Free Activation from Windows 7/8 key or upgrade to Windows 10/11 Ends

glasskuter said:

We all tend to have our 'words of wisdom' (when in reality we do not know diddly squat and can only guess). Either way, these are mine. I've always said that MS could put a quietus on anything they want to at any time.

The question has been asked over and over since 2021 about whether MS will continue to let 11 run on incompatible hardware. It doesn't take a genius to figure out where this is going to go. IMO blocking 7-8 keys is the beginning of the incompatible hardware death knell. MS knows if they require a new Win 11 key that many folks running old devices won't invest in purchasing a key. Even for folks who already run old devices registered with old keys, I predict their next step will be to stop updates as well as all the workarounds that's been available if one had to re-install or repair install 11.

This plan of theirs goes for the MS account requirement as well if one runs Home. Maybe Pro too, for all we know. The use of Onedrive, too. We won't have a choice.

Someone suggested it will take using an old iso going forward to still use the 7-8 keys. I disagree. I believe even then MS servers will block the use of the old keys. If not now, then shortly in the future. MS has always indoctrinated their user base a little at a time to their changes. They knew from Day 1 when they allowed the 'installing on incompatible hardware' in the first place how and when they would deal with this issue.

It's been years since we first heard the term "windows as a service". Well, anyone who can't see it's a fact and getting closer than we think is blind.
We do not own our copy of Windows and will be required to run the OS EXACTLY how MS wants us to. They will lock down the registry so all the tweaks, workarounds, and 3rd party apps will be useless. In the not too distant future, it will be MS way, or the highway. We either have to like it, or leave it.

Buckle up, folks. I believe we are in for a bumpy ride.

Click to expand...

No difference to what Apple do now, so why worry?

Did you guys all buy a wheelbarrow full of Windows 7 keys? Holy moly, i only had a couple.

@pparks1

Old technet keys still work !! - just created a new VM using a Win 8.1 pro key from the old technet set I kept. W8 and W7 keys also seem to work indefinitely too.

For other readers of this thread.

In any case you can still run versions of Windows as a VM if you want to == XP continues to run perfectly on modern hardware on a VM.

These days if you use a decent HYPERVISOR system for your VM program -- e.g HYPER-V on Windows or KVM/QEMU on a decent non bloated Linux distro with decent hardware you can get the GUEST to run at almost 90% of the native speed you'd get on "Real hardware" .

At that type of performance -- unless you are a serious gamer you won't notice the difference. Even then if you have a dual GPU and can pass thru one to the Guest then 100% normal Windows Gaming is quite OK too -- I'm not a gamer but I've seen it in action on colleagues PC's when I've been showing them on how to maximize performance on VM's.

In any case once Ms makes Windows too restrictive to use or starts making it a "Monthly charge" - then I just wont bother with any new releases. I don't do much on Windows these days -- basically just Photoshop, some Corporate SAP ERP system access e,g SAP/HANA, DPowerAmp for CD ripping as I complete ripping my entire CD collection to digital (with the auto get CD cover facility in Dpoweramp I get a copy of the CD covers too) and Ms Office --- While there are other "Office clones" out there NONE and I repeat NONE of them come anywhere near EXCEL if you are a "Power user". The other parts of the office suite can be replicated "Okay-ISH" with other stuff and Thunderbird makes a good free email client alternate to OUTLOOK if you need that. Power Point is also pretty good too.

If you operate a web site etc then L.A.M.P (Linux, Apache. Mysql/Mariadb, PHP) is just as good and equivalent to W.A.M.P (same as L.A.M.P on Linux bit on Windows) -- using APACHE is a lot easier BTW than using ITS !!) and it runs perfectly on Windows as well.

Also the capability of web browsers now to do very much more rather than rely on built in native applications also means that users can get increasing flexibility with their choice of OS.

Many Enterprises and even some quite small businesses use Cloud servers for their main I.T needs and provide a V.D.I to their users so the users can be OS independent as well. I've no problem connecting to one of my client's VDI Windows interface from a Linux desktop -- It used to be a real "Dog" when they used CITRIX -- horrible, often crashing and deadly slow system but they've got rid of that it the whole thing works seamlessly and performance is just as good or even better than I've had with other clients who have their own servers locally !!!.


Cheers
jimbo

pparks1 said:

Did you guys all buy a wheelbarrow full of Windows 7 keys? Holy moly, i only had a couple.

Click to expand...

Every time Technet came up for renewal, I claimed and exported all the keys and set up a brand-new subscription

pparks1 said:

Did you guys all buy a wheelbarrow full of Windows 7 keys? Holy moly, i only had a couple.

Click to expand...

Microsoft TechNet subscription back in the day.

10 keys for each edition of Windows 7. And they split them so that one set of keys worked for Windows 7 / Windows 7 K Editions, and another set of keys worked for the Windows 7 N and KN builds. So, each of those entries has 10 individual and unique keys (except Enterprise):



Same for Vista:



At the time I had my subscription, Windows 8 was new, so there were no actual keys available, only install keys, and the Win 10 folder simply has the Beta and TP keys used for testing. You can get a good idea of some of the other things I have keys for, though - this whole section (down to Windows Server) is almost all from that one subscription.

And before anyone gets a crazy idea - no, I'm not gonna sell any to anyone. So don't ask.

jimbo45 said:

Old technet keys still work !! - just created a new VM using a Win 8.1 pro key from the old technet set I kept. W8 and W7 keys also seem to work indefinitely too.

Click to expand...

Not here. I use nothing but my TechNet keys.


All worked on brand new installs of VMs using official Microsoft ISOs except Canary. It refused to accept the key, and I tried a few.

z3r010 said:

Every time Technet came up for renewal, I claimed and exported all the keys and set up a brand-new subscription

Click to expand...

Damn, I wish I had thought of that. Lol. That would have been epic. Expensive AF, but epic nonetheless!

EDIT: I just realized you only did this on renewal times, so not all that much more expensive than a renewal, they only offered, what, 10% off on renewals?

If you have an older version of the WMCT does it download the older version of win10/11?

bjproc said:

If you have an older version of the WMCT does it download the older version of win10/11?

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No. Depending on exactly how old it is then you'll see one of two things. Either it will refuse to run, telling you there is a newer version you should download, or the newer MCTs will always download the latest version of Windows 10 (or 11, depending on which MCT it is).

To download older versions of Windows 10/11 you need not only the older MCT, but also an older version of the support file products.xml which details what to download. You then have to run the MCT in 'selfhost' mode to use your older support files. All this has been automated in a batch file called MediaCreationTool.bat that does the hard work for you. It's to be found on GitHub.

Glad I got my VMs made when I did, then! Lol!

johnlgalt said:

Glad I got my VMs made when I did, then! Lol!

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I'm just glad I got a digital licence for my 'never updated to 10' test laptop before they closed this last loophole. It's quite a nice machine and it would have been a shame to leave it stuck with Windows 7.

I deleted all of the licenses in my Microsoft account for the VMs I had last year, as I wanted to re-do them, but I kept putting it off - right up until everyone started making a big brouhaha about this 'upgrade' path going away.

In August, I started working on a PS script that would set all the parameters for any given Hyper-V VM I wanted to create, including making a dedicated folder for all the VM contents (vhd/x, checkpoints, and the VM itself), along with several other parameters, so I didn't have to continually go back and edit them when manually creating VMs, nor have to go through the entire creation process at all from inside Hyper-V, really.

I finally put it into action late last month into early this month, from XP all the way up to 11 + all the Insiders builds.

Only ones I'm having problem activating are the Windows 8 VMs lol - my keys won't work, even with manual activation, and I haven't had time to really dig in to why.

Script works very well for what I need it to do, and every other OS is both activated and fully updated (the older OSs thanks to LegacyUpdate).

My old technet keys are still working (just used a Windows 8.1 pro one).

Incidentally does W10 still activate from W7 - then presumably you can still go from W10 -> W11.

Cheers
jimbo

For me, both Windows 10 and Windows 11 activated using Windows 7 keys from my TechNet subscription.

My subscription only has install keys for Windows 8 / 8.1, not activation keys. I bought a key that was supposed to be good for 5 uses that I only activated twice, but is not working now. That is completely unrelated to this thread.

johnlgalt said:

I deleted all of the licenses in my Microsoft account for the VMs I had last year, as I wanted to re-do them, but I kept putting it off - right up until everyone started making a big brouhaha about this 'upgrade' path going away.

In August, I started working on a PS script that would set all the parameters for any given Hyper-V VM I wanted to create, including making a dedicated folder for all the VM contents (vhd/x, checkpoints, and the VM itself), along with several other parameters, so I didn't have to continually go back and edit them when manually creating VMs, nor have to go through the entire creation process at all from inside Hyper-V, really.

I finally put it into action late last month into early this month, from XP all the way up to 11 + all the Insiders builds.

Only ones I'm having problem activating are the Windows 8 VMs lol - my keys won't work, even with manual activation, and I haven't had time to really dig in to why.

Script works very well for what I need it to do, and every other OS is both activated and fully updated (the older OSs thanks to LegacyUpdate).

Click to expand...

@johnlgalt Do you mind sharing how you "deleted all of the licenses in my Microsoft account" and where and how you presumably accessed Windows digital licenses linked to your Microsoft account?

On a Microsoft website, click your avatar and then click on My Microsoft Account to get to the account mgmt page.



Alternatively, the following link *may* work directly (assuming you're using a browser that is already logged in to a Microsoft account):


Once there, click on View all devices on the right side of the page, you may have to scroll a bit.



In the listed devices should be all the VMs, and older devices that you may no longer use. Analyze them carefully, and then you can remove those you no longer need / want / have access to.

i remember the old technet program. I never had it. I had a visual studio account with my employer that gave me keys that i needed. But I've since left that employer and no longer use those keys. I never got in with technet before it was shutdown.

Since then, i've just more or less used eval keys for my labs and VM's...if they live long enough to even need activation. Usually they are around for a few days while I test something out, and then i blow 'em away.

z3r010 said:

Every time Technet came up for renewal, I claimed and exported all the keys and set up a brand-new subscription

Click to expand...

I'm an old TechNet member.
I still have all my old TechNet keys too.

johnlgalt said:

On a Microsoft website, click your avatar and then click on My Microsoft Account to get to the account mgmt page.

View attachment 74442

Alternatively, the following link *may* work directly (assuming you're using a browser that is already logged in to a Microsoft account):

https://account.microsoft.com/?ref=MeControl&refd=www.microsoft.com

Once there, click on View all devices on the right side of the page, you may have to scroll a bit.

View attachment 74443

In the listed devices should be all the VMs, and older devices that you may no longer use. Analyze them carefully, and then you can remove those you no longer need / want / have access to.

View attachment 74444

Click to expand...

@johngalt, https://account.microsoft.com/devices as above lists DEVICES linked to your Microsoft account and obviously if you remove them they will not be listed there. However, I understood you had a way to access/visualise Digital LICENCES tied to your Microsoft account. Removing devices does not necessarily removes licenses of your account.