Win10 free upgrade after reformatting

Oniisan · 06 Feb 2017

EDIT: For future reference, when resetting (reformat) your windows 10 PC, you won't need to reinstall your OS. I'm not sure if its the same thing for when you completely wipe your PC though. [How to Reset Your Windows 10 PC]

We've only bought the Win8 disk and got the Win 10 free upgrade when it was given out. After formatting, will we still be able to upgrade to win10 for free or do we have to buy it after?

jimbo45 · 06 Feb 2017

Hi there
It should still work -- after installing W10 simply enter the W8 key.
You only need to do that once as after that a digital entitlement will be created on the Ms servers.

Note the upgrade was working YESTERDAY (sun 5 Feb) -- how long this continues working for we've no idea but I should try and activate ASAP in case this method stops working !!!

Cheers
jimbo

NavyLCDR · 06 Feb 2017

Oniisan said:

We've only bought the Win8 disk and got the Win 10 free upgrade when it was given out. After formatting, will we still be able to upgrade to win10 for free or do we have to buy it after?

You don't need to upgrade again, you can re-install Windows 10 by itself and it will activate - so long as you install the same version of Windows 10 you had on the computer before.

jimbo45 · 06 Feb 2017

NavyLCDR said:

You don't need to upgrade again, you can re-install Windows 10 by itself and it will activate - so long as you install the same version of Windows 10 you had on the computer before.

Hi there

also if you got the free upgrade but didn't apply it (i.e you haven't installed W10 on that machine) then an INITIAL clean install will still work using the W8 key

Cheers
jimbo

alphanumeric · 06 Feb 2017

Go to Settings > Update & Security > Activation and see what it says. Take not of the Edition, and if it says activated with a digital License. If it says activated with a digital license you can clean install that same edition, skip entering a key, and it will activate with the digital license. It's just that easy.