Reinstalling windows 10 after upgrading from 7 questions.

[Brezals]

My biggest concern is what my windows 7 CD and Windows KEY, will be worth after upgrading?

If I upgrade to windows 10, then after a while I would obviously want/need to reinstall it at some point. How exactly does that work? I would just have my windows 7 CD and KEY? Will the free upgrade be available again?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

It appears that once you use the free upgrade to install 10, you can use Windows 10 disks to perform a clean install without needing any product keys or 7 disks - it stores the activation data in your BIOS.

However, I wouldn't suggest getting rid of your old key/CD - this might change, especially at the one-year mark when they stop offering the upgrade.

Don't sell the key; it's likely that if someone else uses it it will deactivate your install of 10.

 

[Samat]

You should be able to do a clean install of Windows 10 after you have upgraded (quite a few people have had problems with activation after doing a clean install straight after a upgrade so might want to hold on that). Using a microsoft account to log into Windows 10 might be mitigating factor to this since it seems the key you get assigned binds to the account. Your Windows 7 key will not be valid after you upgrade, there is a grace period during which you can go back to your old OS if you don't like the new one (14 days or so can't remember it for sure) though. You can download and create Windows 10 install media from here (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10).

 

[photonboy]

Hey,
I think you get a NEW key which invalidates the OLD key.

As said, don't sell or throw away the old discs, however AFAIK so far they will be useless once you upgrade and all you really need is to write down the new activation code.

If you forget the new code it may be good to have the old discs as there may be a method to get the new code.

*So probably what you want to do is:

1. Upgrade
2. Write down activation code
3. Burn a DVD of W10 at some point (and write code on it) in case you need to do a fresh install
4. Make a note on installation W7/W8 that you upgraded that it's been used...

**Assume that your W10 drive will stop working and plan accordingly.

 

[Samat]

Hey,
I think you get a NEW key which invalidates the OLD key.

As said, don't sell or throw away the old discs, however AFAIK so far they will be useless once you upgrade and all you really need is to write down the new activation code.

If you forget the new code it may be good to have the old discs as there may be a method to get the new code.

*So probably what you want to do is:

1. Upgrade
2. Write down activation code
3. Burn a DVD of W10 at some point (and write code on it) in case you need to do a fresh install
4. Make a note on installation W7/W8 that you upgraded that it's been used...

**Assume that your W10 drive will stop working and plan accordingly.

Addition to quote you will need something like keyfinder program to extract Windows 10 key if you want to write it down, since it never actually tells you the key (it gets saved on your ms account in the cloud somewhere I guess).

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Using a microsoft account to log into Windows 10 might be mitigating factor to this since it seems the key you get assigned binds to the account.

I've reinstalled 10 to a blank drive, entered no keys or MS accounts, and it's activated itself fine. Pretty sure it's in the BIOS.

Your Windows 7 key will not be valid after you upgrade, there is a grace period during which you can go back to your old OS if you don't like the new one (14 days or so can't remember it for sure) though.

I just tried, and I can re-install 7 after using an install with that key to upgrade to 10. I believe the one-month limit is when it deletes your windows.old folder.

I think you get a NEW key which invalidates the OLD key.

Nope, no new key that I can find.

As best I can tell, it reads some serial number or something out of the BIOS when you first upgrade, and tells MS's servers that's a device that can have 10 on it. After that, simply booting off a 10 disk and hitting skip every time it asks for a key seems to work fine.

 

[Samat]

Using a microsoft account to log into Windows 10 might be mitigating factor to this since it seems the key you get assigned binds to the account.

I've reinstalled 10 to a blank drive, entered no keys or MS accounts, and it's activated itself fine. Pretty sure it's in the BIOS.

Your Windows 7 key will not be valid after you upgrade, there is a grace period during which you can go back to your old OS if you don't like the new one (14 days or so can't remember it for sure) though.

I just tried, and I can re-install 7 after using an install with that key to upgrade to 10. I believe the one-month limit is when it deletes your windows.old folder.

I think you get a NEW key which invalidates the OLD key.

Nope, no new key that I can find.

As best I can tell, it reads some serial number or something out of the BIOS when you first upgrade, and tells MS's servers that's a device that can have 10 on it. After that, simply booting off a 10 disk and hitting skip every time it asks for a key seems to work fine.

Ok, good to know. Would be nice if there was official info on this though from Microsoft so ppl wouldn't need to try it out lol.

 

[Brezals]

Thanks for the answers, but I think I will hold on for a while, to make sure everything is figured out. as there are a lot of uncertainty amongst these answers.

P.S I also never intended to sell my windows 7 key, or throwing it away.

Another quick question: If I reinstall windows 7 now, will the free update still be available, regardless if the upgrade is available to me right now, or if I am still waiting for the upgrade to arrive to my computer?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Yup. The update is available for anyone with a valid copy of 7/8, until this time next year.