Also, on most computers that came with OEM installs of Windows 7 or 8 or 8.1 you can install Windows 10 for free, matching the Home or Pro edition that was originally installed.
On PCs that originally had an OEM install of Windows 7 Home or Pro you can install Windows 10 Pro using the GenuineTicket.xml trick. Microsoft used the same SLIC info in the BIOS for both. Basically, you install an OEM version of Windows 7 Pro with the OEM information that matches your PC brand then run a program that's on the Windows 10 disc to generate a GenuineTixket.xml file specific to that PC. Save that file and do a clean install of Windows 10 Pro. Copy GenuineTicket.xml to the proper folder and reboot Windows 10. The XML file is read, then deleted. Windows 10 is activated. But on *some* of those OEM systems Microsoft has things tightened up in their registration server for Windows 10. The instant it connects to the internet for the first time it's unregistered. I tried every trick I could find to get 10 Pro onto a Dell laptop that shipped with 7 Home. Finally had to give up and do a clean install of 7 Home, do the GenuineTicket thing, then put 10 Home on it. Getting 10 Pro on it would've required buying a 10 Pro license. A bit irritating since it would take 7 Pro without any problems. Microsoft cannot block this method because it's what upgrade versions of Windows 10 do. Any blocking of it would would make doing in-place upgrades impossible. If you have an older PC, especially a laptop, it can be a long and winding road to get the latest build of Windows 10 on it *and* have all the drivers installed and working. After Build 1607, Microsoft deprecated all method of driver signing other than the new one introduced with Windows 8.0. If you install any build newer than 1607, Windows will quietly block the installing of files from drivers signed with older methods. The installer will go through the motions but no files will actually be copied, nor will changes be made to the Registry. If you can extract the driver files and try a manual install through Device Manager, it will lie to you and say it can't find the file(s). However, if you have Windows 7 or 8.x installed, or Windows 10 Build 1607 or earlier, with the older drivers installed, you can upgrade to newer builds and it will keep the drivers. So do a clean install of 1607 and get all the drivers working. Then install build 1909. Why that? Because builds after 1909 will only install on builds 1908 or 1909. What's especially infuriating is that they do not *start* the upgrade process with a simple version check then inform you that they cannot work with older builds. They'll waste all the time doing the install, popping up some cryptic error message like theres a problem with PC settings, then roll back. Sooo, 1607+drivers, 1909, then build 21H2. No hacks, no messing about with disabling driver signing. The only way to get that old laptop with an old ATi GPU working. What's extra dumb about this is Microsoft's own driver library has a Windows *Vista* driver for several older mobile ATi GPUs that's signed with the new method, and it will *install* in Windows 10, but it most often doesn't work correctly. They do not have a Windows 7 driver with the newest signing method. The laptop that caused me to discover this mess ended up working, but I had to completely disable all power management that did anything with the display, even just blanking it. It would not turn the display back on, just showed it all black with the mouse cursor. all that could be done was to hold the power button until it shut down - then it would briefly reveal the desktop just before shutting down. Microsoft broke that, they know they broke that, and have been (or were) releasing updates targeted at fixing the problem on newer laptops rather than simply releasing another patch to un-break it for all. It smacks of a deliberate attack by MS to force people to quit using older laptops by inconveniencing them by making power management of the display not work. On Monday, September 12, 2022 at 09:36:17 AM MDT, Todd Zuercher <to...@pgrahamdunn.com> wrote: Actually about installing Windows on a used PC sold sans HD. You actually can install Windows on them without buying a new license. The OEM Windows license is tied to the MB serial number in the Bios and you can install the same Windows version as was OE and register it without buying anything. (At least that is how it worked on the last HP I did that with.) No more looking up a number on a sticker required. Todd Zuercher P. Graham Dunn Inc. 630 Henry Street Dalton, Ohio 44618 Phone: (330)828-2105ext. 2031 _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
