Windows 10 upgrade warning/concern

[Spider]

So, my clean install of windows 10 preview will stop working and I have to recover my Windows 8.1 to get full Windows 10? Doesn't it sound really confusing?

The bottom line appears to be "MS is not giving away ANY free copies of WX on 7/29, just free upgrades for up to date licensed copies of W7 & W8.1 ." All the work done by the previewers, installing and maintaining preview copies, was GRATIS. Unless it was an upgrade.

 

[Kris]

A little more clarification based on a question someone asked me. If you have upgraded your system to Windows 10, Microsoft registers the components in that system, (something they have been doing since Windows 7), to validate/activate the installation. Once Microsoft has the information you can then wipe the system and install Windows 10 as a bare metal install without needing a serial number or having to reinstall 8.1 first. Microsoft has your system "hardware" registered as being authorized to use Windows 10.

A possibility of this failing to work is if you made substantial changes to the system hardware between doing the wipe and the install.

For those who don't know what Microsoft is looking at, they track the processor, video system, motherboard, network interface and a few other things and create a checksum of sorts based on that information. This will not affect any Surface tablets, only desktop systems.

I'm thankful for it remembering the computer, my upgrade from windows 7 was totally FUBAR. happy to know that I don't have to reinstall 7 again then upgrade back to being an insider again...

 

[bender]

Let's wait till release. It seems they themselves don't know what they will do.

 

[Kris]

Let's wait till release. It seems they themselves don't know what they will do.

I just really hope its true that they remember my system because installing Windows 7, updating it, and then upgrading it was a complete nightmare.

 

[wynand32]

So, just to make sure: the only way to upgrade to the shipping (non-Preview) version of Windows 10 is to upgrade from Windows 8.1? So if I want to go to the non-Preview Windows 10 on my SP3 (Preview builds post-7/29 have been terrible for me), I need to restore back to factory Windows 8.1 and then upgrade?

 

[GreyFox7]

Well... IDK what your real options are when going from preview to non preview as I haven't done it or seen it discussed.

One possibility is that since the machine was activated on W10 you could do a clean install of W10 and it will reactivate and all will be great. From what I have seen this is the only configuration of W10 that mostly works. Since that's your desired end state it would be worth a shot to see if it can be done.

 

[wynand32]

Well, the thing is, technical speaking it wasn't activated on Windows 10 because it was upgrade via Preview. My understanding is that it needs to be upgraded from a valid Win7 or Win8.1 install to activate the machine, then clean installs need to be done.



I can try a clean install, but I have a feeling that'll be wasted time.

 

[ScottyS]

So, just to make sure: the only way to upgrade to the shipping (non-Preview) version of Windows 10 is to upgrade from Windows 8.1? So if I want to go to the non-Preview Windows 10 on my SP3 (Preview builds post-7/29 have been terrible for me), I need to restore back to factory Windows 8.1 and then upgrade?

Well, the thing is, technical speaking it wasn't activated on Windows 10 because it was upgrade via Preview. My understanding is that it needs to be upgraded from a valid Win7 or Win8.1 install to activate the machine, then clean installs need to be done.



I can try a clean install, but I have a feeling that'll be wasted time.

That's what I did. I had Win10Preview installed on a separate partition and had problems with the next-to-the-last build and then lost my boot menu.
Win10 wouldn't upgrade on my Win8.1 partition (kept getting Error code 80070003 during initial stage of the upgrade) so I did a full Restore from a USB recovery flash drive I had previously made in Win8.1.
The whole thing took only about an hour and all I had to do was click "Ok" a few times. My Win10 setup works great.

 

[wynand32]

That's what I did. I had Win10Preview installed on a separate partition and had problems with the next-to-the-last build and then lost my boot menu.
Win10 wouldn't upgrade on my Win8.1 partition (kept getting Error code 80070003 during initial stage of the upgrade) so I did a full Restore from a USB recovery flash drive I had previously made in Win8.1.
The whole thing took only about an hour and all I had to do was click "Ok" a few times. My Win10 setup works great.

Okay, sorry to be obtuse, but I've been struggling with ALL of my Win10 machines this morning. My frustration is addling my brain.

What exactly did you do? Recover to factory Win8.1 then upgrade, or clean install Win10?

Thanks!

 

[ScottyS]

Okay, sorry to be obtuse, but I've been struggling with ALL of my Win10 machines this morning. My frustration is addling my brain.

What exactly did you do? Recover to factory Win8.1 then upgrade, or clean install Win10?

Thanks!

Recover to factory Win8.1 then upgrade.

That's the only way to have the Win10 upgrade activated. Once you've upgraded Win8 (or Win7 for that matter) and it activates by matching your hardware with your (old) legal copy of Windows when you sign into you MS account, then you can do a clean Win10 install if you like. Mine is running so well I have no reason to do that, but some like using a clean install instead of an upgrade.

 

[wynand32]

Recover to factory Win8.1 then upgrade.

That's the only way to have the Win10 upgrade activated. Once you've upgraded Win8 (or Win7 for that matter) and it activates by matching your hardware with your (old) legal copy of Windows when you sign into you MS account, then you can do a clean Win10 install if you like. Mine is running so well I have no reason to do that, but some like using a clean install instead of an upgrade.

Okay, gotcha. That's what I expected, thanks!

 

[wynand32]

Okay, so, I hadn't heard about this, so thought I'd report my experience. I went ahead and factory restored to Win8.1 using the latest image downloaded when I logged into the support site. During the initial Win8.1 setup, I was asked if I want to upgrade to Win10. That's new, obviously. I said yes, and was told the upgrade would download in the background and offer to install when ready.

That's all good, of course.

Now, though, my machine has been waiting all day, plenty of time for the upgrade to download, and nothing. So, yeah, good intentions and all that. And now I don't want to manually upgrade in case it messes up the automated process I'm supposed to have started.

Suddenly, I'm less enamored with the whole Win10 process than I once was.