Activating Windows 10 With a Windows 8.1 Key

[ShakeNBlake12]

Is there any what that I can activate windows 10 with a key from windows 8.1? I currently have 10 installed and I do not want to install windows 8.1 activate that and then upgrade from there because It takes a very long time to download all my programs back again.

 

[USAFRet]

No, it can't work like that. The Upgrade to Win 10 must be done from a valid, activated, running, Win 7 or 8.1 instance.
There is no functionality to install 10, and input a Win 8.1 license key.

 

[dudeman509]

You can upgrade from 8-10, and then do a clean install of 10. But you can't just do a clean install of 10 and use your 8 product key.

 

[techgeek]

The short answer is "no". Have a look at this post I made regarding this.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2791079/messed-windows-upgrade.html#16589620

From what I've read, MicroSoft support won't even help you activate it. They were transparent about the upgrade process leading up to July 29th. You must upgrade your existing OS before doing a clean install.

Sorry, but have a look at the post. Just do the basic install of Windows 8.1. You could even do the Windows 8.1 install on a temporary HDD and once it's activated, upgrade it to Windows 10, disconnect it, re-connect your Windows 10 HDD and activate it. This way you don't have to disturb your Windows 10 install that you've already set up.

 

[ShakeNBlake12]

The short answer is "no". Have a look at this post I made regarding this.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2791079/messed-windows-upgrade.html#16589620

From what I've read, MicroSoft support won't even help you activate it. They were transparent about the upgrade process leading up to July 29th. You must upgrade your existing OS before doing a clean install.

Sorry, but have a look at the post. Just do the basic install of Windows 8.1. You could even do the Windows 8.1 install on a temporary HDD and once it's activated, upgrade it to Windows 10, disconnect it, re-connect your Windows 10 HDD and activate it. This way you don't have to disturb your Windows 10 install that you've already set up.

So could I install windows 8.1 on an external hard drive I have, activate 8.1 and then upgrade to 10, take the key from that and input into my already existing Windows 10 Drive?

 

[USAFRet]

So could I install windows 8.1 on an external hard drive I have, activate 8.1 and then upgrade to 10, take the key from that and input into my already existing Windows 10 Drive?

Your main problem there would be actually installing Win 8.1 on an external drive. That is not a trivial procedure.

Secondly, even if you could do that, I'm not sure the 'key' would work to activate your current Win 10 install. The concept of the Windows license key is significantly different than WIn 8.1 and previous, especially for systems that were Upgraded.

 

[madmatt30]

^ it could possibly work - still incredibly long winded though.

Essentially you're talking about doing a false install of win 8.1 on a USB drive, upgrading that to win 10 (still on the USB drive)??

BTW - there is no real install key for win 10 upgrades - the keys are generic , there are only 4 different ones pertaining to the different variations of windows 10.
Once your system info is activated & stored on ms servers it will always be activated.

In theory it will work , once you remove the USB & boot to your internal win 10 install it should activate OK.

Is this just to keep your existing programs etc??

 

[ShakeNBlake12]

^ it could possibly work - still incredibly long winded though.

Essentially you're talking about doing a false install of win 8.1 on a USB drive, upgrading that to win 10 (still on the USB drive)??

BTW - there is no real install key for win 10 upgrades - the keys are generic , there are only 4 different ones pertaining to the different variations of windows 10.
Once your system info is activated & stored on ms servers it will always be activated.

In theory it will work , once you remove the USB & boot to your internal win 10 install it should activate OK.

Is this just to keep your existing programs etc??

Partially, I'm doing this to save my programs/files, many of which are Files that I need for school. I'm also doing it so I don't have to spend the time downloading new programs/games/files due to the slow speed of my internet (4Mbps at the best.) And I personally don't want my computer down for that amount of time. Also some programs through the school are nearly impossible to install without spending a few hours trying to troubleschoot

 

[techgeek]

I would say it would be better to do it to an internal drive. However once you've upgraded Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 and activated it on the secondary drive, you should just be able to reconnect your original Windows 10 drive and activate it. Because of how Windows 10 activations work, you will receive the same Product Key as everyone else that upgrades to the same version of Windows 10. Essentially the Product Keys are meaningless at this point, at least for upgrades. I haven't heard yet if people purchasing Windows 10 licenses will get unique Product Keys or not. Since the Product Keys are not used in the way that we expect them to be used, what is MicroSoft doing to tie Windows 10 to your computer? Well during the upgrade process, MicroSoft reads your Product Key for the version of Windows you are upgrading from (Windows 7 or 8.1), it generates a unique hardware hash ID based on the hardware it finds in your computer. Both of these are logged in MicroSoft's Windows 10 activation servers when Windows 10 activates. After this has occurred, you can clean install Windows 10 on the same hardware as many times as you like. However the same rules apply with Windows 10 and older versions of Windows that use activation, that is to say, if you change your hardware significantly, this can cause Windows to attempt re-activation. Any time this happens there is a chance that it won't automatically activate resulting in a phone call to MicroSoft for assistance with activation.

So essentially what will happen in your case, is you've already installed Windows 10 on your present HDD, so this is your clean install. Windows has already generated a hardware hash ID, but it can't find your hardware hash ID or Product Key showing that you performed the upgrade. Once your have done this on the secondary HDD, it will have both of these things logged with MicroSofts Windows 10 activation servers. Then when you plug your original HDD in, it will activate because now your system has been logged for the upgrade with their activation servers.