You could get a free upgrade from 7 or 8 or have an OEM licence. Check properties on This PC to see if it's activated or not.
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You could, but not anymore, the promo ended last year.
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Huh, i did not know that there was a workaround. I guess it's cool then.
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Did you know that its your cake day?
Happy cake day!
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Perhaps I upgrade Win7 to Win 10 in my quite old laptop.
It still has the original pre-installed win7; never reinstalled since 2009. That's quite a record!
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Windows 7 was a solid version. Even so, I recommend an upgrade to Windows 10 if you have the hardware for it.
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Very solid. I like Windows 10; I use it on at work. But I prefer win7 because it's behaviour is more predictable.
I don't have to worry that it will automatically restart.
However I know win7 is very old and will surely have many security holes.
With that in mind, does Win10 need more resources?
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Windows 8 & 10 are based upon the same kernel as 7, but streamlined. So, the core OS should actually require fewer resources. However, it doesn't mean that they haven't introduced additional features that are on by default that may consume more. Your best bet is to check all of your settings and ensure you're not running things in the background that you don't care about. :)
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Windows 10 is more demanding in terms of minimum specifications. You should check them out before upgrading your OS. Running Win10 on less than minimum hardware required will result in slow and/or limited performance.
As for random reboots of the OS, I have been running Windows 10 since it launched, and I have not had "automatic restarts" past the first couple of months. Your computer's behavior is probably caused by something other than Windows 10 as that is not a "normal" function of the software. Check for overheating, hardware that does not meet minimum specifications, et cetera.
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Does that mean it would work if the Computer thinks windows 7 is legit?
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Yes & you can also get it without upgrading, When asked for a key choose "I'm reinstalling Windows 10 on this computer" and bam...
I've only tested it on Windows 8.1 Home & Pro, but It works
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You can generally use Windows 10 for free, but there should be a watermark, and it wouldn't let you change the background. That's at least how it should work. In my experience the watermark sometimes disappears after a driver install, but it generally came back later.
I'm not sure what Microsoft's official stance is on using Windows without a key, but since it technically works, I guess it's not a real problem. However, I don't know if there's a limit on how long you can use it this way.
Also, if you ever had Windows 10 activated on a PC and you reinstall it, you don't have to enter the key again.
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https://www.howtogeek.com/244678/you-dont-need-a-product-key-to-install-and-use-windows-10/
After you’ve installed Windows 10 without a key, it won’t actually be activated. However, an unactivated version of Windows 10 doesn’t have many restrictions. With Windows XP, Microsoft actually used Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) to disable access to your computer. These days, Windows just complains at you in a few minor, cosmetic ways.
Initially, you won’t notice a difference. Eventually, Windows will start nagging you a tiny bit. First, you’ll notice a watermark in the bottom-right corner of your screen. You’ll also see a “Windows isn’t activated. Activate Windows now.” link at the bottom of the Settings app. This is the only form of nag you’ll see–there are no pop-up windows, for example.
Second, you’ll be unable to change your desktop wallpaper and from the Personalization > Background screen in the Settings app. You’ll see a “You need to activate Windows before you can personalize your PC” message at the top of this window, and the options for changing your wallpaper will be grayed out.
You can still change your wallpaper in other ways, however. For example, you can right-click an image in File Explorer and select “Set as desktop background.” You could also open an image in the Photos app, click the menu button, click “Set as,” and click “Set as background.” Windows 7 eventually switched you back to a black background, but Windows 10 doesn’t seem to do this.
You’ll find Windows 10’s included wallpapers under the C:\Windows\Web folder in File Explorer.
Aside from these basic limitations, your Windows 10 system will continue to work forever. There are no nag prompts aside from the watermark, you’ll get all the system updates, and everything else is completely functional. The only thing that could change this is a Windows 10 update, but Microsoft has become increasingly lenient since Windows 7.
P.S: It'll take a while for the watermark to appear
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Pretty much this, but if you want to skip all this hassle you can just buy a retail key for real cheap (7-15 eur) on some grey market site (or ebay) and activate it. Be sure to check that the key you're buying matches the same Windows version or it will be revoked after some time. Microsoft is strangely cool about this.
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Lol, funny, but you shouldn't have to worry too much about data with MS. They actually have extremely strict policies on how that data can be used, even if you have every data collection option turned to "on." Things have to be completely anonymous for targeted ads, etc. Windows purely associates an id with the account for advertising, so even if an employee had direct access to the data table where the advertising data is kept, all they would see if an encrypted id...there is no personally identifiable information associated with it in any way (i.e., no name, address, country, IP, phone number, etc.). Remember that they were the only ones to stand up to the US government when it came around asking for data in an investigation without a warrant. Other companies (you know, that rhyme with Google and Apple :D ) caved right away. Ol' Microsoft isn't always bad, and these days they're surprisingly usually good.
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Oh ... I want to believe (not in the X-Files way :)
On one hand they did sell customer data in the past (before win8, there were several /. articles about it), but ...
on the other hand they know for sure that these times are over and that they can be replaced easily (besides the exel, the alternatives are weak)
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Is it a mainboard that was used with Windows 10 before? Then your Windows 10 license is associated with this hardware. No need to enter key in this case.
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Just to make sure: does it also apply, when my current Win10 is the free upgrade from original Win8?
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Any legit 10 license works, your hardware info gets stored on the authentication servers.
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I am not sure how microsoft handles it, but I think yes. All my personal Windows 10 systems are upgrades from Windows 7 or 8.
Lately I installed Win 10 to a Laptop which only had Win 7 in the past and it also got its Windows 10 activated.
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I'm surprised you could even download it from their website. I tried that when I first built my new PC, and it wouldn't let me download without providing a CD Key. Thus I ended up wasting $120 to buy it.
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You could always download free installation medias from MS via various means. It's activating the installed Windows that requires a key usually.
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I don't know what sites are trustworthy anymore, and most the torrent programs seem to have malware/spyware in them these days. It's w/e now though, I've already bought it, and now I have a disk to install on other pc's if needed.
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I wasn't talking about torrents, but official ways of distribution MS used themselves, like Digital River or MS downloads server. The installation media is meant to be freely available to everyone and it's fully legal to download to use on as many PCs as you like. It only becomes piracy if you use some crack or whatever on it to activate without a valid license. So the difference is between paying a lot for a disc + license or just obtaining a cheap license and making the disc yourself, both are equally legal.
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Well I read many articles online about how to get it free, and used links they provided to download, but every one I tried wanted a CD key from me in order to create a DVD or USB installation. That said, never heard of Digital River, and I wasn't implying pirating when I mentioned torrents. Not everything involving torrents is pirating. Just saying I don't know what sites are safe to avoid viruses and malware where any of that is concerned anymore.
Beyond that, if I was going to buy a key, I opted to just buy from a legit retailer instead of something like CDKeys where I risked it being deactivated down the line.
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Buying from an random online seller might be problematic, that's true. Here in EU we just have the luxury of legally buying keys from IT pros who get them bundled with PCs for their organization which then get replaced by volume keys.
https://www.quora.com/Where-can-I-safely-get-Windows-10-Pro-for-under-15
Also note what country is offering the product key as if it’s in Europe the product key might have come from a PC that no longer uses it as it’s allowed to sell within EU law a previously used license. But probably not so in North America.
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Ah nice, yah, I don't think it works the same here in Canada though. Still, I got my key far cheaper buying OEM on newegg than if I had bought directly from MS. They want like $190 for it here, it's insane.
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It is really easy with Media Creation Tool: https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/software-download/windows10
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Yah, I tried that if I recall correctly, was linked from many articles on how to get it for free, but... Asked me for CD Key. It's w/e though, now I have an installation disk if I decide to put it on another computer.
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Strange ... I have been never asked for a key, not matter if I downloaded on Windows 10 or another version ...
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It does ask for a key during the installation process when doing a clean installation.This can be disabled through adding a config file to the installation medium however
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If only I had known that then... Oh well, I'll look into that so I can at least help friends when the day comes they abandon Win7. prob won't be long since a lot of hardware now requires Win10.
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I did one recently and there was an option to activate later.
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<3
"Let's face it," he added, "Bisquick boxes are a dead medium."
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Yeah Windows is now free. And by "free" they mean, they are the ones making money off your data so you don't need to pay them on top of that.
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I have a non-activated copy of Windows 10 installed in a VM: it works but some parts of the Personalization pane in the Settings app are locked.
Last time I checked, Microsoft was still giving away keys whenever you performed an upgrade installation from an activated copy of an older version of Windows, though.
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For the first year after the release of Windows 10, Microsoft offered free upgrades using the Get Windows 10 app, which appeared in the taskbar as a notification icon and in Windows Update. With the end of the free upgrade offer, the Get Windows 10 app is no longer available, and you cannot upgrade from an older Windows version using Windows Update.
The good news is that you can still upgrade to Windows 10 on a device that has a license for Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. You'll need to download the installation files and run the Setup program from within Windows or use the Upgrade Assistant available from Microsoft's accessibility page. For details, see "Here's how you can still get a free Windows 10 upgrade."
As of late April 2019, readers have confirmed to me that this procedure still works.
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Yes it's free to use unactivated without any matermark, you judt lack some not really ousefull options
edit: and support xd
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Kind of reminds me of that time when Adobe "accidentally" published valid activation keys for older versions of their entire line of software (Photoshop, Illustrator, inDesign, Acrobat Pro, etc.)
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I've been using it for more than a month and it never once asked me for a CD key. There's no pop up or watermark either.
I downloaded my copy from microsoft website so it's not pirated.
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