My windows 7 is now windows 10 but....

[Larsenex]

Howdy, I got my win 7 upgraded to win 10 for free back in the day. Now years later I am doing a complete reinstall of the same computer. I wiped and reformated the old drives and reinstalled win 7. I just want to confirm there is NO way to get my windows 10 back again is there? My key is legal and valid for Win 7.

 

[cliffordcooley]

You should be able to reinstall Windows 10 (even a clean install) and get it activated. But there is no way to tell unless you try. Don't put a key in, skip that part and continue installing. Once booted into Windows, let it do an online activation without putting a key in.

 

[holdum323]

Hi I agree with the above post! Here's some information about the Digital License.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12440/windows-10-activation

 

[MaikuTech]

Larsenex just use the product key you had for windows 7 for the windows 10 installation.
Everything should go fine as long as microsoft activation servers have it on file that its legit and registered.
Your not going to like what I am going to recommend but use the windows 10 media creation tool and make a bootable usb drive.

Then you start it up from wiithin windows 7 and have it reboot, it will kick on to the windows 10 installation process.
Find your windows 7 partition and delete it, let the windows 10 installation do a full format and let it go from there.
Thats called a clean install so you have no other older windows installation in the way incase something conflicts over time like drivers and registry messes.

 

[cliffordcooley]

The last time I had to type in a key was installing Windows 7. Now that MS has record of my Windows 10 machines (I have about 8 that I manage), the installs activate without needing to enter a key. This is why I said don't enter a key period at all.

 

[holdum323]

Here's the way HTG explains the Digital License. As @cliffordcooley stated, you do not need to type in the Key if your machine activated the PC license on the free upgrade. If you did not change the MB, you should be just fine.https://www.howtogeek.com/226510/ho...10-license-after-changing-your-pc’s-hardware/

 

[Larsenex]

So here is what I did. I wiped everything clean and reinstalled with my old windows 7 cd. I was unable to get it to update to win 10. I called Microsoft support and got a nice lady who said she was in India. I explained who I was and what I was doing. She said the free version of windows 10 passed however they (Microsoft) will still upgrade me. She asked to take control of my computer while she checked for validations. After two hours my old rig has a clean install of Win 10 Pro and she even put a bootable ISO on a spare USB stick (its now a bootable USB for Win 10). My copy is validated and I can re install with no issues again via the boot stick if I needed to. Long story short, I was able to upgrade from 7 to 10 by politely explaining my situation to Microsoft customer service. The entire process was easy (except for waiting for someone on the initial call) and she (Amalkia) was very friendly and knew her **** around DOS commands and windows.

 

[MaikuTech]

All microsoft reps are not allowed to do that for that extended amount of time.
Anyway Good luck to you incase something else happens with the upgrade installation.

 

[holdum323]

Hi @Larsenex Thanks for your reply. I love a great endings. Happy for your success. I'm wondering if you could have got W10 to install with the Media Creation Tool? Which you now have on a flash. OH well you got W10 installed.(y)

 

[holdum323]

All microsoft reps are not allowed to do that for that extended amount of time.
Anyway Good luck to you incase something else happens with the upgrade installation.

Why would MS allow some reps to do this and not allow others to do it. I seriously doubt that any thing goes wrong. Sounds to me like this issue was solved with a happy ending and a MS rep that cares.(y) Good job @Larsenex Your reply will help other techspot members.

 

[Joseph Watts]

Yes you can get back to Windows 10, But only with a clean install, I'm not completely sure though so there might be another way to get your data back from before. I Do know that If you set a system restore point on Windows 10 before you can get back to it, But that would mean you would go back to your original Install of windows 10. So you download a new install or restore back to your old one, Unless there's some other way I've missed. I hope you find this helpful