Several years ago I assembled a computer for my parents from some of my retired parts. It was a Q6600 and 680i motherboard if that tells you anything. Installed a fresh legit copy of Windows 7 Home oem and it did everything they needed for quite a few years. That is until about a month ago. 3-4 weeks ago - Caught in Windows 10 "forced" upgrade. The finally told me about it a week later and I figured out how to roll it back for them. My first time even looking at 10, and wasn't impressed. 2 Weeks ago - Back on Windows 7 and motherboard died. Rebuilt with a Core I3-4370 and ASRock H97M motherboard. Windows 7 installation migrated to new components and remained activated. From what I'm reading, it sounds like the Windows 7 key was used to activate the previous Windows 10 upgrade. Since that windows 10 activation is tied to the previous system hardware, I thinking it killed using the existing 7 key for upgrading again. Am I right, or will I still be able to do the free upgrade again with the new hardware? If not I know how to get around it, but I'd prefer to keep everything legit since it's not my personal computer. I'm not a big fan of Windows 10, but prior to MS pulling the sneaky upgrade campaign I would have purchased the new OS when I got ready to build a new system (maybe). It doesn't make much sense, but now I want to get it for free out of spite. I want to activate the upgrade for all computers I own or have maintain (family), but I don't actually want to use it on any of them yet. Planning to claim/activate free 10 upgrades for them and dual boot with 7, with the latter being default. I'll play around with 10 a while, figure out how to tweak it to my liking, then ease my folks into the new operating system before just dumping it on them.
Was the win 7 installation really legit or did you use daz' loader? I would just try to upgrade again, or (in case of legit key no not being able to upgrade to get a HWID anymore) deactivate and re-activate using daz' loader and upgrade or go the gatherosstate route. The free upgrade is meant for all personal/private users of 7 SP1 Home/pro/ulti/8.1 core/pro, it doesn't matter if they were really genuine (when upgrading).
HINT: Do Yourself a favor and upgrade the Win 7 copies to Ultimate so You'll be getting the Win 10 Pro version.
oem keys for 7 are technically tied to the motherboard, replace the board and you'll need a new key. You can use a retail key to switch from one board to a new one. Although I've seen many instances where you can sometimes re-use an oem key. Install your version of 7 that you already have and use the DAZ Loader to activate, then your good to go
Yes, legit copy of Windows 7 Home OEM purchased from Newegg in 2011 when I assembled the computer for them. I am familiar with daz, but I wanted them to have an aboveboard installation in the event that had to have someone else work on it. Clone, DAZ, gatherosstate is my back up plan. As said I'd like to keep it above board for them. Not convinced that MS would agree with you on that last part. I doubt that they think the free upgrade is meant for loader activated installations, not that I care much what they think at this point. All my personal installations of 7 are already ultimate, even on the old netbook. Not seeing where pro would have any benefit on their computer though. That said I I have to go with the back-up plan, that's probably going to happen. I thought so to until I read about sysprep and OOBE a few years ago. Never got the opportunity to try either of those, but after a little command prompt tweaking the old OS installation booted and operated fine on the new hardware. It even stayed activated and genuine without my having to do anything. If I have to use DAZ I'm going to do the following. Create second partition on drive, clone existing install, use DAZ on the clone, upgrade the clone, then wipe the second partition and do a clean install of 10. I'd prefer to aviod DAZ on that computer though.
I'm with Joe C, "oem keys for 7 are technically tied to the motherboard, replace the board and you'll need a new key." Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and move on. Seems to me it's that time for you ... or your parents as the case may be. Although purchased OEM keys are technically tied to the motherboard, I'd wager the Microsoft police are not going to make an assault on your parent's home or computer if you reuse the OEM license on a new motherboard. I'm NOT advocating that ... just saying. As to Windows 10, it just ain't all that bad. Do a little prudent research and you can mitigate a large portion of the [supposed] spying and such. Do you really think Windows 7 is so saintly? And, there are some nice features in Windows 10. Currently Newegg has Windows 10 Home OEM for $100USD which is exactly what I paid for Windows 7 HP OEM several years ago. You bought 7 several years ago, sounds like it's time to have a do-over. If your parents mostly surf, email and never get deeply involved in the more intricate aspects of computing life, they just might do fine with some distro of Linux. My current favorite is Linux Mint 17.3 with 18 a close second. And of course there's always Apple. My wife and I have recently bought two new Mac desktops and we really like them. And we're a senior couple by everybody's definition. Don't sell us old farts short; we can adapt and learn far better than you might think. What have your parents told them they want? If you haven't asked, you might want to. As an old fart and a parent of grown "children", I still like to be asked first. On our LAN, we're got a pair of Macs, three Windows 10 boxes and four Linux Mint machines. And a whole slew of virtual machines spread all around. We use them all and the fact is they're all just different makes and models of somebody's aggravating operating system.
You have understood the things very wrong. Windows does not care about your windows 7 key, but only your computer. If you changed your computer's identity, then it is a new computer and it's absolutely no matter, what is or was your Windows 7 activation key. The important thing is that it is activated. If You upgrade, You'll get new key and it is not in any way related with previous, but is related with Your computer.