[SOLVED] Upgrading my Win 7 Pro to Win 10

[Frooby]

Hi.

I have an old PC which has Win 7 Pro on it. This is 'activated' but I have no COA - it was bought like this, 2nd-hand, many moons ago. I understand that even the 'Pro' version will lose support next year, so I am hoping to upgrade this to '10'.

My concern is the lack of COA and whether this will scupper my plans? What I've always done on any other upgrade/ reinstall - following the advice on here (thanks 🙂 - is to register my PC along with its copy of '10' on my Microsoft account, and this has always done the job when it came to reactivating the new install. I haven't, however, tried going from '7' to '10' without a COA before.

A Google on how to register my '7' on my account left me confused - talk about 'swiping in from the RH of the screen...' and stuff. Mine does nuffin'. Looking at 'accounts' under 'settings' appears to only refer to my PC's 'personal' account - ie for logging in and that kind of stuff.

Any advice, please? Is it possible to register my '7' on my online MS account? If so, how? Is this the best way to ensure the new '10' should activate successfully when installed?

Many thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

2 options:

1. Do an in place Upgrade to Win 10. It should see your validated Win 7 and become a validated Win 10.
2. Do a clean install of Win 10, and apply your current Win 7 license to it. Since this is an 'old' install, second hand at that...this is probably what I'd do.

You can discover your current Win 7 license key with Belarc Advisor.

 

[Frooby]

Thanks. I'll try Belarc to get the key, and then I should hopefully be fine.

Cheers - I'll report back on how it goes 🙂 (and click the 'trophy'!)

 

[Frooby]

Trophy clicked Worked a treat.

Belarc gave me the Win7 key, but I didn't actually have to enter it as I simply signed in to my MS account when it asked during the Win 10 install.
Something really spooky, though - when Win 10 finally loaded to my desktop, it carried the desktop wallpaper picture (of a geetar) I had placed on another PC. What the? Where the? How the? Does my MS account on line carry a 'copy' of 'my' Win 10?!

 

[USAFRet]

Good deal!

When using a MS account to log in across multiple systems, yes, it carries the config across those systems if you let it.

 

[Frooby]

Well I'll be...

Cool.