Windows 10 Build 10240 for PC is now available

Originally Posted by groze

You actually have more than 30 days. After or on the 30th day you won't be able to roll back. You will need to restore from an image backup.

essenbe said:

Good luck activating

They can't legally do that in the U.S. that is. A Macrium image keeps your activation unless Macrium changed something with version 6. I use version 5. I keep what works for imaging. You might have to call Microsoft and tell them you got rid of 10, so they can cancel your 10 activation for that machine.

One thing that was kind of odd that Microsoft did, was tell people who have a windows 7 pre-installed system is to use the key on the back of the machine to upgrade to windows 10 not the internal key as they call it. That was in the faq.

COMPUTIAC said:

You Sir, would be 100% correct !

Cheers mate. I have managed to activate Windows now. On System screen it said that Windows is not activated ..conect to internet and it has activate button on system screen. When you click on Activate it takes you to activation screen. In activation screen there was no activate button to press, only options were to change the key or go to store. I clean installed Windows 10 once I upgraded to Insider preview from Windows 7 Pro SP1. Now when you click on go to store through Activation in settings it says Windows is genuine but still did not activate. I noticed that when I went to activation again it no longer said connec to internet it just said Windows is not activated. I then clicked on go to store again after than in Activation it said Windows is activated.

Only concern is that it shows completley different key to what I had before 3V66T. 3V66T was default that was installed with Clean Install. showkey shows a different key now.

So for those who Clean installed. Click on activate in System screen. It will take you to activation screen click on go to store. repeat that couple of time your clean isntall should be activated. I hope it helps someone.

sygnus21 said:

Again, is there something I missed? Are we saying once you upgrade to 10, after 30 days you can no longer revert back to your old OS and use its PID key?

Please explain/Link

Thanks.

Also, how does one deactivate windows 10 before going back after 30 days?

Actually, Windows keeps your entire old system in the windows.old directory just in case you wish to revert. The housekeeping task purges it automatically after 30 days. After that, you can either recover the old system from backup/image or reinstall fresh.
It has nothing to do with activation or licensing. Formally, you are not allowed to use the old and upgraded systems simultaneously, but technically it will work. I could even argue that it's perfectly OK to dual-boot between the old and upgraded copies in the same box.