MS closing W7 / W8 activation loophole

[sswilson]

Microsoft kills loophole that let Windows 7 keys activate Windows 11 and 10

You can no longer activate Windows 11 and 10 with older Windows keys.

www.windowscentral.com

Bummer!!!! (It was a good run while it lasted)

Guess my list of technet keys is finally due to be retired.

 

[Marzipan]

Microsoft kills loophole that let Windows 7 keys activate Windows 11 and 10

You can no longer activate Windows 11 and 10 with older Windows keys.

www.windowscentral.com

Bummer!!!! (It was a good run while it lasted)

Guess my list of technet keys is finally due to be retired.

Ctn. Vortex is feeling much disapoint too.

 

[lowfat]

That kind of sucks.

 

[Bond007]

Ugh

 

[Shadowarez]

so would this kill off those $11 windows 10-11 Pro keys as well

 

[sswilson]

so would this kill off those $11 windows 10-11 Pro keys as well

I don't think so. I believe those are unused grey market numbers as opposed to re-purposed W7/8 ones.

This would affect the $5 W7 keys that were being grabbed off of recycled corporate boxes though.

 

[Shadowarez]

ahh ok makes sense thought i read this was only supposed to be during the transition as in they offered it while win 10 was being rolled out and only available for the year it was released.

 

[Cannon Fodder]

so would this kill off those $11 windows 10-11 Pro keys as well

As @sswilson mentioned, not for now. I read about this on Tom's, and in that article, when talking about Win 10 - 11, they said, "Windows 10 users can still upgrade to Windows 11 for now."

Later in the article they said, "Windows Central tested whether Microsoft's new statement on the closure of the free installation path for Windows 7 and 8.X users had actually come into effect. In short, it found that "these older keys still activate the production builds of Windows 11." It's difficult to be certain how long this upgrade window will remain ajar in the wake of the recent official statement from Microsoft."

My sister recently got an older laptop given to her by a friend, and I installed Win 10 on it for her, and used the Win 7 key stuck on the bottom of the laptop, during the installation process, and it worked fine to activate Win 10. As mentioned above, there's no telling how long it will continue to work, though.....

 

[sswilson]

Later in the article they said, "Windows Central tested whether Microsoft's new statement on the closure of the free installation path for Windows 7 and 8.X users had actually come into effect. In short, it found that "these older keys still activate the production builds of Windows 11." It's difficult to be certain how long this upgrade window will remain ajar in the wake of the recent official statement from Microsoft."

From the sounds of it, the latest insider build(s) do not allow using W7/8 keys so it'll end up being disabled once those builds make it into normal channels.

One suggestion I've seen (and this is not my idea, I saw it on another forum) was to create a current windows install USB which should work and then just keep using that version.