News Microsoft to honour $2 Windows 10 Pro key loophole sales

'Details of a bug in the Windows Store system began to spread on forums and social media in late June'

It didn't spread in my neck of the woods as I didn't hear a single thing about it. Oh well.

 

Why did i not see this

 

Didn't hear anything about this. Thanks Obama.

 

Same here, would have thought i would have seen details about it somewhere.

 

How about honouring the free upgrades we were promised?

People with genuine Windows 7/8 retail keys are finding that a hardware change will deactivate Windows 10 and block their key. This even includes a simple BIOS upgrade.

Microsoft are saying that you have to buy a full Windows 10 licence to continue using. So retail licences are effectively being turned into OEM licences. But worse than that, OEM licences which are invalidated by a BIOS upgrade.

 

Wouldn't it just be a case of reinstalling your original Windows 7/8 retail using the product key that came with them, and then upgrading to Windows 10 so that Microsoft's activation servers calculate a new hardware ID and re-link that new ID to the old product key?

 

Yes, pretty much, although you will have to go through phone activation to unblock the Windows 7/8 key. That is quite an ordeal for each BIOS upgrade (and will only work during the free year offer).

 

They did, at least as far as I am concerned. There may have been some confusion early on about retail Windows 7/8/8.1 being upgraded to a retail version of Windows 10 that got everyone's hopes up but to suggest that MS have gone back on their word of free upgrades is ridiculous.

It's FREE! Microsoft could have released Windows 10 as a full priced piece of software. Or they could have mimicked what they did for Windows 8 and offered it for £25 for a set period of time. Yes, there are some restrictions... BUT IT'S FREE! So please, just stop the complaining.

 

I have windows 7 that I bought at retail. I have no idea how to get windows 10 other than by buying it at retail.

But er. What actual new features does windows 10 offer?

I suspect that the answer will be "none", as was more or less the case for XP, vista, and 7.

P

 

So is a kick in the crown jewels, that doesn't mean it's wrong to complain.

 

If someone swaps your car for a new one under the promise it is much better, then they charge you the price of a new car the next time you change the spark plugs, that's not a great deal.

The initial transaction may have been "free", but if it was misleading and it ends up costing you more money down the line then you might still have something to complain about.

If they were going to change the term of the licence rather than giving you a like for like replacement they should have had to be very clear and upfront about it from the off.

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Maybe try Linux?...

 

The amount of times I change hardware in my pcs I wont be going to 10. I have retail copies on all family pcs, if it aint broke etc.

IF they were to treat the upgrade like the retail then I would.

 

I would rather pay the £25 for a proper upgrade than what we currently have. Either pay the full retail price or face the pain of a wipe/revert/reactivate/upgrade.

 

Which people are these? And where have MS said that you will have to buy a full Windows 10 license to continue using your PC?

 

Two people on the OcUK forums have been hit with deactivation following a BIOS upgrade. Others have been hit with the same following a hardware upgrade.

None have managed to reactivate their current Windows 10 installation without first reverting. In chat supports sessions with Microsoft they have been told that you will never get a key through the free upgrade offer. They then advised that if you frequently change your hardware you should buy a retail key.

The gotcha here is that a BIOS upgrade is detected as a hardware change. It is early days yet, so I am sure more reports of this will surface.

 

ok Well that more or less kills any ideas of going the upgrade route for me

 

Having read a few threads on OcUK it looks more like MS reps aren't currently all that clear on how moving the activation for a retail Windows 10 license will work. There's at least one person who has spoken to Support and been told that it should all be fine but will take some time due to the activation servers being hammered.

Maybe it would be better to give it a few days/weeks, let the load on the activation server die down, allow MS to bring the phone activation system online and then check to see if it's no longer possible to move a retail license? Rather than claim the sky is falling down because it's not working perfectly less than a week after it's been rolled out to millions of PCs?

Edit: It would also appear that the EULA still contains provisions to allow software obtained as 'standalone software' (i.e. retail) or, more importantly, upgraded from 'standalone software' to be transferred to a new device or user.

 

I am sure you will be able to move a full retail licence but that is not what you get with the free upgrade offer. You get a hardware locked activation which is "good for the lifetime of the device". It is not possible to directly activate Windows 10 with your Windows 7/8 key, so phone activation is not going to work.

I hope MS do come up with a solution, especially for the BIOS upgrade issue. But this isn't going to magically fix itself when the servers are less busy. That is just a support guy fobbing someone off.

Hopefully raising awareness of the issue will result in a positive outcome for all.

 

So once you've done the free upgrade, why can't you just take a note of the product key and then install of the windows 10 iso, if you need to install again and use that key?
Probably a silly question, but that would seem the solution to me.