help me understand digital activation and email  

• I gave my old win7 home built computer (asrock extreme6 lga1150) to my nephew in 2017. I had bought an oem windows 7 key from newegg when i built it this pc for myself back in ~2015.
• I think at one point i did the free win10 upgrade on it, but when I gave it to my nephew I put in a new SSD and installed that original oem win7 on it. He has been using win7 till yesterday.
• I put in another new SSD and installed win10 via dvd having downloaded the iso on my win10home pc using the download tool.
• In activating this win10 on my old extreme6 lga1150, since that window of opportunity to do the free win7 to win10 thing as come and gone I was under the impression we would be paying $99 for win10 home. After the win10 install, under settings I click activation, it wants an email. So I have my nephew type in his @gmail.com because he wanted to do games from the microsoft store, and going forward wanted it to be set up for him so he could make use of the microsoft store. In typing in his gmail during activation, windows activated automatically and we didn't pay anything. why/how does this happen?

Same scenario for my mom's computer: she is still running win7 and I had done the free win10 upgrade on it couple years ago, she didn't like it so I reinstalled my oem win7 on it. She doesn't not have an @gmail or @live email, i think it's some old @att email. Is there a way I can take my mom's computer, with no hardware including the ssd changing, and install win10 on it and get it activated for free like i had happen on my nephew's pc ?

Windows 10 activation does not depend on email address. Once Windows 10 is activated for the first time on a computer, the unique Hardware ID for that computer is sent to Microsoft Activation servers along with the edition of Windows 10 that was activated (IE: Home or Pro). This is completely independent of any email address used to log on to the computer, and will happen even if only a local account with no email association is used.

After that, when the same edition of Windows 10 is re-installed on the same computer, the unique Hardware ID for that computer will be sent to Microsoft and as long as the edition of Windows 10 installed matches the license previously stored at Microsoft, Windows will retrieve the digital license and activate itself, again, completely independent of any email address used to log on to the computer with.

The email address is merely a way to log on to the computer - it has nothing to do with activation. Untill you try to move a digital license from one computer to another by using the device association with you MS account, but that is an entirely different process.

in trying to activate the latest build of windows 10, whatever it was downloading the iso from Microsoft on 1/16/2020, I had planned to just go to microsoft.com or wherever and pay $99 after clicking "Activation" under System Settings. I found no way to proceed with activation in this manner unless I entered a [microsoft ?] email address.

So I asked my nephew, do u have a microsoft or @live email so we can proceed with activation? Because I didn't want to go buy a win10 home license from newegg, I figured it would be better/easier to do it directly with Microsoft. Being a kid he just says yeah but types in his @gmail, and then win10 automatically activated.

Are you saying that with win10 online digital activation, it just needs any valid email? Or does the email need to be like something like @gmail or @yahoo? What about an @comcast email ?

So my mom's pc I built however long ago, with a win7 home key purchased from newegg; I did the free win10 upgrade on that when it was available. She didn't like win10, so I reinstalled win7 on it. Are you saying I can just install win10home from dvd on it and it should online digital activate since I technically had done it prior? If so, what kind of email address do I need to use during the activation process, because I don't think there's anyway to proceed with the online activation under system settings - Activation without providing some email address. During the install, I have the network cable unplugged so I can make a local Administrator account. I do "control userpasswords2" to make it auto login on power up. Then I plug in the network cable to do online activation.

On a win7 pc, that has always been win7 and did not ever take advantage of the win10 free update during that time period, can that get win10home installed on it and activated for free? Or in this case am I looking at $99 ?
Thanks.

ron7000 said:

Are you saying that with win10 online digital activation, it just needs any valid email? Or does the email need to be like something like @gmail or @yahoo? What about an @comcast email ?

Ummm... well...

NavyLCDR said:

Windows 10 activation does not depend on email address.

How much more clearer could I make that?

ron7000 said:

So my mom's pc I built however long ago, with a win7 home key purchased from newegg; I did the free win10 upgrade on that when it was available. She didn't like win10, so I reinstalled win7 on it. Are you saying I can just install win10home from dvd on it and it should online digital activate since I technically had done it prior?

Yes

ron7000 said:

If so, what kind of email address do I need to use during the activation process, because I don't think there's anyway to proceed with the online activation under system settings - Activation without providing some email address.

No email address is required. Open a Command Prompt (Admin), or a Powershell (Admin) with administrator priviliges, and when connected to the internet, run:
slmgr /ato

ron7000 said:

During the install, I have the network cable unplugged so I can make a local Administrator account. I do "control userpasswords2" to make it auto login on power up. Then I plug in the network cable to do online activation.

Yep.

ron7000 said:

On a win7 pc, that has always been win7 and did not ever take advantage of the win10 free update during that time period, can that get win10home installed on it and activated for free? Or in this case am I looking at $99 ?
Thanks.

You can still upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 10 for free.

NavyLCDR said:

How much more clearer could I make that?

type it out in all caps with larger font size

You can still upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 10 for free

solved. thanks.