Hi, I am trying to find the fastest way to get a machine flagged for Windows 10 with the free upgrade and I thought I could use a sysprep image to do this but it is not working as I expected. If I install Windows 10 Pro (15611) fresh I get the option to enter a product key (which I skip). Once the OS is up and running I then "sysprep /oobe /generalize /shutdown" and clone the drive. However when I go through OOBE after power on it is no longer asking for a product key. Is this expected behaviour or am I missing part of the process? The idea is at the OOBE I can enter a Windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 key and flag for upgrade as this is not possible to do once the OS is running via system. Thanks
Can you check the status after going trough the steps you did of the activation ? Normaly you get after an while an popup that say's windows is not activated if it does not your OS should be activated and if you want to put in an key manually just type slui 3 at run
When it reboots Windows is not activated still, as it wasn't when sysprep'ed. However to take advantage of the free upgrade (as in flag the machine for it at Microsoft akin to upgrading), the key must be entered during setup. I have tried a key once the OS was up and running and it would not accept it.
I am using legit OEM keys for the COA stickers on the side of the PC. I tested on a couple of machines and I was able to use a Windows 7 Pro COA key during setupof Win 10 fresh and it worked fine, fully activated. Like I said though with a sysprep Win 10 I don't get the chance to enter the key during setup only once the OS is running. Are you saying you have managed to get genuine keys working once Windows 10 is running from settings > systems > activation?
I've used 1511 for upgrades & found that it wouldn't accept the win7/8 keys at oobe (invalid) but within windows using those keys worked fine. The system your working on, does it have a msdm table? Perhaps that is why oobe is skipping asking for a key. Just a thought...
I am running tests now and this is the odd behaviour I have found too. I cant use it at OOBE but once Windows is up and running it works
You sir are a legend The problem I was having seems to be media related. My tests were done using a VL source media which was messing with OOBE and defaulting keys. I have used the media creation tool instead to make an ISO which looks to be working great. The next step now is to make an unattended file so that the sysprep clone goes to desktop with no interaction and from there I can enter the key
Excuse me, but what you upgraded? Windows 7 or Windows 8 or Windows 8.1? And was the machine before upgrading logged in with Microsoft account at least once, was it registered and logged on to Microsoft account? And before the installing ends you selected "I own it" and then logged on with the same Microsoft account?
The term upgrade is in reference to the offer of getting Windows 10 for free. The actual process I follow is a fresh install, but I think this will only work for our Windows 7 computers (300 corporate machines) as they have licence key COA's. The few Windows 8 / 8.1 computers we have have a bios stored key and no COA sticker. We don't do anything around Microsoft accounts and during the install it never asks for "I own it" but I wonder if that is because I choose express settings.
That's a bit of an odd thing to say. We are doing the exact same thing as Teddox. The building is being upgraded to Windows 10 using whatever (win7/8.1) legit license with local accounts only...