Windows 7, 8 Digital Licence

[surfingbaggie]

We are finding that when we perform clean installs on computers that we did not get chance to upgrade from Windows 7 and Windows 8 which have digital licences using Windows 10 version media 10.0.10586, the computers finish the installation and says that "Windows is activated with Digital License"

The Anniversary update is then installed and the computer is still activated and works fine. We want to know that even though Microsoft has stopped its "Free upgrade" is this a legitimate way of installing Windows 10

[JanoschUlmer]

The method of activating Windows 10 with a Win7/Win8 key still works, however, as noted on the websites for the Media Creation Toolkit you need to have an eligible license to install Windows 10. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 (also works with the most recent versions of WIndows 10)

So while it might work technically, a customer that only has Windows 7 does not have an eligible license. This is similar to other scenarios where something might work technically even though you do not have licenses (e.g. Windows Server access & CALs, RDS User CAL tracking etc.)

The installation method with the media creation toolkit is the only bare-metal installation method for customers that have licensed Windows 10 (Business/E3/E5) via the CSP program. Those customers have an upgrade benefit with their CSP license that allows to upgrade from Win7 and Win8, so they are eligible - as an example.

[DSPatrick]

Its a known issue. There's been some speculation on this, but no one knows for sure if it's an oversight or they just don't care. I would not worry about it if they're activated.