Can I upgrade to Windows 10 now and still receive a free upgrade license?

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This is a little strange, but I'm in a situation where Windows 8 has a particularly troublesome bug that seems to have been resolved in Windows 10.

I realize that we're only a little over a week to release, but unfortunately I cannot wait to install Windows 10 if at all possible. Is one able to upgrade to the Windows 10 beta now and then still receive the free upgrade license after it is released to for public consumption or will I run into problems?

Could you provide some documentation on this point as I have not been able to find any details on this particularly odd situation yet.

ylluminate

Posted 2015-07-21T02:06:24.697

Reputation: 760

can't you just dual boot windows 10 preview side-by-side or install it in a virtual machine? – phuclv – 2015-07-21T04:19:09.627

Just make sure Win 8 is already activated and launch the upgrade from within Windows. I did this an it adopted my Win 7 key. – cybernard – 2015-07-21T04:33:25.577

Answers

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I got it from https://insider.windows.com/ You may have to google and alternate source if they disabled it so close to launch.

Yes, I already did just that. Build 10240 is the RTM build that will show up on July 29th.

Google Windows Insider Preview and get the ISO from a microsoft.com site.

Either burn your ISO to DVD or unpack it on your local hard drive.

Run setup.exe from within your activated copy of windows.

Even if you don't get 10240, after installing, run windows update and it will upgrade you to 10240.

Note: Its downloads roughly 2-3gb (within Windows Update) so be patient.

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cybernard

Posted 2015-07-21T02:06:24.697

Reputation: 11 200

No, 10240 is not meant for installing individually. Even if you can install it, you can't activate it anyway. You must upgrade it from previous preview versions. "All pre-release product keys published earlier for builds of Windows 10 Insider Preview have been deactivated and will no longer activate any Preview builds, including Build 10240" http://www.winbeta.org/news/all-pre-release-windows-10-insider-preview-product-keys-have-been-deactivated-july-29th-nears

– phuclv – 2015-07-21T04:18:38.827

Your FAILED assumption is that I used a free product key. I installed Win 10 on top of an activated Windows 7 and it never asked me for any product keys. I just adopted my Win 7 key. As you can see I am activated. – cybernard – 2015-07-21T04:31:16.580

So the key to this question is to simply use an existing Windows 7 or 8 key in order to activate an install of 10 or build 10240, correct? – ylluminate – 2015-07-21T04:39:36.753

@ylluminate I don't if your old key works keying it in manually, but if you run the setup.exe (on the Win 10 DVD) from within an activated copy of Win 7/8/8.1 it should adopt and/or upgrade your key. Even the "Evaluation version", in the lower right hand corner of the screen is gone. – cybernard – 2015-07-21T04:45:53.093

Good to know @cybernard. This should make life a good bit easier then and I'll plan to move forward in that direction here and test my luck. – ylluminate – 2015-07-21T05:06:33.987

Insider downloads are closed, activation of Windows 10 preview is broken for now, activation server is offline getting ready for RTM activations. – Moab – 2015-07-22T15:09:11.597

Asked: 2015-07-21T02:06:24.697

Viewed: 284 times

Active: 2015-07-21T04:47:58.043