2 ms·
If the machines are branded laptops (or branded desktops like Dell or something) this can be an expected behavior: the license key that the Windows 10 licensing
by acqq 9y ago
If the machines are branded laptops (or branded desktops like Dell or something) this can be an expected behavior: the license key that the Windows 10 licensing code checks and accepts by design could have been stored in the machine. It is still machine and vendor dependent.
If you've made any of the machines, e.g. by buying a motherboard or a barebone and then by installing Windows 8.1 yourself, it's a news to me.
EDIT: I'm especially interested in upgrades, not in "clean" installs. Most of the users don't want to start from the scratch with configuring every program they use.
- discreditable 9y agoI did an W10 clean install on a friend's selfbuilt PC using his 8.1 product key. Activated just fine. OEM BIOS unlocks tend to not work between Windows versions. I've experimented with this a little. My go-to method to upgrade these is to clean install the version that will BIOS unlock, activate it, then upgrade that to Windows 10. After you upgrade, you can clean install Windows 10 on the system and it will activate normally.