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Trevor Flynn's avatar
Trevor Flynn
Copper Contributor
Oct 01, 2018

Windows 10 In-Place Upgrade - Key Issues on machines that were Wind 8 Pro Downgraded to Win 7 Pro

Hi - we're running into issues with In Place upgrades to W10 for M365 users and was hoping someone else may have come across the same issues? Specifically we have found that any Windows 8 pro OEM machine that was downgraded to Win 7 pro with the OEM key embedded in the BIOS will exhibit these same issues. When attempting to perform an in-place upgrade to W10, the install will fail with a "Setup has failed to validate the product key error" - even though the Windows 7 Pro key is activated and valid. If we disarm activation on the OS and re-attempt the in-place upgrade it will prompt for a valid Win7 key at the same point. Using the valid/activated key fails, however if we used the published KMS key for Win7 Pro it would work - that was until this morning -now we are being told that the KMS key now is "no longer valid". Has anyone run into similar issues and found a different/working solution? We are using the ISO from the media creation tool for Windows 10. 

We've tried modifying the ei.cfg file as well. Unfortunately support's only response after much back and forth was to do a clean install, which is not an option.

  • Randy Byrne's avatar
    Randy Byrne
    Copper Contributor

    M365 is that a vlk? The embedded win8 OEM key was for pro or home?  Was the Win7 pro install VLK, OEM or retail? What Win10 version (Pro, VLK, OEM, Retail) are you trying to upgrade to? I can see why Win10 may be getting confused.

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