Windows Questions
5 minutes ago, Supportsneedlove said:I've been told that you can use a Windows 7 licence key for Windows 10. Is it true and will I be able to go back?
And I've been wondering if there's a way to check if you have an OEM or a regular version of Windows?
Thanks!
Yes; if you have a valid Windows 7 license key, you can either use it during or after setup on Windows 10 version 1709+. It doesn't work directly on older versions, they added this later as a quality of life change for people upgrading.
Yes; so long as you don't continue using Windows 10 on the machine, you can go back to Windows 7 using your downgrade rights.
An easy method to check if you have a retail or OEM product is to check your product ID in System. IF it looks like this: xxxxx-oem-xxxxxxx-xxxxx then it's an OEM product key. That will still work to upgrade to Windows 10, but it's not transferrable between devices. If it looks like xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx then it is either a retail product, or it's an OEM Single Use license, and both of those are basically identical. They can be transferred between machines using the Windows Activation Troubleshooter, but only on one machine at a time, and only if it's already been activated on the original machine.
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