Trying to move to UEFI and Windows 10

ShepsCrook

ShepsCrook

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So I've had my system running legacy bios with Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64 for a while now on the MSI X99 SLi Plus board. I successfully upgraded to Windows 10 Professional with it. Now that I'm changing out hard drives, I want to do a clean install of Windows 10 as well as move to UEFI bios. I thought everything was working well, however after installing Windows 10, it would not activate with my license key (windows was asking for it).

So I had read that it's possibly the fact that I registered that license in legacy bios and it won't work with UEFI. So I'm attempting to install Windows 7 onto the system in UEFI bios to see if I can re-use my original key, activate the OS, then do an upgrade to 10. Then maybe try a clean install after that.

This is where I'm running into the issue. I cannot install Windows 7 in UEFI bios on this system.

My SSD in my system is already GPT.
My USB flash drive I'm using for the install I set up with RUFUS, and chose the GPT for UEFI option, and pretty much left everything else default except making sure the flash drive was formatted with fat32.

The system will not boot into the flash drive.

I've tried RUFUS, Windows usb creator, YUMI, Universal Pen Drive, I've tried various different flash drives, USB ports (including the front USB3.0 ports).

Any ideas?
 
So are you using trying to install the Threshold 2 build, version 1511? That's supposed to activate using a Windows 7/8.x key directly with a clean install. It sounds like if was activated already on 10. I think this is one of those instances where you call Microsoft and get the key reactivated.
 
Well, initially I think it was the original release version. I'll try the 1511 version (If that's what downloads from the media creation tool in a minute).
 
You try the different format option with Rufus? I had a hell of a time getting a bootable acronis iso to go and it was the "DD" or something that it pops up and asks about that finally made it boot and look right.
 
Are you putting in the Windows 7 key during the Windows 10 install? If it asks, just skip it and once the OS is installed, it should activate.
 
Changing the BIOS to UEFI mode is enough to trigger a re-activation request more often than not (the activation hash will be completely different so it's going to think you just swapped out the entire mobo even when you didn't). If you already activated that system using the Windows 10 upgrade it won't activate again with the same Product Key - you'll need to contact Microsoft and explain or use the little white lie solution by saying "My motherboard fried and I had to replace it..." which should be enough for them to supply you with a new key to activate with in UEFI mode.

I can't imagine UEFI is going to offer you much of anything over using the legacy BIOS mode on that motherboard so I'd say just go back to using legacy BIOS mode and it should be activated as soon as you get online.

You can try the Threshold 2 release (1511) but again, once a Product Key has been activated on a given activation hash/hardware setup, it won't activate again if things change, it needs a new key entirely for the changed hash.
 
Contact MS. Your key activation is tied to a piece of hardware that you can actually even see in your Windows account. They can remove/change/swap that on their side of things as long as you're willing to call them and talk it over. Kind of like the old days when you used your activation key more than 5-10 times.
 
Tiberian said:
Changing the BIOS to UEFI mode is enough to trigger a re-activation request more often than not (the activation hash will be completely different so it's going to think you just swapped out the entire mobo even when you didn't). If you already activated that system using the Windows 10 upgrade it won't activate again with the same Product Key - you'll need to contact Microsoft and explain or use the little white lie solution by saying "My motherboard fried and I had to replace it..." which should be enough for them to supply you with a new key to activate with in UEFI mode.
Click to expand...

Why lie? Just tell them it's the same motherboard and you switched it from BIOS to UEFI.
 
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