Microsoft quietly rewrites its activation rules for Windows 10

http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-quietly-rewrites-its-activation-rules-for-windows-10/

by smacktoward • 11 years ago

108 96 11 years ago

bryanlarsen3• 11 years ago

I got burnt by this. My insider edition of Windows 10 refused to upgrade, so I did a clean upgrade, and now I'm stuck with a very limited Windows partition. I'll probably just wipe it -- I only used it for games anyways, and any game I care about is already on Linux or is coming to Linux soon (Witcher 3). I could reinstall my valid edition of XP, but Linux now has better game support than Windows XP.

hatchoo• 11 years ago

I experienced something similar. I installed Insider on one partition. On launch day, I got it to upgrade to RTM. Thinking my machine was already activated, I did a clean install on another drive (SSD). When the installation completed, the one on that partition did not activate. To get it work, I took an image of the partition with the activated Windows 10, restored it on the SSD, rebooted and voila - it was activated. I then did a Windows reset on the SSD copy and it did reset with an activated status.

Mithaldu• 11 years ago

Linux now has better game support than Windows XP.

That is probably only roughly true if you look at a small subset of the games market and limit it to the past few years.

emsy• 11 years ago

Many older games now run good to perfect on wine.

andrey-p• 11 years ago

Not if you try something like PlayOnLinux. I've managed to run quite a few golden oldies that way.

kefka• 11 years ago

That's pretty much what I've come to. Linux is the way forward. Not Windows, and not Mac.

Most of my toolchain exists in Linux, and much of it is developed and tested in Linux before anywhere else. WINE allows most windows programs to run, and do so well. WINE plus X allows x tunneling like Citrix, but over ssh.

And if I need a Windows VM, I can spin one up relatively easily. Admittedly, I just get a recent TPB Win10 install with activation removed/emulated, so I can do whatever meager testing I need to do.

saiya-jin• 11 years ago

workwise, in many cases yes (mine included, it's even better!) multimedia wise, NOK. most games somehow run != all games run without issue, 100% Win performance. for many devices drivers suck - not linux fault, but no user really cares.

jsingleton3• 11 years ago

Thanks for the advice.

I've currently got the technical preview on an old Macbook Pro. Only used it for flashing an SD card for IoT core insider preview. I've since discovered a better way [0] but I'll probably upgrade to the public release once it's bedded in a bit.

The hardest part was convincing Boot Camp that it would install fine. Took a bit of trickery. Can write up if anyone is interested?

[0] https://unop.uk/dev/windows-10-iot-core-public-release-for-r...

maroonblazer• 11 years ago

I'm interested. Thanks in advance.

jakejake2• 11 years ago

This article came exactly 1 day too late for me - I literally just blew away one of our test machines yesterday morning, only to find I can't activate it unless I re-install Windows 7. To make matters more fun I chucked the Win7 install disk in the trash thinking, I won't need this again!

RexRollman• 11 years ago

This is why I always bought a full copy of Windows; because having to install the previous version in order to install the current version is bullshit.

MichaelApproved• 11 years ago

You can download the Windows 7 DVD from Microsoft here http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery

They used to have it on Digital River but it's been removed from there http://www.howtogeek.com/186775/how-to-download-windows-7-8-...

talmand• 11 years ago

I never toss any of my OS install disks, because you never know. I think I still have Win3.1 on floppy in the closet somewhere.

WorldWideWayne6• 11 years ago

Are you saying that Linux has the facilities for supporting more games now than Windows XP or do you mean that Linux has more games than Windows XP had?

Someone here yesterday stated that only about 15% of Steam games run on Linux. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but honestly even as a casual gamer I couldn't imagine having access to that low a percentage of games. If I were running games on Linux I would have missed out on Rocket League which is now probably one of my all-time favorite games.

So, I guess I just don't see the point of using Linux for games at all. The phrase "cutting of your nose to spite your face" comes to mind because I can't think of one reason that isn't purely ideological.

Anyway, the info about the Windows 10 upgrade has been out for some time. I managed to cleanly upgrade all of the machines that I wanted to without hassle.

Aldo_MX• 11 years ago

He was probably talking about Wine, not about Linux per se.

anonbanker7• 11 years ago

50 percent of new games on steam have a Linux port now. Your numbers are old.

bryanlarsen3• 11 years ago

Linux has more games I currently care about than Windows XP. That's a small list and doesn't consist of much more than Civ 5, Cities Skylines, Witcher 3. Witcher 3 doesn't run on XP.

Reasons to use Linux for gaming:

- I save $100 by not buying Windows

- I don't have to worry about administering two OS's

- I don't have to ever wait for Windows updates. I boot into Windows so infrequently that it upgrades pretty much every time I do so.

- I don't have to shut down all my work programs and windows that I have open in Linux to reboot into Windows

Frankly, it's the last one that's the biggie. My computer often has virtual desktops, windows, editors, VM's and browsers open for 3-5 different projects, and it's just annoying to start those up again.

eveningcoffee• 11 years ago

So MS would give a unique ID to every device Windows 10 is installed on and track it.

userbinator• 11 years ago

They were doing that since XP's activation system. There are plenty of other things in Win10 that can be used by tracking and not only by MS but third parties too; as far as tracking concerns go, this is far down the list.

mtgx• 11 years ago

Windows 10 is all about tracking, it would seem.

JoeAltmaier• 11 years ago

Be fair, so are iOS and Android.

scholia4• 11 years ago

Windows 10 is all about being remotely patched and upgraded for the lifetime of the device, never having to install (or pay for) a new "big bang" upgrade, and never being left behind.

Which sounds like a good idea for a billion or so ordinary Windows users. Obviously there are plenty of geeks who will not like the idea of their PCs being remotely managed ;-)

vatys• 11 years ago

If activation per device is stored online, what does this mean for VMs? What kind of "device" does a VM look like?

WalterGR• 11 years ago

I'm wondering the same thing.

Even trickier: on a Mac using VMWare Fusion, you can have a Windows partition that you can both boot into and run as a VM within OS X.

Arnout• 11 years ago

I last tried the bootcamp/vmware setup with a Vista partition; it really confused the activation system and kept de-activating.

wila2• 11 years ago

You cannot run windows 10 upgrade on a bootcamp machine that you also use as a VM for the moment.

What has been reported to work is to buy Windows 10 license and then you can use the machine on bootcamp as well as via VM.

More details here: https://communities.vmware.com/thread/516838

reirob• 11 years ago

Doing the same on Linux box with Windows 7: a partition with Linux and a partition with Windows 7 + NTFS partition for data that is visible on both. You can boot both systems or use the same Windows in a VM under Linux.

But it was tricky to build that VM. I followed instructions from [0], but don't remember if I had any troubles. Even if Windows itself when running in the VM, MS Office complains that it's not registered - I guess MS Office uses a different method to determine if it runs on the same hardware. Was not worth to bother for me because I have to use Windows only short times from the VM - and if I have to use it over extended periods I boot directly to it. But it would have been slick if it worked 100%.

[0] http://geekery.amhill.net/2010/01/27/virtualbox-with-existin...

bryanlarsen3• 11 years ago

Some versions of Windows (like Windows Server 2012 R2) will run for 6 months without activation, so if you can capture your setup steps completely in your Vagrantfile, it can be easier to rebuild your VM every 6 months than worry about activations.

nly4• 11 years ago

Well changing the virtual disk UUID is enough to deactivate Windows 10 in Virtualbox. I've not tried changing NIC MACs

This means if you upgrade a retail copy of W7 uin a VBox and later clone, recreate or convert the hard drive image, you'll have to manually set the UUID.

agumonkey• 11 years ago

There are articles where a guy hacks into it's hard drive controller, which I believe is the gateway to the drive ID and such, surely you can fake anything these days.

So let's spoof our hardware so that Windows still believes.

benkuykendall• 11 years ago

Additionally, could you create multiple VMs in a way which gives them the same hardware hash? That could allow for re-use of a license.

tempestn2• 11 years ago

That last paragraph, if it's correct, answers a question I've had since the new Windows 10 way of doing things became public: If I have a retail copy of Windows 7 and upgrade to 10, will I be able to transfer my license when I eventually upgrade my PC (including motherboard). According to this, the answer is yes. So a retail Windows 10 license (which is what you get if you upgrade a retail copy of Windows 7 or 8) is apparently good not just for the life of the device, but for future devices as well. (One at a time, obviously.)

If true, the retail copies sound like a good deal. Especially while you can buy a retail copy of Windows 7 and upgrade it.

foldor• 11 years ago

Keep in mind that the free Windows 7 upgrade period lasts for one year only. So if you upgrade your PC after that period and invalidate your license, you won't be able to reinstall Windows 7 and upgrade to Windows 10 again. You may be able to phone Microsoft and explain the situation though.

jo909• 11 years ago

Exactly, so essentially you do NOT get a Windows 10 Retail licence by doing the upgrade!

You have a Windows 7 Retail licence and what could be called a Windows 10 "OEM" licence. The Windows 7 Retail can be installed to completely changed hardware, but the Windows 10 "OEM" is bound to the hardware you made the upgrade on. After the free upgrade period is over, you can't upgrade some parts of your hardware without buying a real Windows 10 Retail for the full price.

sp3322• 11 years ago

You can still put in your license key during a plain Windows 10 install.

tempestn2• 11 years ago

Right, but you wouldn't want to do that anyway, because you can simply install Windows 10 directly and it will find your existing license online. As the article states, you will then need to call Microsoft to transfer the license to the new hardware in order to activate. (Something you would have had to do even if you'd stuck with Windows 7.)

omtose• 11 years ago

According to this, the answer is yes.

But how? Since you don't have the actual key, how does it work?

eli• 11 years ago

I'd assume you'd have to call the 800 number

nly4• 11 years ago

You can extract the new product key from the upgraded install.

benguild2• 11 years ago

So how does this work with identically configured VMs?

jleahy• 11 years ago

Even identically configured VMs have different MAC addresses, etc (otherwise they'd never be able to communicate via ethernet).

benguild2• 11 years ago

Oh that's a good point... but those are usually configurable.

Damogran6• 11 years ago

The only downside...well _a_ downside to this: I repurposed my Vsphere machine for games. Do you have any idea how long it takes to update 4 year old Windows 7 install media enough that it'll take SP1, IE11 and qualify for the win10 upgrade? (about 350 patches and 6-7 hours)

nly4• 11 years ago

You probably don't need to bother with 'reserving' your copy of W10 via the 'Get Windows 10' app. I've been told a fresh, unpatched install of W7 SP1 will upgrade just fine if you use an ISO.

dubcanada• 11 years ago

You can download the Microsoft Creation Tool and upgrade that way. It's super easy and only requires the W7. I'm not even sure if SP1 is required.

Deregibus• 11 years ago

FWIW, as part of trying to get some crap Sony laptop drivers working with Windows 10 I installed a clean copy of Windows 8.0, didn't install any updates, then upgraded to Windows 10 via an iso loaded on a USB stick. I didn't even have it connected to a network until well after Windows 10 was installed.

I had already performed the Windows 10 upgrade once on the computer, so it was registered. I would guess if you're doing it for the first time you may have to activate the copy of Win 7/8 first, but maybe just having a valid product key is enough?

tdkl2• 11 years ago

Now imagine installing Windows 10 after 4 years, since this is the "last version of Windows ever". All them updates !

bitwize• 11 years ago

Install? PCs of the future will have Windows 10 in onboard NAND flash (or futuristic equivalent) -- and no other OS will be supported.

WorldMaker2• 11 years ago

Since Windows 8, Windows has used "virtual images" of the Operating System and has had the ability to rather than apply a bunch incremental updates instead just "build jump" to the higher build. You see this somewhat often in Windows Phone (given the way OEMs test and hold back phone updates, nearly every update seemed to be a "build jump") and up until recently not quite often in Windows. (8.1 and 8.1 Update 1, the "service packs" appeared to be "build jumps", but to my knowledge that's about it as far as 8 has used it in its servicing lifetime thus far.) With Windows 10 insiders have already seen a lot of "build jumps", particularly in the last few weeks leading up to the Windows 10 launch. I've got a feeling (and this is entirely supposition on my part) that one of the things we Insiders saw a Preview of and may not have realized it is that Windows 10 itself as a part of the "last version" thing will start to do a lot more "build jump" rollups of updates, even more often than the "service packs" of 8.

TazeTSchnitzel• 11 years ago

Haha, and that's if you have Windows 7 install media. A previous machine of mine was upgraded from Vista to 7. There's no way to reïnstall 7 on it without reïnstalling Vista first. 10 would be a nightmare.

snuxoll• 11 years ago

You don't need to go through all of that, as long as you have an activated copy of Win7 you can pop in a Windows 10 DVD or USB flash drive and run the upgrade.

Paul_S• 11 years ago

Microsoft could be found to be sacrificing babies and it wouldn't make a jot of difference to their bottom line.

anonbanker7• 11 years ago

And HN would be filled with Microsoft apologists, saying it was better that the babies were sacrificed by Microsoft, rather than a FOSS equivalent.

manishsharan• 11 years ago

Let me share my upgrade story: I decided to upgrade my kid's computer from Windows 7 to Window 10 and also replace the harddrive with an ssd drive. So I replaced the hard drive and installed the Windows 10 (home) from an ISO. But the windows 10 doesn't recognize the existing Windows 7 (home)product key. So this weekend I will have to put back the old harddrive with Windows 7, upgrade that to Windows 10, and then put the SSD back in and hopefully the Windows 10 on the SSD will recognize my product key.

valuegram• 11 years ago

I've had a similar problem several times, and Microsoft was always able to manually activate after I called and explained the hard drive change.

nly4• 11 years ago

I would take another tac: Install Windows 7 on the SSD and then, transfer over the existing OEM activation[0], then upgrade it to W10, opting not to preserve settings and files.

It will only take marginally longer, and you can preserve the HDD in case it all goes awry

[0] Use ABR beta from http://directedge.us/content/abr-activation-backup-and-resto...

kchoudhu• 11 years ago

And this is the point at which I'd just grab a Linux/BSD LiveCD and be done with Windows.

elcct• 11 years ago

I had similar problem when upgrading to Windows 8. I just copied an image of harddrive to ssd and then upgraded (used TrueImage for this)

munr• 11 years ago

This new activation process didn't work for me. My Windows 10 upgrade started doing some weird stuff on my work laptop late last week, so I decided to do a full format and re-install. When reinstalling, Windows 10 did not automatically activate (and I couldn't use my old Windows 8 key), so I ended up having to get a separate Windows 10 key from our BizSpark account.

outworlder• 11 years ago

Well, I lost the key I used to install my windows 8 machine - I built it myself, it didn't come with a sticker. I was wondering if there was a way to recover it, but apparently I won't have to bother.

I expect to sell that machine in a couple of months, so it's a better deal for the buyer, than it is for me.

X-Istence• 11 years ago

Google Search: Recover Windows Key

Brings you to this page: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html

It pulls your product key out of the registry for you.

rogerbinns2• 11 years ago

I'm one of those who experienced (and continue to do so) the useless "Something happened" upgrade failure on my laptop. I wonder what Microsoft are going to do closer to the end of the one year of free upgrades. After all it is their fault I can't upgrade to Windows 10, but unless the upgrade happens I can't get the free upgrade.

chrisper• 11 years ago

When do you get the something happened?

It helped me to create a USB installer and start the upgrade from there.

rogerbinns2• 11 years ago

After you start the upgrade process running. I am doing it from a USB stick. You can see a screenshot in http://rogerbinns.com/blog/developers-should-work-in-support...

PhantomGremlin• 11 years ago

The article doesn't mention what I think is more of a problem than activation. It's the ongoing check to see whether Windows is "genuine".[1] This used to be called Windows Genuine Advantage, then renamed to Windows Activation Technologies.

Activating is a one-time thing. Either you succeed or you can try again. But the ongoing check is IMO a serious problem. Basically the software can deactivate itself on a whim (not really, but it's magic unless you understand exactly what's happening).

Does anyone know if this is still enabled? Once Windows is activated does it declare itself "non genuine" unless it's able to phone home? (excluding Win 10 phoning home for spyware reasons, let's not discuss that again).

If so, that's a problem. A Windows computer can degrade its functionality any time it feels like?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Genuine_Advantage#Spyw...

PhasmaFelis• 11 years ago

I don't want to install 10 right now, and may not want to switch fully in the next year, but I do want to have a free copy available for the future. How do I go about doing that? Do I need to fully install it on a spare drive, or can I make an install ISO that will still work after the one-year grace period?

I apologize for being obtuse. I'm sure this info is in here somewhere, but I'm not feeling well today and I can't quite wrap my head around it.

Microsoft quietly rewrites its activation rules for Windows 10

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