Windows 10 activation..

What did you expect? Use your W7/W8 key to activate it again.

 

Nothing unexpected, you have to generate a new HWID, you can still do it till the end of july 2016.

 

Google Windows 8 Product Keys then enter a Key that matches the version You have. It may take a few attempts but it'll work. With Win 7 "Generic" Keys I haven't had any luck, But if You have a Factory Built PC with the same version i.e.. Home/Pro, enter the key off the COA and it'll activate.

 

If you want to save yourself some trouble, just buy a W10 Pro OEM Key from ebay for ~20$

 

Say if I have a new HP laptop with Win 10 home x64 installed and wish to install win 7 ultimate x64 and activate with Daz loader then obtain the free win 10 pro upgrade, can I just create a new partition by shrinking my current active/windows partition so there is about 40-50GB free/unallocated space and install win 7 ult there? (Do I have to set it to "active" or "primary" or format it to "NTFS"?)

I am thinking of using rufus to create a bootable UEFI flash drive formatted as FAT32 then proceeding to "disable" secure boot and "enable" legacy mode in my BIOS after which I hope I can boot from the USB drive.

My question is will the Win 7 installation recognise the 40-50GB unallocated space on my gpt HDD and allow me to install there? Secondly, is Daz loader compatible with gpt partition or am i required to completely wipe my drive, removing all partitions including the current active windows, and HP recovery partitions then formatting to mbr and proceeding from there?

Ideally I would like to keep all my current win 10 home settings but upgrade to win 10 pro.

Kind Regards.

 

Just deploy win 7 on a VHD (not a VHDX) with dism /apply-image or imagex /apply, then add win 7 to the bootloader with easybcd and youre done.

When you have finished just delete the vhd

 

I had a lengthy post typed out as I googled specific instructions for how to carry out the steps you described. I even watched a youtube video or two. VHDs are new territory for me but seem very useful and simple to grasp. Basically I found this article "Enable Boot to VHD with BIOS and GPT - hxxps://technet. microsoft. com/en-us/windows/dn858566.aspx", and assume I carry out the instructions in my Win 10 Home environment in order to deploy Win 7 Ult x64 to a VHD.

I created a backup of my current bcd store using the command "bcdedit /export c:\bcd-backup"

Do I need to be aware of anything else? Also once win 7 is installed to the VHD and i've booted to it from the boot menu will the Daz loader function given that the VHD is of the MBR type? Finally have you tested this specific method to upgrade to Win 10 Pro or know of anyone who has?

Thanks a bunch

 

Well VHDs basics are very simple once you mount (connect) one them (you can do it from disk manager menu or double clicking on them) they behaves exactly like a real HDD, you can format them as you like, youc an create multiple partitions and so on.

Delploying trough dism is a different matter, not strictly related to VHDs, as it works on real disks/partitions as well.

DISM has that hideous syntax but is there on every Windows 6.xxx+ installation

Imagex has a way simpler syntax but must be downloaded separately.


No matter which one you use, deploying windows with them is waaayyy faster, safer than a classic setup, leaving you with almost no downtime.

VHDs works also on virtual machines so you can swap them from a real to a virtual machine with a couple of clicks.

About the bootloader easybcd is extremely safe and easy to use, and has also the options to backup and restore the bcd data.

 

Indeed they are a great addition to Windows and I did read briefly how they can be used in VMs in Windows. Thats basically why I wanted Win 10 Pro rather than having to use Virtual Box etc.

You sir saved me a tonne of time and thank you for your knowledge and insight.

 

You're welcome

Frankly win 8/10 are important because they support the VHDX format.

Old VHDs were robust only in the fixed size flavor, VHDXs are robust also in the dynamically expanding version.

Which means that, in the old way, to have 3 OSes installed in triple boot, you had to partition your disk splitting the empty space in three, practically wasting it because you don't shrink and enlarge a partition each day.

With expandable VHDXs you can keep a single partition and have the three VHDs each one occupying just the space needed by the OS in its actual state. So you can have even 5/6 windows on a single 128GB disk, and still a bunch of common free space.

Backup is as simple as copying a single file "somewhere", removing an unneeded OS requires one second, installing a new one... something like 10 minutes

Just a brilliant solution. I have even my main installations on VHDx, including the home server...

 

So I thought I would try the VHD procedure on another computer without UEFI. I created the VHD disk and used the DISM /Apply-Image switch pointed towards the mounted Win 7 x64 Ult SP1 .iso. This all worked fine. Added the VHD to boot menu, rebooted my machine and selected Win 7 from the boot menu presented. It went through setting up, just a black screen with notifications and a percentage bar and after a short while it completed then asked me for a key.

Now I checked activate online and skipped the key entry, as I thought I would be able to activate once Win 7 booted up to the desktop, however I noticed that the start screen stated Win 7 Home and then I got the licesnse error message - "This system does not support booting fron VHD"

It appears that booting is supported in the Ultimate or Enterprise versions only which I have
Would a Win 7 Ult OEM .iso work? Is there any way to trigger the loader to start & activate before the setup reaches the product key screen? Or can one convert the installation to an OEM version in a pre-boot environment or somehow before the Win 7 VHD reaches the license error message?

I've found this but cant seem to follow the instructions
hxxps:// considerednormal. com /2014/09/fix-booting-from-a-windows-7-vhd-the-problems-encountered-and-the-solutions/#whichver

Regards

 

Frankly I never tried WIN 7 home on VHDs. But yes, Ultimate works for sure.

Anyway why you want to use home? You will end with a win 10 home ticket, assuming that the activation procedure still works for home versions (and I'm not 100% sure about that)

In any case remember that the DISM way is still way faster than a setup even using a real partition and, just in case, you can use ACRONIS, PARAGON, EASUS, to copy a virtual partition to a real disk and viceversa, exactly in the same way you would copy a real partition.

 

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Sorry if I didn't explain it properly. I have win 7 ultimate ISO and I installed that to the vhd using DISM but after booting into win 7 and completing setup it asked for a key. I don't have a retail win 7 ultimate key. So I clicked skip.

Then after a short while it tried to complete setup but came up with the win 7 home splash screen (despite me using the win7 ultimate iso) and then gave the licence error.

So I don't have a win 7 ult retail key and I wanted to get the vhd to boot to the desktop then use daz loader. But the windows version changed from ultimate to Home.

So now I'm stuck...

 

Ah ok. No I never faced that. I have just skipped the question as you did, DAZ loader will put it for you. In daz loader directory you will find all the keys, but you can just google for "win 7 generic keys", they are public and even published on MS' website, and they are are meant preinstallation and testing purposes, which your case is.