OT: Windows license

Exactly. Updates work fine. The disadvantages of not registering are that you get nagged every so often and some customisation options do not work. If your computer was originally supplied with Windows and came from one of the larger suppliers there may well be an activation code built in to the motherboard memory in which case Windows 10 auto-activates.

John

No, But I was thinking the same, I will have one somewhere, I can't remember the last time I skipped a PC.

Interesting, thanks.

Before you put Ubuntu on it, the machine had something else on it.

And that something else is used to "quality an upgrade to Windows 10".

Even my refurbished Dell, with "Win7 SP1 Refurbisher" on it, now has a licensed Windows 10 for free.

My laptop with "Acer Windows 7" on it, now has a retail-grade Windows 10 on it, for free.

Everything in the room, has free Windows 10 on it :-) The fact I don't use or boot Windows 10, is another matter. I boot it if I need to take pictures of a menu, but that's a typical usage. They don't allow my webcam to work, so I have to use Windows 7 to do anything important.

Qualifying items for Free Upgrade:

licensed Windows 7 SP1 (patch up to SP1) licensed Windows 8.1 (fix up to 8.1 version from 8.0)

Note that, Windows 10 has a "lifecycle". Once Windows 10 enters Extended Support, the free upgrade will likely be discontinued. Windows 10 receives free Windows Defender AV definitions until 2025, and will also receive security updates until 2025. Then the "Unobtanium Win11" takes over (the "Nobody Has Hardware For This OS" OS).

Match the SKU as best you can, or the activation wouldn't work. This shows you the basic idea. "Moar skus" map to "fewer skus" as a rule of thumb.

License mapping...

Win7 Win10

Home Home Home Premium Home Pro Pro Ultimate Pro

Win8 Win10 Home Home Pro Pro

There are a few machines for sale, which don't have a traceable Windows license on them, but for the most part, you are very likely to have materials in hand for the job.

For example, if the machine has a SLIC in the BIOS tables (a "branded" machine has a useful SLIC), sometimes you can find an OS to download to run it. A limited number of Dell machines, the Heidoc tool will generate the URL to download such a beast for usage on a Dell where you "lost the hard drive".

(This needs IE and .NET xxx, not because the developer is evil, but because some of the things he needed to defeat, are ActiveX protected. Look for the Dell submenu. My Optiplex, I could pick up a 32-bit version of my OS, as an image.)

There are many permutations of install process.

Ubuntu machine Back up Ubuntu image.

Install Dell 32-bit OEM Windows 7. slmgr /dlv # check license status = "Licensed" Install SP1 if not installed already. # Win7 SP1 is a qualifying OS... Download and install Win10 32-bit. # This "generates" Win10 license for x86/x64 in future slmgr /dlv # check license status = "Licensed"

Erase disk. # Cannot go Win10 x86 to Win10 x64, directly... Install Win10 64-bit. slmgr /dlv # check license status = "Licensed", it will auto-activate

That's an example of going from x86 head-fake OS install, to Win10 x64 licensed.

After that, for extra points, you can:

Clone over two Ubuntu partitions (slash and swap) Chroot in and "install-grub" or "grub-install". I can never remember which is the correct name :-) GRUB boot to either Ubuntu or Win10. Since the BLKIDs would be preserved, the grub install should put one of the grub boot loader stages in the Ubuntu slash, so grub knows where the blessed partition is located. The FSTAB, being BLKID based, should not need modification. (In the old days, you'd need to change the sda1/sda2/sda3 type stuff.) But GRUB itself, some of the wiring there is manual wiring done by the install-grub type step. And, while chrooted.

Paul

I turned my old Windows install into a VM. On the rare occasion I need it I fire that up.

Since it came from a real machine it has a licence. Win2k, but WTH...

Andy

You have a few options...

If the machine had previously run win 10 at any point, then it would likely reactivate automatically.

If it shipped with Win 8 and a key pre-stored, same thing.

If you have a valid Win 7 key, that will also work for 10.

You could simply install 10 and not activate - unlike previous versions it will not lock you out and it will receive updates. You will lose the ability to customise some UI options though.

Yup old win 7 or 8 keys from a scraped machine will work (although not actually be within the license terms since it will probably be an OEM key and hence not transportable to a new machine)

You may be able to find new old stock retail packs of older versions of

(years ago I bought three retail copies of Win 8 pro on special promotion from MS for about £30/each - they all served as a usable path to 10)

There are some outfits that deal in legit second hand (but previously unused) keys. However identifying which are genuine and which are fly by night might outfits flogging ripped off volume license keys is another matter.

FWIW: this lot seem to have had a continuos web presence since 2018 according to the wayback machine

I bet you will find a lot of discs around which will work. Msoft do not seem so paranoide about windows 10, they mainly want to be sure its not been riddled with spyware which reflects baadly on them.

A lot of the keys around seem to be corporate, ie for the pro version. Brian

Corporate might use "Enterprise", and the licensing system is a bit different than the consumer one. It might be called "KMS" and involves a license server.

Consumer is "Home" and "Professional". Professional would include support for domains perhaps. Microsoft has been trying to drive SOHO users away from Professional (as a "cheap Enterprise") to soak them for more expensive software versions.

And, there are a lot of Stock Keeping Units (SKUs).

For example, one of the DVDs you can download, has all these. There are flavors for university students in the form of the Educational versions.

And yet, the "Enterprise" SKU is on separate media and comes from a separate department at Microsoft. It's not normally handed out the easy way. While there are eleven items in this list, Enterprise isn't one of them.

Windows 10 Home Windows 10 Home N Windows 10 Home Single Language Windows 10 Education Windows 10 Education N Windows 10 Pro Windows 10 Pro N Windows 10 Pro Education Windows 10 Pro Education N Windows 10 Pro for Workstations Windows 10 Pro N for Workstations

The "Workstation" item was supposed to be a better version of "Professional", but the article here finds scant difference between them. The processor being tested is 64C 128T (3990X Threadripper). The idea is, once you get over 64 virtual cores, funny things are supposed to happen. Yet, they don't see a problem running with hyperthreading enabled (128 virtual cores).

Paul

Yep, I've dug out a PC with a Windows 7 sticker on it. Happy days.

I've got an XP install on a virtual machine

I'd understand that who's is short for who is, and use whose instead.

Well done sir!

Me?

Virtual machine, deploy W10 from template, install application using a deployment tool like PDQ deploy. run it in a window on Ubuntu. Set extreme firewall filtering as needed for W10.

Blow it all away when it starts being pesky.

However, probably not an straight answer if external hardware or dongles is involved.

After years of mucking about with VMware and HyperV, I've recently become a big Proxmox VE fan...

I found a PC with Windows 7 on and successfully upgraded to Windows 10. However, it's 32 bit so in wanting 64 I shall have to install fresh.

It would appear that you could use a Win 7 key to do this, has anyone done that recently and can confirm it still works before I waste a bunch more time.

Thanks.