Have to buy Windows 10?

[dainthomas]

I did the free upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 on my computer. If I clone my current hard drive to an SSD, will it boot up fine or will I be forced to buy a copy? I recall one of the caveats of the upgrade was that hardware changes would void it.

 

[nerp]

No, only a motherboard change would affect it.

You could even install windows fresh onto a blank drive, skip the whole entering a key stage, get online and it will realize it's the same computer and quietly activate in the background no problem. Couldn't be easier.

 

[dainthomas]

No, only a motherboard change would affect it.

You could even install windows fresh onto a blank drive, skip the whole entering a key stage, get online and it will realize it's the same computer and quietly activate in the background no problem. Couldn't be easier.

Fantastic. Thanks! I've waited way too long for this upgrade.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

No, only a motherboard change would affect it.

You could even install windows fresh onto a blank drive, skip the whole entering a key stage, get online and it will realize it's the same computer and quietly activate in the background no problem. Couldn't be easier.

What if you are running it in a VM and move to a different hypervisor on the same hardware?

 

[MustISO]

What if you are running it in a VM and move to a different hypervisor on the same hardware?

Back when Windows 10 was free I did the upgrade of Windows 7 on a VM. When I re-installed 10 it wouldn't activate. Said there was no license found. So whatever it does on normal hardware doesn't seem to work for a VM after the first activation.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

During the early inception of W10 you could install it directly from ISO, IIRC. Anyway, my Win10 VM is a native install and not an upgrade.