Possible to upgrade windows 7 key to 10, within a VM, for physical box?

dr.stevil

dr.stevil

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Long story short, I have an AMD build that just seems to really really hate Windows 7. I've tried just about everything and it wont even complete the install. I was positive that the CPU was defective or something and as a last ditch effort installed a copy of 8.1. Everything runs great and no issues what so ever.

The problem is that I don't have a key for 8.1. I do have a few Windows 7 keys that I could use to upgrade to 10, but since I cant even install 7 on this particular computer, I'm not sure how or if I can accomplish this. AFAIK, you can't just turn a 7 key into a 10 key.

So my idea around this was to install 7 and upgrade it within a VM, extract the key and then use it on a fresh 10 install on the problem computer. Will this work? If not, any ideas?
 
You do not "upgrade a key". This misinformation has spread like wildfire on the Internet and on this forum.

The two methods are 1) install and activate the qualifying operating system, then upgrade to 10, or 2) install 10 utilizing the 1511 media which allows inputting the qualifying OS key to clean install.

If you were to do option 1 within a VM, the Windows 10 license digital license file would be tied to virtual hardware of that VM. You cannot transfer an activated digital license.
 
Awesome. Thanks for that. I was able to get Windows 10 installed last night using the Windows 7 key. So glad that they added that ability. AFAIK, it used to be that you HAD to do an upgrade first, and then at that point could do a clean install once it was tired to your hardware hash/id.

at any rate, thanks again guys. It saved me quite a headache.
 
Would this method work? Create Win10 .iso and install Win10 to a bootable USB stick and activate it and it will still be tied to my current hardware but not actually installed on my PC.
 
rezerekted said:
Would this method work? Create Win10 .iso and install Win10 to a bootable USB stick and activate it and it will still be tied to my current hardware but not actually installed on my PC.
Click to expand...
Sure it makes perfect sense...except the part about not "actually installed on my PC" lol I think they way it works is they give a certain amount of time to roll back if you have a change of heart....I dont believe they allow you to have both win 7 and win 10 at the same time....and thats probably the reason they only give you so much time (30 days) "to roll back"
 
I have a Win7 key I could use but Win8.1 is installed right now. Maybe the installer doesn't allow installation to a USB stick. I'm just looking for an easy way to get a free Win10 activation before the freebie time runs out, maybe it never will run out though and the July 2016 cut off date is just a ruse to get people to install ASAP.
 
rezerekted said:
I have a Win7 key I could use but Win8.1 is installed right now. Maybe the installer doesn't allow installation to a USB stick. I'm just looking for an easy way to get a free Win10 activation before the freebie time runs out, maybe it never will run out though and the July 2016 cut off date is just a ruse to get people to install ASAP.
Click to expand...
install it on a spare HDD, with the windows 7 key and pull it from the machine after you activate it :) That way it 'should' tie that key/installation to your hardware ID(s)
 
dr.stevil said:
Awesome. Thanks for that. I was able to get Windows 10 installed last night using the Windows 7 key. So glad that they added that ability. AFAIK, it used to be that you HAD to do an upgrade first, and then at that point could do a clean install once it was tired to your hardware hash/id.

at any rate, thanks again guys. It saved me quite a headache.
Click to expand...

To be absouluty clear ALL you need is the windows 7 key (that you already have).
Windows 7 does NOT need to be installed on any drive first.

This saves you time from doing one windows 7 install, and then one windows 10 upgrade.

I believe this was recently changed my MS.
 
msny said:
To be absouluty clear ALL you need is the windows 7 key (that you already have).
Windows 7 does NOT need to be installed on any drive first.

This saves you time from doing one windows 7 install, and then one windows 10 upgrade.

I believe this was recently changed my MS.
Click to expand...
It was. It used to be that you needed to install 7/8 first but that is no longer the case
 
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