Windows 10 from Windows 8 licence key

[james_TW]

I've got an AMD Lenovo laptop that has Windows 8.1 on it which is, well, it's Windows 8 which is terrible as we know - My plan was to put Windows 10 on it which would be far better. However, I didn't have the licence key which I've since retrieved with this PS command:

(Get-WmiObject -query 'select * from SoftwareLicensingService').OA3xOriginalProductKey

So, armed with this key, I wanted to install Windows 10 - However, what I didn't want to do was to put W10 on to find that the licence key didn't work - So my question is this: Has anyone used a Windows 8 key to activate Windows 10? I've seen articles that suggest that this is possible, but I was wondering if anyone here has done this?

Thanks

JTW

[grumbledoak]

I've done that. You won't even need the licence key, it will be found.

[james_TW]

grumbledoak said:

I've done that. You won't even need the licence key, it will be found.

But if I install Windows 10 anew, it won't find the key?

[grumbledoak]

james_TW said:

But if I install Windows 10 anew, it won't find the key?

It will be stored in the BIOS.

Belarc Advisor is good for extracting any others.

[KrazyIvan]

If your worried about ending up without a working copy of windows, do you have an external drive you can user to make a clone of the current build?

[996owner]

Do this.

Search google for the Windows 10 media creation tool infact I'll do it for ya. https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/...

Click nice blue box "Download Tool Now"
Follow instructions (theirs and option to either create install media or "Upgrade this PC" choose upgrade this PC

job done. Takes about an hour depending on PC.
It will be worth cloning HDD and then making an SSD, massive speed increase.


In the last 2 month I've upgraded at least 10 pc's to windows 10 with only 1 issue, it was a strange version of win8 called the win 8.1 media pack I gave up.

the pc's I upgraded had win 7 pro and I have never been asked for a licence key using the above method. Seems Microsoft didn't quite close down the free upgrade system.

Edited by 996owner on Wednesday 6th November 19:23

[james_TW]

I've used the media creation tool a few times and it's really handy - However, I've not used it to upgrade to Windows 10. I'll have a go at that so thank you

[Tebbers]

I did this last month from 8.1 Pro to 10 Pro, Microsoft are still allowing it so it seems. As the other poster said, the key will be detected from the BIOS so when it asks you to put in the key, select the option that says ‘I don’t have a key’ and it should pick it up automatically.

I used the tool from Microsoft to create a bootable USB stick.

[996owner]

I didn't have a choice about entering a key

it just installed. That said I didn't create a USB drive I just upgraded the PC

[The_Jackal]

Is this upgrade still free? I thought it was for a limited time only after Win10 came out?
As I remember, it even worked for pirate copies.

[grumbledoak]

The_Jackal said:

Is this upgrade still free? I thought it was for a limited time only after Win10 came out?
As I remember, it even worked for pirate copies.

Microsoft won't care. Win8 flopped. They want everyone on Win10.

[996owner]

Just follow my post above to get Media creation tool. Works on win 7 and 8

Free never had a licence issue yet. Did a laptop last week. No issues yet

[james_TW]

Holy thread resurrection...

I've done this (on a different laptop) and Windows 10 installed happily - but is showing as not Activated. When I try to activate it, I get:

"Something has prevented us from communicating with our activation servers, wait a few minutes and try again: (0x87e10bcf)"

I can't seem to work out why after some troubleshooting - Even manually doing it isn't working and the troubleshooter is hopeless...

Anyone else had this?

[andygo]

i had an issue upgrading from W7 to W10 on my imac's Parallels install.

In the end, I just reinstalled W7 in the Parallels environment. I only use Parallels for Aim data logging software viewing and a quirky Excel quote file for work that wants to use Active X.

[james_TW]

I might see how it goes - don't really want to go back to 8.1 but we'll see...

[OlonMusky]

james_TW said:

I might see how it goes - don't really want to go back to 8.1 but we'll see...

8.1 would be my default go to choice if I wanted to use Windows. Put something like classic shell on top and you have what effectively is Windows 7.5.