Is there a way to reserve Win 10's without IDENTIFYING the machine? Lets say, I have a Win 8 Pro license from the $14.99 sale that I am not currently using on a machine, as yet? I figured Win 10 upgrades for OEM licenses would be tied to machine and non OEM licenses would be tied to previous License code?
Seems the Free Offer will be hardware-bound in general. Equally where you upgrade from, at least if considered legit.
So you want a reservation for dinner at 8 o'clock at an exclusive restaurant, but refuse to identify yourself? And even if that happened, what if you were 15 minutes late and someone else showed up to claim your place? - or - Just what the hell am I missing here?
That's not entirely true, it's a bit more subtle than that. As far as licensing is concerned, if you upgrade from a Retail version of Windows 7/8, then you get the equivalent of a Retail license for Windows 10, including transfer rights. The current version of the Windows 10 Software License Terms, as available in Windows 10 build 1240, states: As far as the practicalities of activation is concerned, this is what we know so far: if you upgrade from a genuine Windows 7/8 version, then during the upgrade process, Microsoft records your unique hardware identifier and marks that PC as genuine and qualifying for Windows 10. This is what enables you to do a clean install of Windows 10 and still activate it on that PC. This is the sense in which Windows 10 is "hardware-bound". However, my understanding is that this (at least from license point of view) doesn't prohibit you from uninstalling Windows 10 from the PC, installing the qualifying Windows 7/8 on a different PC and upgrading to Windows 10 again. You may have to use phone activation on the second PC. It may also be possible that Microsoft will make available a way to install Windows 10 directly on a second PC (but currently this is not possible, as you don't get a Windows 10 product key during the upgrade). I hope that's clear, if not I'd be happy to clarify further what my understanding is. PS: Windows 8 licenses from the initial release upgrade offer are Retail licenses with full transfer rights, even if upgraded from an OEM version. In other words: Windows 7 OEM -> Windows 8 upgrade offer -> Windows 10 free upgrade results in Retail license with full transfer rights. PPS: I quoted from the Windows 10 Software License Terms as available in the current insider build. While this is probably very close, if not identical, to how the License Terms will look like on the 29 July release, it's possible for Microsoft to change things still.
you can skip the reservation. MS has it somewhere, that everyone who is eligible for the free upgrade can get it, even without a reservation. Reservation is just their gimmick for marketing
Okay. That explains all the snickering I received at 7-Eleven when I tried to reserve my free Slurpee for next year's giveaway.
Not in my experience... The day before yesterday, I upgraded my desktop to Windows 10 Pro and everything went great. I did reserve my copy in the first days of June. Yesterday, I tried to do the same on my laptop (genuinely activated). The only diference is that I clean installed Windows 8.1 Pro first and every update from Windows Update. The damn GWX never showed, so I grew impatient and decided to upgrade to 10 anyway. Result: NOT ACTIVATED! I clean installed Windows 8.1 again (same serial, obviously), installed all the updates, and this time I used the "ReserveWin10.cmd" trick to force the GWX icon and finally reserved my copy of Win 10. I upgraded again and voilà! Windows 10 Pro fully activated
I'm also having trouble while trying to activate (a virtual machine). Inside a W7 (activated and genuine) I just ran the W10 setup, and I'm getting error code 0xC004F034 update: I did everything according the manual, skipping the serial number while installing W10 and so on.
Yep! That's the error that I was getting! You need to start over, and this time, force the GWX icon in Windows 7 and reserve your copy before doing the whole upgrade process. EDIT: I didn't read your update. Did you upgraded from within Windows 7 or just tried to do a clean installation of Windows 10? The reason I'm asking this is because there's no serial request when you're upgrading, only when you're installing from scratch.
You don't need the reservation but you certainly won't get activated without identifying your machine.
That's what I thought when I read your post... I was upgrading within an activated & genuine W7. GWX was discussed @MDL a while ago and I was convinced that it was only marketing. Thanks mate!
No it isn't at least on Windows 7. I fresh installed a computer that never had Windows 10 on it at all with Windows 7 SP1 and then used 10240 ISO to upgrade it to Windows 10. It activated. I then wiped the drive and did a fresh install. It activated. It never had an GWX on it. Also it was all done without ever using a Microsoft account. The Windows 7 only had a local account on it and I upgraded then reinstalled without ever giving it a key and using only local account on the machine. So even a Microsoft Account isn't needed. The MS generated Hardware ID is what identifies the machine. No way to stop that and as such the machine is identified by the hash.
Then I did everything right and my W10 virtual machine should be activated. I'll try again, this time installing GWX in W7.
Sometimes the activation may need a moment, users reported to wait a moment and be online, it activated after few minutes. Do not force it.
Also depends on what "activated and genuine" Windows 7 means in this case. Is it Professional or Enterprise edition by chance? Perhaps using MAK or KMS activation?
Quite the can of worms I opened up? Can someone please focus on what the OP (me) asked? I ask only about RESERVATION as I DO NOT INTEND to upgrade or ACTIVATE to Win 10 anytime soon. Just the way I bought a $14.99 Windows 8 license, but am not using it YET. So, how can I reserve, without having an existing install on hardware? I'd like to reserve before July 29th. Is it possible using just the Windows 8 key that I have and a Gmail address? Or does it have to be installed and activated using that Win 8 key? - What Win 7 license was it? OEM/ Retail etc? - You still had it installed.. I am wondering if I can do it without installing with just Key and a Gmail or Hmail?
@crashnburn You don't need no reservation. It's just a gimmick. Thing is, from the day windows 10 is released to the public you have exactly one year to upgrade to windows 10 from a previously activated windows 7/8/8.1. With or without reservation.
I'll assume activation may need some days. VM has been running today for six hours; it was updated twice and rebooted twice. Just to resume what I have done: 1. Installed Windows 7 Professional x64 in VMware; 2. Activated with Daz loader and validated as genuine. 3. Mounted W10 x64 ISO (WZOR) and upgraded skipping serial input twice.