Fresh Windows 10 upgrade on a new SSD using existing Windows 7 key?

I read that Microsoft has the Windows 10 ISO available for download through this tool:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

I want to upgrade my HTPC's Windows 7 that's on an HDD, which has the Windows 10 upgrade icon in the system tray, to a new SSD as a fresh install. Is there anyway for me to do this? Or is all I could do is do the in-place upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10, then clone my HDD to the SSD, then swap out the disks?

Obviously, the fresh install using my Windows 7 product key license for the Windows 10 ISO that I plan to download would be much preferred. TIA.

Upgrade from 7 to 10 on your HTPC with the HDD. Make sure you are able to activate.

At that point, install 10 fresh on your SSD. If it asks you for a key at all, just skip or leave it blank and click next. When 10 is installed, it will auto-activate based on recognizing that you have the same hardware (motherboard) as before, without ever having to use any key. You don't need to clone anything, but you DO need to do the upgrade first, after which you can do a fresh install as many times as you want on that same hardware (motherboard) without any key.

Clone the HDD to the SSD, activate Windows 7 on the SSD, then do the Windows 10 upgrade, activate Windows 10 on the SSD, then do the clean install of Windows 10 on the SSD.

Last I heard, changing the drive changes the activation hash that the WIndows 10 upgrade uses. Correct me if this has been proven otherwise.

You cannot use the Windows 7 product key when doing a fresh install of Windows 10. You have to perform the upgrade to generate the activation hash which gets stored on Microsoft servers. Once that has been done, you can do all the clean installs you want on that device and there are no keys involved.

If it were me I would do it the same as I did. Run the media creation tool on current system and create the USB update tool. Put in new SSD do a fresh install of win7 with sp1 and activate do not worry about any other updates just make sure it's activated. Run the update from the thumb drive you created earlier. You can then do a clean install if you like but I didn't find it necessary. Updating from a clean Win7 install is close enough that you won't notice a difference.

evilsofa said:

Clone the HDD to the SSD, activate Windows 7 on the SSD, then do the Windows 10 upgrade, activate Windows 10 on the SSD, then do the clean install of Windows 10 on the SSD.

Last I heard, changing the drive changes the activation hash that the WIndows 10 upgrade uses. Correct me if this has been proven otherwise.

You cannot use the Windows 7 product key when doing a fresh install of Windows 10. You have to perform the upgrade to generate the activation hash which gets stored on Microsoft servers. Once that has been done, you can do all the clean installs you want on that device and there are no keys involved.

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Changing the drive does not affect it, that's generally the mobo/CPU that affects the hardware hash. If it did affect it, it would also affect the Win7 activation. Even though you are still throwing a product key at Win7 there still seems to be a hardware hash stored MS side which causes activation to fail if you've made major hardware changes, and that generally isn't caused by a HDD/SSD change.

I would definitely recommend upgrading on the old HDD then doing the clean install on the SSD.

Great, thanks everyone! I didn't even think about upgrading my HDD from Win 7 to 10 to get it to authenticate with my motherboard. And then to do a clean/fresh install on the SSD and bypass the activation if it asks and let it phone home to MS to re-authenticate since it should detect my motherboard is still the same. I have my mini project set for Labor Day weekend. In the meantime, I'm going to download the Windows 10 Home ISO file and burn it to DVD or copy it on a USB thumb drive.

Well I went ahead to upgrade my HTPC from Win 7 to 10. It took a while to download it on my slow Internet. Then it failed due to a very cryptic error while it was installing. I did some Googling and it was due to insufficient disk space. I cleared out more space and then the upgrade proceeded, although it took a very long time. It was also activated. That was phase 1.

Phase 2 was to then do a clean install on an SSD vs the HDD that was upgraded from Win 7 to 10. I downloaded the Win 10 ISO file and burned it to a DVD. I then did a clean installation of it on the SSD, which went fine. However, I can't activate it. I'm getting this error (Windows 10 error code 0xC004C003). Why must MS F up such an easy process. They should follow Steam's model for validating software. This is going to be frustrating having to chat with MS tech support to unblock my product key.

Put the HDD back in, roll Win10 back to Win7, activate it. Clone Win7 to the SSD, activate Win7. Upgrade to Win10, activate it. Clean install Win10 to the SSD, activate it.

Like I said above, I've heard that changing the drive changes the identification hash that the WIn10 upgrade generates. Looks like that happened here too.

I just built a new system. I didn't have the SSD in when I did the original 7 upgrade to 10 on a HDD. I then pulled the HDD and installed the SSD and clean installed 10. Went perfectly.

evilsofa said:

Put the HDD back in, roll Win10 back to Win7, activate it. Clone Win7 to the SSD, activate Win7. Upgrade to Win10, activate it. Clean install Win10 to the SSD, activate it.

Like I said above, I've heard that changing the drive changes the identification hash that the WIn10 upgrade generates. Looks like that happened here too.

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bigdogchris said:

I just built a new system. I didn't have the SSD in when I did the original 7 upgrade to 10 on a HDD. I then pulled the HDD and installed the SSD and clean installed 10. Went perfectly.

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Glad it worked for you, Chris. But that's so bizarre that it's a YMMV thing. My motherboard is still the same and I thought that's what MS uses to authenticate that the Windows installation was on the same computer or not. I wish MS had more thoroughly tested this out. In doing some Googling, many others are experiencing this, but tech support has been another YMMV deal. Freaking A, what a PITA.

Yeah, I guess I can roll back to Windows 7 and then clone. The main reason I didn't initially do that is b/c my HDD is much larger than the SSD in terms of capacity, so the clone wouldn't have worked. I can move the multimedia files off on a USB HDD I have lying around and delete those files form the HDD so that it is less than the SSD's capacity. Yikes, shame on MS for punishing legit users in the name of combating piracy.

GotNoRice said:

Upgrade from 7 to 10 on your HTPC with the HDD. Make sure you are able to activate.

At that point, install 10 fresh on your SSD. If it asks you for a key at all, just skip or leave it blank and click next. When 10 is installed, it will auto-activate based on recognizing that you have the same hardware (motherboard) as before, without ever having to use any key. You don't need to clone anything, but you DO need to do the upgrade first, after which you can do a fresh install as many times as you want on that same hardware (motherboard) without any key.

Click to expand...

This is exactly what I did and it worked out perfectly. Just gotta look for the skip options when you go for the fresh install and like he mentioned above.. MAKE SURE your upgrade activates before you get ready to do a fresh install on a new drive.

Copyright said:

This is exactly what I did and it worked out perfectly. Just gotta look for the skip options when you go for the fresh install and like he mentioned above.. MAKE SURE your upgrade activates before you get ready to do a fresh install on a new drive.

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That's what I did, too, but unfortunately, even though Win 10 got activated on the HDD, after I did the fresh install on the SSD, it wouldn't activate. I'll try to do a chat support session with MS tomorrow. Fingers crossed ...

Support is pretty good about letting you activate OEM or keys that are upgrade only.
Its a bit of a pain to call them but every time I have done it with my family pack of win 7 that's been installed tons of times due to virus, new drive, just want a fresh install and they always reset it.

losttech said:

Support is pretty good about letting you activate OEM or keys that are upgrade only.
Its a bit of a pain to call them but every time I have done it with my family pack of win 7 that's been installed tons of times due to virus, new drive, just want a fresh install and they always reset it.

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Fingers crossed. I just logged into my MS account and requested a call, which is expected in 22 min. Beats being on hold for that long. The PITA will be swapping between the 2 computers (this gaming PC and the HTPC that I'm trying to activate Win 10 on) since I'm sharing the DVI cable between them.

Holy crap, this is so infuriating! MS did call me 21 min. later and I'm on the phone w/ some Indian chick. But she said she can't help me with transferring the product key from the old HDD to the new SSD. I'm still on the phone and she's putting me on hold every few min. to speak to her senior. Wow, WTF, so maddening!!

Keep at them if she sucks call back and get someone else it can be a pain but it sometimes depends on the tech.

beowulf7 said:

Holy crap, this is so infuriating! MS did call me 21 min. later and I'm on the phone w/ some Indian chick. But she said she can't help me with transferring the product key from the old HDD to the new SSD. I'm still on the phone and she's putting me on hold every few min. to speak to her senior. Wow, WTF, so maddening!!

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Ah yes your free upgrade that you are overly complicating is entirely microsofts fault.


They might just hang up on you.

I made the mistake of not upgrading first. My Windows 7 install was an upgrade of a Windows XP install. I imagined my 128gb OS drive was a real mess of slapped together OSes.

I did a fresh install on a 512gb SSD and was told I couldn't activate. after a couple attempts, I merely paid for Windows 10. My time and frustration was not worth worrying about getting it to work. at least this way, I am now using a fresh and unpolluted OS.

I am also very glad to see that others found a way to get it to work.

losttech said:

Keep at them if she sucks call back and get someone else it can be a pain but it sometimes depends on the tech.

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Thanks, I wound up calling them again, got someone else. Another foreigner, but he was nicer. He told me to do a fresh install of W7 on the new drive and then upgrade to W10. He said it's not possible to do a fresh install of W10 without a product key.

Verge said:

Ah yes your free upgrade that you are overly complicating is entirely microsofts fault.


They might just hang up on you.

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That makes no sense, unless you're implying that MS has stated one can only do a the free upgrade to W10 literally as an upgrade from W7/8.x. But others have been able to, so please explain that.

It is really stupid that the 1st chick (who was a bitch and I don't use that word lightly) said, when I asked her, that if the hard drive dies or gets a virus, then you'd have to buy a new product key to reinstall Windows.

maxinflixion said:

I made the mistake of not upgrading first. My Windows 7 install was an upgrade of a Windows XP install. I imagined my 128gb OS drive was a real mess of slapped together OSes.

I did a fresh install on a 512gb SSD and was told I couldn't activate. after a couple attempts, I merely paid for Windows 10. My time and frustration was not worth worrying about getting it to work. at least this way, I am now using a fresh and unpolluted OS.

I am also very glad to see that others found a way to get it to work.

Click to expand...

That stinks, I guess you shelled out the $119 (unless it's cheaper elsewhere instead of MS' site)?

I wound up doing a fresh install of W7 on the SSD. I held my breath as I entered my product key, but it worked and activated just fine. So I now sit with a fresh install of W7 on the SSD and did a few Windows Updates to it, like SP1, IE11, etc. I'm thinking that I'll probably get the prompt to upgrade to W10 for free, but at this point, I'm not going to bother. I'll stay with W7 for at least the rest of the year. By next spring, as the July 2016 deadline approaches, I'll re-evaluate my thoughts of W10.