Now you’ll also be able to perform a direct clean install of Windows 10 and then activate it using your Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 product key.īUT this change has been made to the new Windows 10 preview build 10565. Now Microsoft has announced that users can use the product key of Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 versions to activate Windows 10 which means you will not need to first upgrade your existing Windows version to Windows 10.

Even after having a qualifying Windows 7 or 8/8.1 PC, when some users upgraded to Windows 10, it didn’t activate successfully and users had to call Microsoft help desk to activate Windows 10. Read more: How to Perform Clean Installation of Windows 10 with Activation?īut this activation process didn’t work very well for many users. It’ll automatically activate itself as you associated your computer machine ID with Windows 10 successfully at Microsoft servers.

To perform Windows 10 clean installation, you need to first upgrade existing Windows 7 or 8/8.1 to Windows 10 to associate your existing product key with Windows 10 and after that you can format and clean install Windows 10. Some people like me prefer clean installation of new Windows versions. In this free upgrade offer, when a user upgrades the existing Windows version to Windows 10, the product key of the prior Windows version gets automatically associated with Windows 10 and Microsoft automatically activates Windows 10 as soon as you connect to Internet. But to take the benefit of this offer, users need a genuine and already activated Windows 7 or 8/8.1 OS installed in their computers and only after that they can upgrade the existing Windows version to Windows 10. You can enter Windows 7 or 8/8.1 product key either at the time of Windows 10 installation or after installation.Īctually when Microsoft released Windows 10 final RTM version to public, they announced the free Windows 10 upgrade offer which allows existing Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 users to upgrade their computers to Windows 10 absolutely free within one year of Windows 10 launch. Which means now users can use the product key of their Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 versions to activate the new Windows 10 OS successfully. If you do a clean install of Windows 10 by booting off the media, you can also enter the product key from prior Windows versions on qualifying devices during setup. If you install this build of the Windows 10 Insider Preview on a PC and it doesn’t automatically activate, you can enter the product key from Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 used to activate the prior Windows version on the same device to activate Windows 10 by going to Settings -> Update & security -> Activation and selecting Change Product Key. We have received a lot of feedback from Insiders on making it easier to activate Windows 10 on devices that take advantage of the free upgrade offer to genuine Windows by using existing Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 product keys.

Windows 10 upgrade asks for product key