Hey guys. So I'm building a new PC. I have a spare Win 7 key I'm going to use for this build. My questions are: 1. If I install W7 without UEFI boot enable, then upgrade to W10. Can I do a clean W10 install afterwards and have W10 activate fine? 2. If I do a clean W10 install with a threshold 2 image (using my W7 key) and install a UEFI boot version. If I ever choose to go back to a "non UEFI boot" install, will my activation still be valid? Thanks!
Installing in legacy BIOS or UEFI does not come under the guidelines for win 10 free upgrade, the hardware of the system does, motherboard. You should be able to clean install 10 and update to 1511 th2 and then add the 7 key. In theory it works.
Yes you can. But the question is If you have a legit key, why not install w7 in uefi mode and then upgrade it to w10 Also If you have a legit w7 key why not install straight the w10 1511 using that key?
Well, that's my plan A, but I've never installed Windows in UEFI mode so I don't know what to expect and would like to know if I have the option for a regular install (after activating W10 in uefi mode) without "burning" the W7 key.
I would just stay on legacy bios and do the upgrade to get HWID/DE activation, then you could play around and test if a next clean install in UEFI mode still is activated (it should work just fine). No need to "burn" any legit keys for this. If you're not going to use a system hdd > 2TB or don't want to configure more than 4 primary partitions on the system hdd, legacy bios is the best way to go.
Enthousiast, has an excellent point which I overlooked about saving key for now. To install in UEFI you must choose at boot- UEFI ( your bootable media formatted Fat32 ) if you don't use the boot menu at boot up and allow the system to boot from the media, it will install as legacy ( BIOS ). The only reason to install UEFI is because of the GPT format and not the MBR format, the UEFI is needed for over 2TB HDD as Enthousiast stated.