Activation problem

labeeman said:

Wrong the only thing W10 reads is if the previous OS was activated the keys for W7 and W8 will not be valid for W10.
If you do a clean install your W10 will not activate and only 2 ways to get it to activate is by installing and activating the previous OS or by buying a W10 key.

While you post is partially correct, it is irrelevant to the process we are discussing in this thread. This thread is discussing going back to Windows 8/8.1 as a basis for upgrading to Windows 10. Read the post that I was responding to. We were discussing installing Windows 8/8.1, not Windows 10. While installing Windows 8/8.1 it should read the key for Windows 8/8.1 stored in bios.

labeeman said:

Yep you are correct have deleted my post. Need to know if he has the correct ISO

Yes, that is correct. Only the correct ISO with the correct version of Windows 8/8.1 will use the Windows 8 key stored in bios, evidenced by not asking for it to be manually entered.

Dumb me, I forgot that there was an original Lenovo recovery partition. I ran it and it loaded W8 on the computer. Now I am removing the bloatwear and I think I have to update to 8.1 and then can I use the media creation tool to upgrade to W10?
Len

labeeman said:

You can leave the bloat ware there just get the 8.1 activated then install W10 it should activate then do another clean install of W10 no bloat ware left.

Exactly! You only need Windows 8.1 on there for the length of time it takes the Media Creation Tool to get Windows 10 for you. If you want to skip a step and you are sure which version of Windows 10 you will get, you can go ahead and create a Windows 10 install USB or DVD. Insert that as a normal storage device and run setup.exe from within Windows 8.1 to do the first upgrade. Once that is done AND ACTIVATED, then boot from the USB or DVD and do a clean install. You only need the Windows 10 upgrade with all the bloatware on there long enough to get an activation.

To verify activation before a clean install, from a command prompt type slmgr /dlv

You should see license information via the retail channel and no information about expiration.

Then type slmgr /xpr

That should say "This machine is permanently activated"

If you get those results in Windows 10 that is as safe as you can be to clean install Windows 10 on the same computer.

Thanks, doing the W8.1 update now.

Len