[Not working anymore] How to upgrade from W7/8.1 without going through the complete upgrade process

Thank you for this Yen!

 

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Can this method work if I want to install W10 to a new HDD (the old HDD with windows 7 installed will be removed)

Thanks

 

Yes it should as long as both hard drives were on the same computer. From what is known so far is that M$ is using the mother board as a reference to activate you. But that may change!

 

I even tried Win10 vhd boot from real machine, KMS activated, Win7 Pro, using xinso's way.
At the end of the (short) process, vhd 10 Pro was activated successfully...

Did not have time yet to quick format vhd, or best, clean reinstall on a true new drive to verify correct digital entitlement activation...
99.99% sure it will be successful...
(scared of putting my hands in the dust dealing with hard drives inside case... )

 

Wow, this is fantastic. Has anyone tried to install multiple copies from a single key?

Thanks

 

Would work if you install them all on the same computer

As of right now it seems that M$ is going by the mother board to allow activation. So installing, using the same key, on a different computer will be a NO Go!!

 

Hi There, am now stumped ..............

Background:
1) Have previously upgraded & dumped a "Win7_64 Ult [SlicBios] into Win10_64 Pro" OS and achieved successful online activation.

2) Following 1) & starting with a 'fresh' {OFFLINE} install of W10_64 Pro, whereby I tweaked & added a successive number of programs etc to create a series of ever-larger, incremental, un-activated backup images.

3) Overall, I ended up with total of a chain-of-eight, un-activated images, all created on & from the same machine with unaltered hardware ...throughout 1) & 2) above.

Dilemma:
Though I can now delete & restore any of the 1st six images [on the same computer] and repeatedly achieve near-instantaneous online activation, my latest two, more complete backups [with more installed programs]; #7 & #8 will NOT activate.

Tried & Failed:
Have twice tried in-vain to back-door an activation solution for images #7 & #8, to wit; Used 'gatherosstate.exe' on my 6th backup image AFTER its online activation to create a {clean/good?} 'GenuineTicket.xml' file.

Then after restoring to my 7th or 8th image, I copied over this 'special' XML file to the correct ....... Clipsvc\GenuineTicket directory, AFTER first stopping Windows 10 "clip service". Thereafter, I rebooted [which re-started clipservice] and connected to the internet. Voila!!!!!!, but NO activation success!

HELP Please:

It may well be that I briefly went online during a net-framework or new program install after my 6th & before my 7th backup image was created.

In any event, does anyone know of a viable work-around to activate my final two (7th or 8th) backups?

Thanks-for-Listening & Happy New Year,

 

@Yen
I found that this reboot is actually not necessary. After installing (imaging and running OOBE in my case), turned off the connection and dropped the XML file, after the first reboot I straight away turn on the connection and run slmgr.vbs -ato, it activates fine.

Just did 20 machines today and all of them activated with no issues.

 

Hi,
I have tried this successfully from win7 to win10. I was wondering if this method can be used on win8 as well (not win8.1)?
If not, why?
Thanks!

 

No
because win8 is not eligible for free upgrade offer

however, if you have genuine win8 key (oem/retail), it can be used to activate win10 version 1511 (build 10586)

 

I have tried to upgrade from win8 to win8.1 but it would freeze after reboot and wouldn't go further than the Logo at boot time, even though the installation process went through well.
So is it possible that I install win7 on this Notebook that has been pre-loaded with win8, and then upgrade to win10?
Thanks!

 

After having to endure the many hours long update process to get a freshly installed Windows 7 install upto date and then doing the Windows 10 upgrade process, I decided to do it better then next time. The Microsoft update servers are obviously overloaded. This time I have a Dell computer with a dying hard drive. I was able to boot up to Windows, save any important files and save the key and cert, since it is OEM. I threw away the old hard drive in installed the new 1TB drive. I used a Windows 7 SP1 install disk and installed without any network connection. I activated with the OEM cert and key (bios already at slic2.1), still without any network connection or updates. I did the genuineticket thing and saved that on the flash drive. I clean installed Windows 10 and finished the genuineticket thing.
I was having issues with it not activating, but decided to change the power setting to never sleep and went to bed. By morning it was activated. As of today, I have done Windows 10 upgrades on maybe 10 different computers. Some tips:
Getosstate is 32 and 64 bit dependent. Whatever bit version you are in, use that bit ver getosstate.
Update and activation servers are often overloaded, give them time or work around them.
32 bit and 64 bit Windows 10 are more different than in the past, not found on the same install disk.
Keep your Home or Pro upgrade path straight. It had me stuck at one point.
If you get stuck early in the Windows 10 install, try running win10 install from Windows 7. That was the only way I found out my 64 bit cpu wasn't good enough for 64 bit Windows 10, 32 bit worked fine.

 

That will work better.

 

You could pass on updating Win7. Just install and go to activation site. Will save you a lot of time. Updates are not necessary just activation.

 

oldsh_t, I did say in what I wrote that I was skipping updates. " I used a Windows 7 SP1 install disk and installed without any network connection. I activated with the OEM cert and key (bios already at slic2.1), still without any network connection or updates. I did the genuineticket thing and saved that on the flash drive".

 

Sorry your right. I miss read your post.

 

Does anyone know if we need to re-generate our GenuineTicket.xml files with the gatherosstate.exe from build 10586?

I'm curious if we need to generate a new file using the specific build of gatherosstate.exe that is on the ISO.

 

Not needed
AFAIK, Win10 use HardwareID as Activation Key. So once u activated it, you can go fresh/clean install with any Builds/Upgrade of windows10

 

Hi All,
I've done a number of clean installs of Win10 Pro 10586 using this method without issue. The default win10 key was 3V66T.
Now I'm trying to activate Win10 Home/Core with key H8Q99 & it won't activate. Am I using the wrong key for install??