Yesterday I bought my first ever MS Windows retail

[BW86]

Recently bought a Win7Pro key from tek-micro for $67.99 then just downloaded Win10Pro for free.

 

[wabbitslayer]

Can someone with pirated 7 do the upgrade to win10 and then assuming the old loader no longer works, buy an oem copy of win10 and put in the key?

Or will it detect the "uprgrade" and not allow an oem key to be used?

 

[DesiPower]

There are work arounds to do clean install of Windows 10 upgrade, just Google it. But backup the upgrade, in case the activation of clean install fails. Also your copy may not be OEM, if it's anything less than legit, good chances are that it's not OEM. Look at the second set of 3 digit code to find out what version you have

 

[rh71]

I've only bought vista when it was current. And I lived through it with no problems even when Win8 came around. Now I'm on 7 and no reason to move up.

 

[Imp]

Wish it were easy to uninstall the Windows 7 upgrader... Effing GWX.exe.

 

[tcsenter]

As I mentioned in OP, is you change the chipset, technically it does not work. You have to call to activate.

AFAIK Microsoft purges or resets the activation database after one year for any keys that have not reached # of activations that are deemed 'suspicious' or 'excessive'.

 

[emperus]

I've only bought vista when it was current. And I lived through it with no problems even when Win8 came around. Now I'm on 7 and no reason to move up.

Well, the Win 10 upgrade is free for the first year. And it's not bad.

 

[rh71]

Does win 10 by chance run better/faster than 7 on a slower laptop (HP Pavilion G7)? I believe it's only got 2GB RAM.

 

[Brainonska511]

Does win 10 by chance run better/faster than 7 on a slower laptop (HP Pavilion G7)? I believe it's only got 2GB RAM.

I've seen a couple things about running W10 on a Lenovo T420 and it being fast, but I can't speak for something with 2GB and there is the other problem of older laptops - you'll be stuck hunting down your own drivers if they aren't included in W10 and the manufacturer isn't "supporting" the upgrade on that model. The latter is the main reason I'm sticking with W7 on my laptop.

 

[edro]

My laptop with 10 somehow switched to "tablet mode" the other day.
Damn that was confusing and aggravating until I found the setting to turn it off.

 

[PokerGuy]

There are plenty of "work arounds" that work just fine, for all versions of windows. Regardless, if I was going to buy a version of windows, it would certainly be Win 7. 8 and 8.1 are garbage, and 10 is pretty much a heaping pile of spyware pretending to be an OS. I'll stick with 7 until I eventually move to some flavor of linux.

 

[ultimatebob]

I've paid for two oem copies of XP, and MS gave me Vista. That was the last Windows I used.

Man... no wonder you like Linux so much. If Vista was the last version of Windows I ever used, I would have bad memories of it as well!

I'm surprised that you haven't been issued a work computer that uses Windows 7 at some point by now.

 

[sdifox]

op I still have a copy of OS/2 Warp in shrink wrap if you are interested.

 

[DesiPower]

I've seen a couple things about running W10 on a Lenovo T420 and it being fast, but I can't speak for something with 2GB and there is the other problem of older laptops - you'll be stuck hunting down your own drivers if they aren't included in W10 and the manufacturer isn't "supporting" the upgrade on that model. The latter is the main reason I'm sticking with W7 on my laptop.

I have T410 with 4gb ram, it got automatic update, runs just fine without any issues. It's not any faster than 7 though, in my experience speed wise they are same.
One thing I noticed on my desktop is that 10 was phenomenal with drivers, I didn't have to install a single driver for any of the peripherals or add on cards, everything was automatically installed, it was unbelievable.

 

[Brainonska511]

I have T410 with 4gb ram, it got automatic update, runs just fine without any issues. It's not any faster than 7 though, in my experience speed wise they are same.
One thing I noticed on my desktop is that 10 was phenomenal with drivers, I didn't have to install a single driver for any of the peripherals or add on cards, everything was automatically installed, it was unbelievable.

Hm... I was thinking about letting the upgrade run its course on this T420, but I was concerned about driver issues. But considering I have some weird driver issue as it stands with my current W7 installation (Intel graphics driver sometimes crashes when the screen saver starts), it could be worth it.

 

[lxskllr]

Man... no wonder you like Linux so much. If Vista was the last version of Windows I ever used, I would have bad memories of it as well!

I'm surprised that you haven't been issued a work computer that uses Windows 7 at some point by now.

I like Vista. Better than 7 in fact. My work machine has Xubuntu ;^)

 

[ultimatebob]

Ya know, I don't think that I ever bought a single retail copy of Windows. I've bought OEM copies, upgrade copies, family packs, and even bulk license packages for work... but never a retail copy.

 

[squirrel dog]

180 big ones . Man that is a lot of waffles .

 

[DesiPower]

Yeah, I know, it shouldn't really be that expensive, specially for individual buyers. It's just an operating system, you can get entire computers for close to that kind of money WITH the operating system pre installed. I do not get their justification of the cost. Just from a purely economic point of view, if it were cheaper, say $100, I am sure the sales would me more than twice. They can continue charging what ever they do now to the businesses and OEM

 

[Tweak155]

I've bought quite a few retail copies of Windows, but I have access to employee pricing so not all that painful.

BTW, if you have Win7 retail, when you upgrade to Win10, it should remain a retail license.

 

[DesiPower]

OK, now I am pissed, I do not expect to see commercials after I shell out big bucks... I am reaching the breaking point.


http://betanews.com/2015/10/15/microsoft-now-uses-windows-10s-start-menu-to-display-ads/

 

[tcsenter]

I've given MS plenty of money over the years. 10+ OEM system builder licenses. A few retail upgrade versions. A couple full boxed versions. Still don't think I got all my money's worth that one time I bought full retail Office 2000 for like $370 and used it to actually create/edit a document maybe 50 times. I think $300 of it must have been the royalties or licensing for stupid clip art.

 

[Aikouka]

While it's a slight hassle, I don't see the issue with just calling to get the activation code? I've done it before, and it's not that big of a deal. To be clear, I don't use it to cheat and use the same license for multiple PCs. However, I don't really adhere to Microsoft's policy on that. I keep a license "per PC" where a PC is what fits a specific role. In other words, if I were to replace my HTPC in my bedroom with a new one, I'd use the same Windows 7 license as long as I wasn't planning on keeping the previous PC intact and operating using that license.

 

[quikah]

OK, now I am pissed, I do not expect to see commercials after I shell out big bucks... I am reaching the breaking point.


http://betanews.com/2015/10/15/microsoft-now-uses-windows-10s-start-menu-to-display-ads/

WTH? This has been there since the RTM release...

 

[Mandres]

$180 is a stupid high price tag. Microsoft needs to recognize that it has a vested interest in getting anyone computer-savvy enough to install their own OS accustomed to running Windows, and give it away to those folks. They're all already stealing it anyway, and will continue to to do so.