![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
W10 Insider Program License
- Thread starter SpeedyVV
- Start date
primetime
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2005
- Messages
- 7,338
As on a different pc? Don't think so, but it would be nice right?
bigdogchris
Fully [H]
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2008
- Messages
- 18,707
If you're suggesting use the activated 10 Insider Preview on a new computer build then no because Insider Previews require the computer to be licensed with at least Windows 7. Insider Preview is not a free OS.
primetime
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2005
- Messages
- 7,338
well in not sure i agree with this.....my current copy has never a win 7 install or serial at least in regard with my current os. all i ever did was the insider and its been free ever since
of course it started a long time ago......was like 14 months ago so maybe your right? dang if i remember doing that
B00nie
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2012
- Messages
- 9,327
You're wrong. MS granted all insiders a free copy of Win10 pro. I received 3 of them because I had Win10 running on all my gaming computers. Only one of them had a valid license before that. The condition for getting the free license was to continue testing new updates after the upgrade.
doublejack
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2015
- Messages
- 491
I don't think it was Microsoft's intention (or at least not a unanimous intention) to give all previewers a free copy of Win 10. However, that is in essence what happened. These free copies of Windows may not be legal in the strictest of senses, but they are activated and report as genuine.
The catch to scoring a free copy of 10 was installing the insider preview at least one release before RTM, and making sure you signed in with your Live account to verify insider status. Once the RTM build got pushed down, BAM you had a free copy of 10. After that point you can opt out of the preview builds and it will happily continue to run.
Like the OP, the first installation I did with 10 tech preview was in a VM. Unfortunately, because of the fingerprinting system used by Microsoft, there is absolutely no way to use that copy on any other machine. I suppose you could clone it to another host and continue to use it as a VM, but the two physical machines would have to have very similar hardware and you would have to make sure that the MAC did not change. You can not migrate it to a physical machine, and because it uses a generic product key there is no way to harvest that. So even if it were transferable, there is nothing to transfer.
-edit
This is speculation, but I believe that Microsoft painted themselves into a corner. When the first 10 tech preview ISO was released, it rather destructively over-wrote the existing Windows installation and did so with very little warning. You could roll-back, but it was time consuming and the less tech savvy would have a difficult time figuring it out. Once additional builds were released, the option of rolling back went away. It only saved *one* previous Windows installation. So you'd be rolling back from one preview build to another tech preview, and could go no further. If you wanted your old Windows back you'd have to do a clean install. See the problem?
Further compounding this is that whatever Microsoft said, the fact was that tech preview editions did not in any way, shape or form record what state your previous Windows install was, or whether you even had one. If you were coming from a pirated version of 7 or 8, or an activated one, it didn't matter. So there was no way, once the RTM build was pushed out, to tell which Insiders should remain activated and which should not.
I guessed things would play out this way and successfully upgraded a few Windows Vista machines to 10 for free. The beauty of it was not having to reinstall any apps or anything, either. I simply did a Vista to 7 upgrade and left the product key empty, so was in trial mode with 3 days to activate, and then upgraded to 10 tech preview. It was a limited opportunity to score a "free" copy of 10 on any hardware one desired to. Now that you must be on an activated copy of 10 to even become an insider, that loophole has been closed.
The catch to scoring a free copy of 10 was installing the insider preview at least one release before RTM, and making sure you signed in with your Live account to verify insider status. Once the RTM build got pushed down, BAM you had a free copy of 10. After that point you can opt out of the preview builds and it will happily continue to run.
Like the OP, the first installation I did with 10 tech preview was in a VM. Unfortunately, because of the fingerprinting system used by Microsoft, there is absolutely no way to use that copy on any other machine. I suppose you could clone it to another host and continue to use it as a VM, but the two physical machines would have to have very similar hardware and you would have to make sure that the MAC did not change. You can not migrate it to a physical machine, and because it uses a generic product key there is no way to harvest that. So even if it were transferable, there is nothing to transfer.
-edit
This is speculation, but I believe that Microsoft painted themselves into a corner. When the first 10 tech preview ISO was released, it rather destructively over-wrote the existing Windows installation and did so with very little warning. You could roll-back, but it was time consuming and the less tech savvy would have a difficult time figuring it out. Once additional builds were released, the option of rolling back went away. It only saved *one* previous Windows installation. So you'd be rolling back from one preview build to another tech preview, and could go no further. If you wanted your old Windows back you'd have to do a clean install. See the problem?
Further compounding this is that whatever Microsoft said, the fact was that tech preview editions did not in any way, shape or form record what state your previous Windows install was, or whether you even had one. If you were coming from a pirated version of 7 or 8, or an activated one, it didn't matter. So there was no way, once the RTM build was pushed out, to tell which Insiders should remain activated and which should not.
I guessed things would play out this way and successfully upgraded a few Windows Vista machines to 10 for free. The beauty of it was not having to reinstall any apps or anything, either. I simply did a Vista to 7 upgrade and left the product key empty, so was in trial mode with 3 days to activate, and then upgraded to 10 tech preview. It was a limited opportunity to score a "free" copy of 10 on any hardware one desired to. Now that you must be on an activated copy of 10 to even become an insider, that loophole has been closed.
Last edited:
B00nie
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2012
- Messages
- 9,327
They released a press statement where they said the copies are free if you accept to keep testing for future versions at the same time. Perfectly legal.