Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10
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@DustinB3403 said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
@scottalanmiller said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
There is a bizarre requirement, that might be removed now, that no one pays attention to, that OEM used to have to be sold with a piece of hardware. So it was common to sell it with a memory stick, hard drive, USB stick, etc. That's been lifted or is so weird that it is totally ignored today.
I remember that, the first computer system I built I bought Windows
XPME actually, and with the CD and Key came a memory module.I was very confused at first trying to figure out what I was supposed to do with this part.... lol
They often sent dead parts in the box, just kept dead memory and stuff laying around and tossed it in the box. Problem was, MS faced legal problems from that that they didn't want.... like people being able to say that the license was tied to the memory instead of the mobo (which is how it used to be) so that dead memory could be kept and the OEM applied to machine after machine. So they moved to just tying it to the mobo.
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@scottalanmiller Yeah I could see how that could become a big issue...
Well hey you guys have been sending me dead RAM with every purchase.....
Just affix the key to the RAM, and throw that into a locker somewhere. Product keys for life.
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@scottalanmiller said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
That's been lifted or is so weird that it is totally ignored today.
From Microsoft.com:
If you are building a system for your personal use or installing an additional operating system in a virtual machine, you will need to purchase a full version of Windows 10, available in FPP. Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7 system builder software does not permit personal use, and is intended only for preinstallation on customer systems that will be sold to end users.*OEM is system builder, isn't it? That seems pretty clear, doesn't it?
https://www.microsoft.com/OEM/en/licensing/sblicensing/Pages/windows-licensing-for-personal-use.aspx -
@Carnival-Boy said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
@scottalanmiller said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
That's been lifted or is so weird that it is totally ignored today.
From Microsoft.com:
If you are building a system for your personal use or installing an additional operating system in a virtual machine, you will need to purchase a full version of Windows 10, available in FPP. Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7 system builder software does not permit personal use, and is intended only for preinstallation on customer systems that will be sold to end users.*OEM is system builder, isn't it? That seems pretty clear, doesn't it?
https://www.microsoft.com/OEM/en/licensing/sblicensing/Pages/windows-licensing-for-personal-use.aspxA really simple way to handle this would be to have a sub company purchase the equipment and key, build it out, and then sell the equipment for $.01 to the parent company.
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@DustinB3403 said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
@scottalanmiller Yeah I could see how that could become a big issue...
Well hey you guys have been sending me dead RAM with every purchase.....
Just affix the key to the RAM, and throw that into a locker somewhere. Product keys for life.
Yup, for a brief time period, that was what everyone did. Box o' keys on sticks.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
@scottalanmiller said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
That's been lifted or is so weird that it is totally ignored today.
From Microsoft.com:
If you are building a system for your personal use or installing an additional operating system in a virtual machine, you will need to purchase a full version of Windows 10, available in FPP. Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7 system builder software does not permit personal use, and is intended only for preinstallation on customer systems that will be sold to end users.*OEM is system builder, isn't it? That seems pretty clear, doesn't it?
https://www.microsoft.com/OEM/en/licensing/sblicensing/Pages/windows-licensing-for-personal-use.aspxThat's why they send you a part with the license. If you are doing ANY changes, like adding memory or a drive, technically you ARE a system builder.
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@DustinB3403 said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
A really simple way to handle this would be to have a sub company purchase the equipment and key, build it out, and then sell the equipment for $.01 to the parent company.
You think that's really simple? We're not Enron.
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Anyway, I'm not going down the OEM route. Firstly, I don't believe it's in the spirit of the licence. And secondly, I get enough hassle during a Microsoft audit as it is without adding any potential complications.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
Anyway, I'm not going down the OEM route. Firstly, I don't believe it's in the spirit of the licence. And secondly, I get enough hassle during a Microsoft audit as it is without adding any potential complications.
It's totally industry standard. I would not question this at all. Even MS doesn't talk about this when you talk to their licensing people. It's just applied to the motherboard, nothing more to it. There is zero hassle in an audit, you just apply the sticker to the case. It's actually the least hassle method.
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It comes with a sticker? During our last audit we had to send copies of HP PC invoices to Microsoft, as I don't think Windows 10 includes a licence key / sticker any more?
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@Carnival-Boy said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
It comes with a sticker? During our last audit we had to send copies of HP PC invoices to Microsoft, as I don't think Windows 10 includes a licence key / sticker any more?
I believe OEM for windows 10 does.... I may be wrong....
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I think I'll go with Open Licence which is a fair bit cheaper than retail, at least. Dearer than OEM but Open licences are by far the easiest to manage during an audit.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
I think I'll go with Open Licence which is a fair bit cheaper than retail, at least. Dearer than OEM but Open licences are by far the easiest to manage during an audit.
They shouldn't be because they are double licenses. You have to track both the underlying OEM as well as the VL upgrade license. So it's a double license tracking. One that is tied to hardware, one that is not.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
It comes with a sticker? During our last audit we had to send copies of HP PC invoices to Microsoft, as I don't think Windows 10 includes a licence key / sticker any more?
Pretty sure that they have to for OEM.
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Have you tried installing Windows 10 on one of your computers and entering the Windows 7 product key from the sticker and see if it activates?
It's my understanding that that still works (unless they killed it in the last few days). As long as MS servers are still creating activations I don't see a legal issue with that.
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I haven't. That would be awesome.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
I haven't. That would be awesome.
Here's my personal suggestion.
Get an SSD, grab one of those machines - remove the old drive, plug in the SSD, install Windows 10. try to activate it. If it works, Great!
Now format that SSD, remove it, put the old drive back in and wait for whatever software updates you need.
Now take that SSD to the second machine and repeat above process, rinse and repeat across all machines. Now that you have rights to use Windows 10 on all machines, get a VL for ONE Windows 10 Pro license and use the VL media to make an image that you use to deploy windows 10 on those machines.
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@Dashrender said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
Have you tried installing Windows 10 on one of your computers and entering the Windows 7 product key from the sticker and see if it activates?
It's my understanding that that still works (unless they killed it in the last few days). As long as MS servers are still creating activations I don't see a legal issue with that.
Definitely is MS accepts it, it's legal.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
I haven't. That would be awesome.
Worth a shot.
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@Dashrender said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
@Carnival-Boy said in Paying to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10:
I haven't. That would be awesome.
Here's my personal suggestion.
Get an SSD, grab one of those machines - remove the old drive, plug in the SSD, install Windows 10. try to activate it. If it works, Great!
Now format that SSD, remove it, put the old drive back in and wait for whatever software updates you need.
Now take that SSD to the second machine and repeat above process, rinse and repeat across all machines. Now that you have rights to use Windows 10 on all machines, get a VL for ONE Windows 10 Pro license and use the VL media to make an image that you use to deploy windows 10 on those machines.
I did this with VirtualBox ahead of the 29th to make sure that legally we had upgraded every key. If MS complained later, I'd have documentation that I had done it. There was debate as to whether it would correctly record the key, but I figured it would still work because we had done the correct process and upgraded the right key, if they recorded it incorrectly we'd just have to call and explain like you normally need to do anyway.
Ended up getting to 100% Windows 10 ahead of the date anyway, so it didn't come up. But there was a process that I'm 90% sure worked to take care of the upgrade for those machines that could not do it right away for other reasons.
