Last week, we learned that Microsoft was not letting customers activate Home windows eleven utilizing a Windows 7 or 8.1 retail product key. However what about Windows 10?
It’s a fair query: In spite of everything, Microsoft confirmed that it had closed the product key loophole for Home windows eleven only. It never talked about Windows 10. And the publication to which Microsoft gave that affirmation by no means even bothered to examine. If you may activate Windows 10 using a Home windows 7/8.1 product key, then a loophole nonetheless remained, as you could possibly then improve that set up to Home windows 11.
So I checked: I put in Windows 10 Pro in a Hyper-V virtual machine and totally upgraded it with all of the accessible cumulative updates in Home windows Update. And for the sake of completeness, I even up to date all of the apps with the Microsoft Retailer. After which, utilizing a big set of Windows 7 product keys that had always worked when activating Windows 10 and eleven in the past, I gave it a shot. Utilizing multiple keys.
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Step one of the Activate Home windows wizard appeared promising: After i tested these identical keys in opposition to numerous variations of Home windows 11 in late September, that is the place activation failed within the Canary construct I tested, instantly.
To this point so good. However after urgent “Next,” I ran into the dreaded error message: “Unable to Activate Home windows.” The product key, I used to be told, was not valid.
So there you go. Loophole closed.
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