning with a clean slate? Will it auto activate because of the digital entitlement and Ill be good to go? I am waiting for my laptop to automatically upgrade to the anniversary edition, I intend to do a clean install of that buy doing an esd to iso.
Other questions about the esd to iso process - are the files needed to create the iso deleted by windows when the computer is first restarted for the install upgrade process, I need to do the esd to iso process to save on data download size and I also have a very slow download speed. I have read through the tutorial of esd to iso and it seams pretty straight forward and easy to follow, however one section confuses me and that is step two. In the tutorial at step two, the two options given (in yellow) are "create ISO with stand install.wim or compressed install.esd" - do these create the same iso, if not what is the difference? Another source of confusion is the note by f14tomcat - what does the note mean. fast forward to after the tool is created - how do i start the install process bearing in mind that I want to partition my C drive so that windows 10 is using the entire disk.