Just wanted to chime in regarding this as I recently did a lot of research to get straight answers and make sure we are 100% covered licence-wise. This will primarily be important for small to medium sized businesses that use automated deployment technologies looking to take advantage of the free upgrade to Windows 10.
If you're manually updating then it's fine to just clean install with >= 1511 media and use a Windows 7/8.1 key, you may have to select to skip entering the key during OOBE and enter it later in the desktop. If you're looking at deploying and reimaging, however, you will need to go through the Media Creation Tool or WU update to Windows 10 to licence your Windows 7/8.1 machines with valid Windows 10 licences before being able to deploy Windows 10 to those machines legally. The exception to this is if you have a qualifying VL agreement (this does NOT include the common Open or Open Value agreements), in this case you can deploy Windows 10 straight onto the machines using VL media and keys, however, you will need to fill out and sign the MS document: Windows 10 Pro Upgrade Form linked here: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1238259-updates-to-deploying-the-windows-10-free-upgrade . This is because reimaging rights work as long as the target machine is licenced for the OS version to be deployed and technically a Windows 7/8.1 licence is not equivalent to a Windows 10 licence. Source: https://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/124056-reimaging-rights-for-windows-10-licensing-how-to Regards, Freddy -----Original Message----- From: listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsad...@lists.myitforum.com] On Behalf Of Art DeKneef Sent: Wednesday, 11 May 2016 11:15 AM To: ntsysadm@lists.myitforum.com Subject: RE: [NTSysADM] Provisioning Windows 10 free license Daniel, This may be too late but. Do you want to do an upgrade or have a key for a fresh install? As far as I know and have limited experience with is changing BIOS means a fresh install. So just make sure you have the latest Windows 10 build and do a clean install. When it asks for the key, put in your valid Windows 7 key and it should activate. The build has to be at least the Nov. build. I have done about 10 installs that way and it has worked fine. -----Original Message----- From: listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsad...@lists.myitforum.com] On Behalf Of Wolf, Daniel Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2016 4:09 PM To: ntsysadm@lists.myitforum.com Subject: RE: [NTSysADM] Provisioning Windows 10 free license I did a test. Did in-place upgrade with the EXE. After it rebooted into the WinPE install environment, I shut down and changed BIOS to UEFI and deployed Win10 with MDT. It's not activated. Looks like you have to go through the entire Win10 upgrade. =( *shakes fist at Microsoft* Why you gotta make stuff complicated. Daniel Wolf -----Original Message----- From: listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsad...@lists.myitforum.com] On Behalf Of Susan Bradley Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2016 4:54 PM To: ntsysadm@lists.myitforum.com Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] Provisioning Windows 10 free license The process of the upgrade generates a key that is matched to the machine information. The only way I've seen/read that this can be done is to do an upgrade - get that key generated where it's stored on Microsoft's servers, then do a clean install. At which time the machine will check back into the servers and pick up it's generated key. You have to hop twice through the server process and actually complete the install as I understand it. On 5/10/2016 12:10 PM, Wolf, Daniel wrote: > > Is there a command-line tool to grant a Win7 computer a Win10 license > on Microsoft’s servers, without actually having to do the normal > upgrade procedure? > > I have a batch of Win7 Pro computers I want to upgrade to Win10. > > However, they are MBR instead of UEFI. I want to use UEFI. > > Is there a way to provision a computer with a free Win10 license from > an installed Win7 OS, but which lets me install Windows 10 via DVD/MDT > in UEFI mode? > > This would be a big help. I want SecureBoot. > > Regards, > > Daniel Wolf > NOTICE: This email is confidential. If you are not the nominated recipient, please immediately delete this email, destroy all copies and inform the sender. Australian Maritime Systems Ltd. (AMS) prohibits the unauthorised copying or distribution of this email. This email does not necessarily express the views of AMS. AMS does not warrant nor guarantee that this email communication is free from errors, virus, interception or interference.
