I have a retail Windows 7 Home Premium license, which allows for moving between machines. I upgraded it to Windows 8 and 10 through their respective programs and I could upgrade to 11 if it were to support my PC, but it doesn’t.
So I want to move the license to my newer laptop (13th gen Intel Framework 13). I could install Windows 10 with my Windows 7 key and then upgrade to Windows 11, but unfortunately the laptop doesn’t support 10, not even enough to just install. And Windows 11 doesn’t accept my Windows 7 key.
Any ideas? One thing I considered is booting from USB, attach the system storage to a VM, install Windows 10 there, upgrade to 11 and then reboot into it natively, but maybe there’s a better way.
(I’m not intent on buying a new Windows 11 license, I own a license for 10 that can be moved and upgraded)
Fixed!
This is what I had to do, in the end, to transfer the retail license from my Windows 10 PC to a Windows 11 laptop:
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Link the Windows 10 license to my Microsoft account. First my Windows 10 activation status showed “activated with a digital license”, switching to a Microsoft account associated the license with that account, making it show “activated with a digital license connected to your Microsoft account”
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Install Windows 11 on the laptop. Choose “I don’t have a product key” during installation.
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In the Windows 11 activation settings, use the troubleshooter, select the “I changed my hardware” option. It should spin for a bit and then give an option to show devices to transfer the license from. (This first failed for me with a generic error message, fixed by reinstalling Windows 11)
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Choose the old system to transfer the license. (My Windows 10 system wasn’t listed the first time, I had to convert its account to local and then back to an MS account for it to show up)
The old Windows 7 key w/Windows 10 upgrade path was a massive red herring, that option was closed in 2023.
Wow. What a headache. Since no one here has said it yet and someone has to. Isn’t this motivation enough to install Linux?
Something seems really fishy about a laptop accepting windows 11 but not 10. How is that possible?
Ha I should’ve pre-empted this one - Linux is already on there, as is OpenBSD! Windows is for some Win32 & Xbox programming, some games, and for my SO to use who prefers it.
Edit: the issue with 10 on the laptop is that it lacks a storage controller driver, but I’m trying to work around that now
I would dig deeper into why you can’t install Win10. Everything I’m seeing says drivers, but that is (probably) easy enough to deal with.
What process were you following, and what issue did you encounter?
Windows 10 doesn’t have drivers for the storage controller in these chipsets built in, so it prompts for one.
People in the Framework forums dismiss questions about this saying you should just use 11, but I also read now thar Framework’s Windows 11 driver bundle mostly works on 10, too. Now I’m trying to extract the Intel RST driver and load it in setup, but so far it fails to show any compatible devices.
I’ll try a bit more and report back
You can source the Intel VMD / RST driver from Intel’s website
./SetupRST.exe -extractdrivers SetupRST_extracted
Your Windows 10 key ought to work to activate 11
If not, you can create a user account that uses a Microsoft Account and your license will bind to that account.
Set up the same Microsoft Account in Windows 11 and run the activation troubleshooter, choose “I changed hardware on this device recently”, and you should be presented with another device to migrate the license from.
Worst case scenario, so-called “grey market” keys are relatively inexpensive.
Set up the same Microsoft Account in Windows 11 and run the activation troubleshooter, choose “I changed hardware on this device recently”, and you should be presented with another device to migrate the license from.
This is where I’m at now. My Windows 10 PC reports it’s activated with a digital license connected to my MS account. Then on the Windows 11 laptop I run the troubleshooter, click the “changed hardware” link, then it spins for a bit before giving a generic error message saying that Windows can’t be re-activated (?) because the license server can’t be reached. Internet is otherwise working fine.
If I use the “ask help” feature, I’m led through a series of steps resulting in a “contact support” section, for which I have to log in with my MS account. Which I do, but then I get error “AADSTS500200: User … is a personal Microsoft account. Personal Microsoft accounts are not supported for this application unless explicitly invited to an organisation”.
Quite at a loss here!
Reinstalled Windows 11 just to see if that would change anything, and now I get to the screen where I can remove old devices but the PC is not listed there, even though it’s linked to my MS account :(
Fixed! I converted my PC’s account to a local account and then back to a Microsoft account, which must’ve re-added my PC to that list because after that it appeared, I could select it, and transfer the license!
I only have a Windows 7 key, but I will try the MS account suggestion!
When you use software like ProduKey to read the license key in Windows 10, does it match the Windows 7 key you’ve been entering?
The Windows 10 key is returned is the generic Windows 10 Home key. Windows 10 itself reports there’s a digital license attached to my Microsoft account.
I believe you need to uninstall the key from the old device. https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/transfer-windows-license-to-new-pc
However, if that doesn’t work, you could always install an unlicensed version of Windows, which will have the ‘please activate’ watermark, and then, if you search for ‘Microsoft Activation Scripts’, who knows what GitHub might have.
I believe you need to uninstall the key from the old device. https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/transfer-windows-license-to-new-pc
Tried this, but the activation troubleshooter gives a generic (unstyled!) error message, see my comment here…
