Win 10 licence

Before I go ahead and upgrade I have some pretty basic questions about licences. If you upgrade 7 or 8.1, or perform a clean install with your existing licence key, does the key transfer to 10, leaving your previous OS unlicensed and so making dual booting impossible? If so, what would the position be if you later decided to revert to your previous OS? I know, providing you haven't deleted it, that you should be able to revert using the built-in tool and I guess that that would transfer your licence back again, but what if you were to revert using an image?

As ever, it's not that easy to get clear-cut answers to Windows licensing questions but at the very least it would be interesting to see what assumptions ppl are making about this, or even better perhaps someone has actually tested it already or is willing to.

 

Dual booting would be unlicensed, yes.

Its always been that way for MS OSes. Upgrades consume the prior key and make dual booting against the license agreement.

As for downgrade rights, I believe those are still in place.

I am unsure how a clean install of 10 works because they are not giving you a new product key and the 7/8.1 keys do not work for installation. There may be a skip option on the key.

Your upgrade will use a generic key and be activated per your hardware ID.

 

Thanks. I s'pose that really I want my cake and eat it - keep 7 and have 10 in dual boot. I wouldn't feel too bad about that seeing as over the years I have twice had genuine Windows called out as non-genuine, one six months after validation! But I'm hesitating to press the button as 7 on this machine is just superb.

No need to answer

 

my copy of windows 10 says you have 1 month to back grade after that time it wont revert back.

 

That's what I wanted confirmed, thank you. That makes it a one way street so I doubt I will be upgrading before July 16, if then.

 

I have the same info, you have 30 days to revert. After that your key is converted and reverting gives an unauthorized copy of Win 7.