Windows 10 Upgrade from Windows 8 pro to 10 after 29th July

[Philip Jones]

Hi,

I've got a copy of windows 8 pro which is new and never been used/activated. I was planning to put it on a new lenovo m700 tiny which I've ordered and upgrade to Windows 10.

Unfortunately the machine I've ordered has been delayed and now won't be available until after the 29th.

I've spoken to someone at Microsoft via their online chat and they stated that as long as I download the Windows 10 ISO before the 29th and upgrade from that after the 29th I will still get my free copy of windows 10.

Does anyone know if this is correct or has been told something similar?

Thanks

 

[kemical]

I'm not so sure about that myself and would if possible perform the upgrade before the 29th.

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

hi Philip,
I agree with kemical here, as we don't know exactly which Win8 media you have in front of you (there are many variations). Is it a Microsoft disc with MS & W10 logos?
Such as this:


Did it come in Microsoft boxed retail packaging? If it says, Dell, HP, or other OEM company name/logo on it, it may not work on a Lenovo, as OEM versions of Win8 have hardware specific drivers to each computer manufacturer that different considerably from one another at the hardware level. It would be useful to take a picture of your Win8 disc with your smartphone camera and post back here to this thread and then we can tell you for sure (99% anyway).

Even then there are some other considerations as there are known problems with upgrading from Win8 directly to W10 you may not be aware of. You can do it, but you will need to download more updates after the Win8 install to get to the Win8.1.1, and then once there whichever computer you are trying to upgrade to W10 will then proceed. Essentially, Win8 is 3 versions of Windows back from W10 (it's been out since 2011), so you can still get to W10, but because there are hundreds of additional upates you have to put into your Win8 since it's been 5 years since you bought it, it will take an extra day or two to get your W10 downloaded. Normally this is a 1 day procedure. In your case, it's going to take 2-3 days. In addition, there are going to be a crush of people worldwide trying to do the same thing you are and that's to take advantage of the free W10 before it expires--but there will be literally millions of people trying to both download the W10 ISO file from the Microsoft servers the next 9 days at the same time. This will cause further delays when you try to launch the W10 install program as it gathers your information and hits the activation servers at Microsoft. Last year on July 30th, if you attempted to reserve and get your free copy of W10; people were waiting several days even weeks before they could get the upgrade done. This is going to happen again, as all the people who weren't sure if W10 was for them, and all their friends, family, and neighbors now have it, they are experiencing the "me too" syndrome. These are things to keep in mind, so if you haven't attempted the upgrade since you posted earlier today, I wouldn't wait much longer, as the closer we get to the 29th the longer it will take you to get it installed.

As for the considerations and guidelines, I am telling my customers it's not a 100% guarantee W10 will be free to all upgraders. It depends a lot on your upgrade path, whether you really had Microsoft legit media, activation and licensing issues, etc. Based on the latest information I have as a W10 Insider Tester for almost 2 years, and the information we've gathered here on WF, I've written 2 links to explain to potential upgraders what's free and what's not. Take a look here:
Link Removed

We won't know absolutely for sure until July 30th or a few days after on whose getting charged and whose not until we do some more test installs and upgrades and get results and conversations posted back here to the forum. You may wish to check back as we will have lots of news on this.

Best of luck,
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

 

[Philip Jones]

Thanks for the replies. I've taken a closer look and my copy of windows 8. It does come in retail packaging but appears to be an upgrade copy (ENG INTL VUP DVD?).

This shouldn't be a problem as I have a full version of XP pro which is currently installed on a VM but isn't being used.

I guess my question now is can I upgrade windows xp on the VM to windows 10 (via windows 8) then transfer the license later on to my new PC when it arrives?

 

[kemical]

I very much doubt it as the licence is OEM and tied to the machine it was installed on.

Another thing which should be made clear is that you will need to upgrade windows 8 to Windows 8.1 before you can upgrade to windows 10. This is part of the requirements that Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 have to be fully updated before the upgrade can be undertaken.
For your convenience:
Link Removed

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

@Ross, I believe I mentioned the upgrade requirement to v8.1.1 in my Post #3 above, 1st sentence, 2nd paragraph!

I concur, added to the fact that you are attempting to do a non-sanctioned upgrade in VM-mode, who knows if that will work or not. I haven't done much fooling around with VM and W10 upgrades, since none of my test machines have large enough hard drives to run the VMware software.

I re-read your original post and after looking up your Lenovo machine, it comes with W10 Home or Pro, or can have a downgrade to W7 Pro. Looking on the Lenovo driver support page here: Link Removed
It appears that Lenovo posts drivers for both W8 and W8.1 both 32bit and 64bit. However, you didn't precisely answer my question about what your install disc looks like. Did it say Microsoft on it? Or Dell? Or Lenovo? Sorry to be picky here, but since we don't have a photo like the one I provided to you, we are left guessing on exactly what you have. This happens often with upgraders, and they don't understand that there are literally hundreds of flavors of Windows discs in each version such as the W8x version you are talking about. They think that any W8 disc is the same as any other. Not so!!

If it said Microsoft and you attempt to install your 5 year old Win8 on that computer, it should work, however you'll then have to go the Lenovo driver site I linked to above and download and install all of those drivers onto your new m700 machine. We call this a manual rebuild; but it takes advanced skills to make this work and the install order of the drivers is order-dependent.

If your W8 disc says "Lenovo" on it, then there is a much better chance it will install most of the drivers, but not all as that machine you have ordered is 5 years newer hardware than any Lenovos that were around back in 2011. So, you could have driver issues with the W10 upgrade. But, it only might be 1 or 2 drivers such as GPU graphics chip/card or audio drivers; which you could easily fix by downloading the W10 drivers for your m700 from the Lenovo driver support page I gave you above. The best way to downgrade it really, would be to call Lenovo and order a set of W10 install media (DVD or USB stick) directly from Lenovo and use that W8/8.1 license to install your downgrade. This will of course cost your from $29-$99 US and obviate the use of your existing W8 media (which really isn't the right media to use for a downgrade!).

If I misunderstood what you are actually trying to do with that old W8 license, I apologize. If you are looking to downgrade that m700 tiny, the disk you have really isn't the right thing, but a competent computer pro could probably get it to work. Moving that license onto the m700 tiny if you can do it, means that W8 license can never be used again on any other computer you own, including the existing one you originally bought it for (on the machine that had XP on it).

Hypothetically speaking, if you ordered W7 Pro on the m700 tiny from the factory, and wanted to use the free W10 upgrade to upgrade the m700 to W10, that should work as long as you do it before July 29th as we mentioned in detail in both my post and kemical's post. That's because that machine comes with a factory pre-loaded OEM W7 license, which is one of the windows versions included in the W7/8x to W10 free trial offer.

We have another admin who does lots of stuff with VM's and W10 upgrades; so he may respond to this part of your question. (Norway, are you reading this?-Thanks in advance).

Let us know which of these things you are trying to do and we'll advise you further.

BBJ

 

[ussnorway]

they stated that as long as I download the Windows 10 ISO before the 29th and upgrade from that after the 29th

this only works if you download the iso from the system that will be upgraded so no (in your case) its wrong.