Question about Dell OEM and the Windows 7 to 10 upgrade

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Foxhack

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
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Well, hoping I can get some help here.

A buddy of mine just bought a used, but functional, Dell Vostro 260 Tower. The thing has apparently been upgraded to Windows 10, but the machine originally shipped with 7 installed. I figured, if the thing had a license / OEM sticker on it, I would be able to wipe the PC and install 7 using an ISO, but he told me it doesn't have a sticker.

Now, since this was upgraded to 10, I'm hoping the person who sold this to him actually did this legitimately and used the Windows 10 upgrade option from Microsoft instead of using a cracked OS or something. If he did, is there a chance the Windows 7 install key is still stored somewhere in the registry or bios? Or maybe a recovery partition? (I don't know if the original 7 recovery partition would be intact after the upgrade...)

If there isn't, I think I have a set of Windows XP and 7 upgrade I can use to wipe 10, but I wanted to be sure before doing anything.

(And before anyone tells me to stick with 10, we don't know if the OS that was used is legit or if it has anything sneaky, so we'd rather do a clean installation than risk finding malware or worse on this thing.)

Thanks for any help, folks. Sorry for the bother, I'm not used to working with prebuilt systems with no OS disks...
 
If it doesn't have a Windows 7 COA attached to the case someplace (inside or out) then legally speaking at this moment it's not technically licensed for Windows 7 - I seriously doubt anyone at Microsoft would give a fuck at this point so as long as you can track down a Dell Windows 7 (Home Premium/Pro/Ultimate) disc meaning it's the actual branded Dell disc itself you'll be able to install Windows 7 on it without any issues and without requiring you to enter a Product Key during the installation.

If you're 100% certain the machine had Windows 10 on it previously (by upgrade only to take advantage of the free offer since that's the only way to get it free) and it was activated with Windows 10, the activation hash is now stored on Microsoft's servers meaning you can clean install Windows 10 on that same machine right now and it'll activate once it's online and connects to Microsoft, simple.

If there had or has been some type of pirated/hacked/cracked Windows 7 on the machine the activation might be questionable but there's only one way to find out: install Windows 10, get online, and see what happens to the activation.

As far as Windows 7 is concerned, again from a technical standpoint, if the machine was upgraded to Windows 10 (to get that free offer), the Windows 7 license becomes effectively moot even on an OEM machine but, as stated before, Microsoft really doesn't give a fuck about Windows 7 so it's not like anyone is going to bash down your front door and arrest you.

Windows 7, from a branded Dell OEM disc, or Windows 7 from a downloaded ISO, you choose.

Personally I don't recommend Windows 10 for any reason (not even that it's free) but it's your decision.
 
Foxhack said:
Well, hoping I can get some help here.

A buddy of mine just bought a used, but functional, Dell Vostro 260 Tower. The thing has apparently been upgraded to Windows 10, but the machine originally shipped with 7 installed. I figured, if the thing had a license / OEM sticker on it, I would be able to wipe the PC and install 7 using an ISO, but he told me it doesn't have a sticker.

Now, since this was upgraded to 10, I'm hoping the person who sold this to him actually did this legitimately and used the Windows 10 upgrade option from Microsoft instead of using a cracked OS or something. If he did, is there a chance the Windows 7 install key is still stored somewhere in the registry or bios? Or maybe a recovery partition? (I don't know if the original 7 recovery partition would be intact after the upgrade...)

If there isn't, I think I have a set of Windows XP and 7 upgrade I can use to wipe 10, but I wanted to be sure before doing anything.

(And before anyone tells me to stick with 10, we don't know if the OS that was used is legit or if it has anything sneaky, so we'd rather do a clean installation than risk finding malware or worse on this thing.)

Thanks for any help, folks. Sorry for the bother, I'm not used to working with prebuilt systems with no OS disks...
Click to expand...
You don't need the product key to reinstall the OS on a OEM computer. What you do need to do is find out if the computer shipped with Windows 7 Home or Pro. Once you find out, do an install of the OS and skip the product key.

Once you're at the non-activated desktop and want a legit, genuine activation, use something like this technique. They have a collected of OEM certificates extracted from previously activate OEM computers. These files are normally included with your OEM install media. Since you don't have OEM media this is your only option. There are also programs that will insert the genuine OEM certificate for you to activate legitimately using the same technique. This is all just a way of getting legit activation from the files normally included on OEM installers. Nothing is being exploited or cracked.
 
Foxhack said:
Well, hoping I can get some help here.

A buddy of mine just bought a used, but functional, Dell Vostro 260 Tower. The thing has apparently been upgraded to Windows 10, but the machine originally shipped with 7 installed. I figured, if the thing had a license / OEM sticker on it, I would be able to wipe the PC and install 7 using an ISO, but he told me it doesn't have a sticker.

Now, since this was upgraded to 10, I'm hoping the person who sold this to him actually did this legitimately and used the Windows 10 upgrade option from Microsoft instead of using a cracked OS or something. If he did, is there a chance the Windows 7 install key is still stored somewhere in the registry or bios? Or maybe a recovery partition? (I don't know if the original 7 recovery partition would be intact after the upgrade...)

If there isn't, I think I have a set of Windows XP and 7 upgrade I can use to wipe 10, but I wanted to be sure before doing anything.

(And before anyone tells me to stick with 10, we don't know if the OS that was used is legit or if it has anything sneaky, so we'd rather do a clean installation than risk finding malware or worse on this thing.)

Thanks for any help, folks. Sorry for the bother, I'm not used to working with prebuilt systems with no OS disks...
Click to expand...

The computer originally came with Windows 7 Professional. (All information that I found online indicates this.) You will need to find a Dell specific Windows 7 Pro x64 disk to be able to install and activate it. (Product key is stored in the bios.) Otherwise, you should be able to just download the Windows 10 Media creation tool and install Windows 10 Pro without entering a key and it will work correctly.

That is the way it is, take it or leave it. :)
 
If I'm not mistaken, dell and others generally ship their PCs with the disk partitioned.

In other words, all software and bloatware is loaded on a large partition and the OS is on it's own partition.

You should be able to wipe the large partition and keep the OS intact.:D

Worse case, wipe the drive and buy a Windows 7 key from someone on the forums and use an ISO.
 
I have accumulated the Dell Win7 ISOs by torrenting them. Not really any other way to do it unless you want to buy the OEM disc off of Ebay or something.

Even our Win7 machine that actually shipped with the disc only came with the 32-bit disc which is worthless.

And the stock x64 disc requires a dual layer DVD to burn on.

The only one I have found that will fit on a regular DVD is Ultimate.. which is funny.

DO NOT get the 16-in-1 or any other whatever all-in-one OEM Windows 7 ISOs as they pretty much all have some type of Malware in them.

I would just say to keep Win10 on there.
 
If you have a Dell Win 7 installation DVD you can reinstall it without issue. The activation key is stored in the machines BIOS and the Windows 7 setup utility will read it and activate.

If mainboard is not DELL that came with Win 7, you are SOL

On a side note Any Dell Win 7 OS DVD will activate. I have activated Ultimate on a machine that came with Pro (I did not have a pro disk and used the Ultimate Dell DVD)
 
If you have a dual-layer DVD image of Windows 7, consider using something like Rufus to put it on a USB thumbdrive instead of burning it to a DL-DVD. I don't even keep DL DVDs around, it's cheaper/faster to use a thumbdrive.
 
We're fairly certain the computer itself is still using the same Dell motherboard it shipped with, so it should in theory still activate. Apparently this specific model did not come with any reinstall media, you were supposed to make it yourself after buying the system (way to save a couple of cents there, Dell!) I don't have access to a Dell specific OS disc, but I can create a bootable USB using my own 7 Ultimate media (and modifying it so it installs 7 Pro) and go from there. I'm also going to see if the install stuff is still in the hard drive (if it hasn't been swapped out.)

I know Microsoft doesn't really care about 7 anymore, but I want to keep this as legit as possible. I have a set of licenses he can use if it comes to that.

As I said before, I have no real issue with 10, I'm just very, very paranoid about this thing having malware or worse installed on it. My friend lives in Mexico and bought the PC there, and there are lots of people who sell pirated software on local Facebook groups and the like. Identity theft is a big problem, hence the planned wiping. And yes, we could buy a key from here, but we've got bad luck and we'd probably end up losing the thing eventually, heh. :p I prefer to have retail stuff whenever possible. I would've made a post asking for one, but eh... I'm still a long way from being able to post on the sale forum, so.

Anyway. If we do run into any issues I'll pop back in here and ask for help.

Thanks, all!
 
Okay, I tried doing the technique mentioned by some folks and I couldn't get it to work, so I just gave him a spare Windows 7 Home Premium install set I picked up and the system is now running just fine. We only have one issue left, though - his old files are in the old computer, and we tried plugging in the hard drive, but everything was locked out.

I'm guessing we're going to have to do this? -- http://www.blogsdna.com/2159/how-to...sions-to-access-files-folder-in-windows-7.htm

I recall using SysInternals' streams.exe to do the same thing years ago when I moved to 7 from XP. It should work on all files, including hidden ones, right? I'm currently tweaking the PC from my home using TeamViewer, fixing up some things that don't require a reboot (display settings, installing software, etc.)

Edit: Oh, one last thing, what were the things I'm supposed to hide / uninstall from Windows update so they don't try to push Windows 10 on him? The OS he has is fine, we just got the thing up and running and we don't need Microsoft nagging him to upgrade when it's completely unnecessary at this time.
 
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