[Closed] Cheap Ebay Windows 7 to Windows 10 upgrade key - whats the catch?

Just download it and upgrade.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

The “free upgrade” never actually ended, old win7 keys activate fine. Microsoft practically give away windows these days, they’re focussed on selling subscription software like Office and OneDrive these days.

As above, I successfully upgraded both my laptop and desktop as well as my wife's laptop for free thanks to a previous thread on this forum. All working fine and the upgrade process even carried across my files and programmes.

There's none. The CJEU ruled that licence keys can be resold in Europe. Crack on!

You only need a key for a fresh install if you don't have one.

An upgrade just requires a download

I'm going to have to do this as well.
On the above link it talks about having a licence to install windows 10, if you have the original Laptop with it's original windows7 will it recognise the licence key automatically or do I have to have my original licence key ready to input? and is ProductID and/or Product Key the same thing? (that's from - control panel >system and security >system then under windows activation

I’ve done it a few times, bought keys from the back of an old laptop that is.
Never had a problem or a knock at the door.

Im sure somebody from the Singletrack Pedantry Dept will be along to put you on the right track. 🙂

the original Laptop with it’s original windows7 will it recognise the licence key automatically

Yes, it will find your key and register it against your hardware. So even if you blank the machine in the future, you can still re-install Windows 10 and it will automatically activate... the Windows 7 upgrade to Windows 10 is STILL free.
Older O/S, which should have been dumped years ago, knock yourself out and buy a key.

Did this last week for my parents. Did the upgrade and was going to buy a key of eBay but it appears to be fully activated already after the upgrade.

Do the upgrade and then worry about the key later if it says you have to activate.

If you do an in-place upgrade from 7 to 10 it will pick up the licence key automatically.

If you do the sensible thing, install a new SSD and install W10 from scratch it'll ask you for a licence key. This is a 25-character key which should be on the COA sticker on the PC, assuming it came with W7. On laptops this is often hidden under the battery.

You only need to buy a key if a) you do not have a W7 licence key and b) do not have a working W7 / W8.1 install.

Once W10 is installed and activated, you never need a key again (unless you change the motherboard or something). So you could, for instance, do the upgrade if you don't know the key and then wipe the lot and do a clean install.

Depends on whether you have a genuine Windows 7 key. If it is dubious, it may not work for an upgrade.
I got a Win 10 key off Ebay for a couple of quid. All worked fine for a fresh install, and activated and updating fine anyway. Just pick an Ebay seller with some decent feedback.

I need to upgrade from 7 to 10 soon. Is it pretty straight forward? PC should be able to cope. Do you have to reinstall other programs like Chrome etc. or do they still work.

As above.

If you upgrade the existing installation, everything should still work. NB this may take a bloody long time to complete, the first one I did I ended up leaving overnight.

If you wipe it and start again, it'll be like buying a new machine and you'll have to reinstall apps and everything.

Fwiw I found out that if you get a new laptop with W10 Home and have an old machine with W7 Ultimate or Professional , you can use that W7 key to upgrade from W10 Home to Pro and get Bitlocker etc for nowt.

I'd go for a fresh install where possible. It gets rid of all the old crap and bloat you don't need.
It is pretty quick and easy to download and install Chrome.
Maybe trickier if you have other obscure software, where you can't find a download, and need to install from the original discs. Then need to find licence keys for all of that.

Just make sure you have backed up everything important first.

Just tried to upgrade two Win7 laptops. Both gen win7 according to windows control panel, one worked and one failed.
If gen then dont pay anything, just look on youtube there's plenty of vids showing you what happens.

I’d go for a fresh install where possible. It gets rid of all the old crap and bloat you don’t need.

As would I, but it means no rollback option if it goes sideways. That's partly why I suggested an SSD upgrade, you can always refit the old HDD.

I don't FFing believe it. Could someone help me out here. Following this thread I was convinced to go ahead and upgrade my Win 7 PC. So, even though I have a very slow internet, I went ahenad and followed the link above and got going on the download. It took about 3 hours to download the programme and then another 6 to download the updates (which I did overnight). Then finally after some more time consuming messing about it eventually tells me it is ready to upgrade and that the PC won't be available to use until it finishes and I should make sure I have backed up my important files (which I have done). Fine, I thought, I will use PC this evening and set it off to upgrade tonight. Which brings me to my issue. We have just had a really short power outage (a few seconds when a switch was thrown no doubt) and the PC has had to be restarted. No I no longer have the prompt to upgrade to WIN 10 and I cannot find an .exe file anywhere that might replicate it. If I open the original setup programme that was loaded form the original link up there ^^^^ the whole thing starts from ground zero. I am currently on 4 % of the original download again (even though it is already on my PC), and that has already taken an hour).

So has anyone got an idea where I might find the appropriate upgrade launcher from all the stuff that has already been downloaded over the last 24 hours?

FWIW I just had to rebuild my daughters HP laptop after she fritzed the HD. It had been running Win 8 but I had no key or media. I downloaded the Win 10 install onto a USB drive and set it running. No key was requested. Turns out there's something in the BIOS that Windows checks and that was enough.

So has anyone got an idea where I might find the appropriate upgrade launcher from all the stuff that has already been downloaded over the last 24 hours?

Download the 'media creation tool' from the link above to create a USB installer rather than the "upgrade this PC" option on the website.

I usually disconnect the Internet connection until it's completely installed, then get any updates separately afterwards. It also gives you control over whether you're using a Microsoft account or a local user (MS brings a bunch of benefits but I like to have the option).

Turns out there’s something in the BIOS that Windows checks and that was enough.

Yep. This is the case with W8.1 but not W7. The new activation system that W10 uses first came in with W8.

So, OK.

Windows XP: No direct upgrade, you'll need to obtain a key and do a clean install. May also require new hardware / a new PC depending on spec, google "Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor."

Windows Vista: No direct upgrade, you'll need to obtain a key and do a clean install. If you're a maniac and absolutely want an in-situ upgrade instead then you'll need to go to either W7 or W8.1 as an interim upgrade first.

Windows 7: Can be directly upgraded in-situ, doing so will carry the existing key over to W10. If you're doing a clean install without first having done an in-situ upgrade at least once, you will need to enter the W7 key which should be on a sticker on the computer or in the DVD box if you bought Windows separately. If you can't find it, google "magic jelly bean" (or do an in-situ upgrade first which will activate the PC permanently).

Windows 8: Used to require an upgrade to 8.1 first, I do not know if this is still the case without googling. Though honestly, what masochist is still running W8?

Windows 8.1: Already fully activated, you can do an in-situ upgrade or a clean install out of the box with no further action required.

Did my laptop last night. Windows 7 to 10, no bother through the Microsoft website. Cost? Nothing.

I have to upgrade Win7 to Win10 as well but I am still indecisive about clean install or the lazy way of letting it upgrade and sort itself out. I am bit lazy having to reinstall all apps ... arrghh ...

All my other PCs are already on Win10 but my "workhorse" is on Win7 (I like Win7 me).

Yep. All done now thanks 100% to this post. So thanks to all involved, especially Cougar. Went with a download to a flash drive (8GB minimum needed) and then updated using the Setup.exe file on the drive while in Windows 7. Also disconnected wifi before upgrade and all went smooth and relatively quickly. Sat here using the PC and, to be fair, almost nothing has changed (other than having to sort out my Mahjong again which has vanished!). I know it is all different, but by doing the upgrade from an active Windows 7 set up, it has done a pretty good job of mimicking my previous settings. So far, so happy. Always hated the way it came out of the box on a new PC, which was one of the reasons I put off upgrading for so long.

I noticed Solitaire, only game I play, is much more boring in Win10 ... argghhh ...

Oh ya I already have Win10 in USB pendrive as I installed that on my backup PC.

I noticed Solitaire, only game I play, is much more boring in Win10 … argghhh …

Eh? What you on about @chewkw ?

The default Win10 "Solitaire Collection" has 5 different versions of Solitaire with adjustable difficulty, daily challenges, badges, ranking etc.

It's hard to see how they could make it much more exciting, given that it is solitaire.

@GrahamS

The graphic is "slightly" nicer but the new Win10 version does not have the number of game played and the percentage score! I am on 17% at the moment ... arrghhh ... so I want to see how long it will take me to get to 20% score level.

Once upgraded to W10, from W7pro OA, is it then possible to move the installation by moving the ssd to a new machine? I've got a very old laptop with a W7pro OA sticker on it, but would like a new W10 installation on a new, modern, build.

Theoretically, assuming they're the same CPU architecture (Intel / AMD). But you'd have to re-activate it.

I'm not entirely sure why you'd want to, though. There's nothing to stop you upgrading the new machine using the key from the old one (if I'm understanding what you want to do correctly).

Cougar, the new machine doesn't have an OS at the moment. So could I just install W10 on it, and use the serial no from the old laptop?

I’m usually enthusiastic about updating OSs, but I’ve been holding off this one. I upgraded a Win7 laptop when 10 was released, and it completely borked it.
Win 7 is the best OS I’ve ever used. Why do we have to change? Why god, why?

Win 7 is the best OS I’ve ever used. Why do we have to change? Why god, why

Yes, I think Win7 is the best as well so not sure why they have to redesign it to look more "tablet" like. Security beef up is good in Win10 as many have said but the "tablet" effect is just appalling to me old fashion user.

Cougar, the new machine doesn’t have an OS at the moment. So could I just install W10 on it, and use the serial no from the old laptop?

Yes.

I mean, arguably you shouldn't because it's in breach of the licensing T&Cs as an OEM key isn't transferable between machines, but if you're replacing one machine with another rather than running multiple installs with the same key then I see little moral dilemma here. In any case, Microsoft don't care, there's no physical / technical restriction in doing this (unless you do it a LOT), MS just want everyone on the same platform and rid of all the legacy crap.

I upgraded a Win7 laptop when 10 was released, and it completely borked it.

... four years ago. There have been two new builds a year since then, each one essentially a new version of the OS.

Why do we have to change?

Because it's over ten years old now and was superseded by Windows 8 in 2012, then by 8.1, then by 10. How long can you realistically except MS to keep spending time developing patches for it?

For comparison, Windows 7 is older than Android 1.6 (Donut) and iPhone OS 3.1 (before they renamed it iOS).

And you don't have to change. W7 isn't going to spontaneously stop working in a month's time. Rather, you should because there won't be any more regular security updates released for it.

@chewkw >

Here. You're welcome.

https://winaero.com/request.php?1836

Honestly I was a big fan of Win7 and didn't like Win10 much when we moved to it at work (I'm a software engineer).

But having used it every day for a couple of months and got things how I like them - it's fine and many parts are better than they were on Win7. I even splashed out on a new gaming laptop at Christmas (y'know "for the kids") and enjoyed setting that up with Win10.

Exactly my opinion too, Graham.

I loved Windows 7, Windows 8 was a crime against operating systems that I still have to put up with regularly in its server incarnation, Windows 10 was clunky at first release but four years on it is frankly astonishing.

For instance, I have Ubuntu running within Windows, I can just type 'bash' at a CMD prompt, and with WSL2 in the latest build it can support a real Linux kernel and even run things like Kali. Windows Sandbox is ace for playing with, ah, "security" programs or road-testing apps that you're not sure whether you're going to keep or not. MS account integration gives you things like a shared clipboard and desktop settings between different PCs, and if you haven't played with the new clipbook (use Win-C / Win-V instead of Ctrl) you're missing a trick. Little touches like Win-[.] for the emoji keyboard are neat.

[strong]Cougar[/strong] wrote:

Exactly my opinion too, Graham.
I loved Windows 7, Windows 8 was a crime against operating systems that I still have to put up with regularly in its server incarnation, Windows 10 was clunky at first release but four years on it is frankly astonishing.
For instance, I have Ubuntu running within Windows, I can just type ‘bash’ at a CMD prompt, and with WSL2 in the latest build it can support a real Linux kernel and even run things like Kali. Windows Sandbox is ace for playing with, ah, “security” programs or road-testing apps that you’re not sure whether you’re going to keep or not. MS account integration gives you things like a shared clipboard and desktop settings between different PCs, and if you haven’t played with the new clipbook (use Win-C / Win-V instead of Ctrl) you’re missing a trick. Little touches like Win-[.] for the emoji keyboard are neat.

Yeah, all well and good, but Solitaire and Mahjong are both much worse in Win10 than Win7 🙁

See the link I just posted for Chewie.

Windows 10 is technically the best of the lot.

The annoyances are you have to switch off all the phone home security risk crap and even then you can't be sure.

I like to play proper games on occasion, so I'll say what I've always said to others for years..

If it wasn't for dx9, I'd be running some kind of Linux

If it wasn't for dx10 I'd be running some kind of Linux

If it wasn't for dx11 I'd be running some kind of Linux

Etc.

The annoyances are you have to switch off all the phone home security risk crap and even then you can’t be sure.

I like to play proper games on occasion, so I’ll say what I’ve always said to others for years..

If it wasn’t for dx9, I’d be running some kind of Linux

If it wasn’t for dx10 I’d be running some kind of Linux

If it wasn’t for dx11 I’d be running some kind of Linux

Have you considered a PS4 / Xbox One and a roll of tinfoil?

@Cougar

Here. You’re welcome.
https://winaero.com/request.php?1836/blockquote >

👍 👍 👍 😀

 

Right, I'm going for it