Brian Freeman found a flaw in my article Reinstall Windows when you’ve lost your reinstall disc or partition. I told readers that “when it comes time to activate Windows, use the activation ...

If your key is not accepted and activation fails ... To update, you need to have Windows 8 or Windows 7 already on your PC. To upgrade to Windows 11, you need Windows 10. If you formatted or ...

Because the one-year free upgrade offer doesn't include a product key as part of the package, you're stuck in limbo, unactivated. Your only option is to restore and activate Windows 7 or 8.1 ...

Although old Windows 7 and 8 keys can still activate Windows 11 version 22H2 ... rejected a Windows 7 key. If you plan to build a PC or buy one without an OS, get an official Windows 11 Home ...

Here you will see the activation status. If all has gone smoothly, Windows 10 should have taken your Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 product key and activated itself automatically. But, if your Windows ...

Microsoft closed a Windows 7 / 8 key loophole last month ... in one of my test PCs and no longer being able to activate it using the digital key assigned to my Microsoft account.

When Microsoft made Windows 10 a free upgrade for users running Windows 7 or 8.1, one of the biggest gripes users had with the upgrade process was that clean installs were not possible. Due to the ...

Microsoft is currently investigating a problem that prevents the activation of Windows 10 and Windows 11, as The Verge reports. The issue affects computers on which users have upgraded from ...

We were able to activate a fresh Windows 11 Pro 22H2 install with a Windows 8 Pro product key as of this morning, as was Neowin. But Neowin could not activate a newer Insider Preview build of ...