Once again I am reminded of why I ditched Windows as my primary OS when XP introduced this crap.

Windows specific software now in VM, with no need for internet access and no worries over hardware faults impacting on keys.

I use Fedora as my main OS on PC's i use on a regular basis, and Windows as a VM, or a specific PC since the software required is only available for Windows - using W8.1.

Had an issue with a program on the repository, and bug report was actioned within a day and solved. I don't think you will ever get that with Microsoft.

Also, Microsoft seem to be treating your PC as their computing estate. With Fedora, and other Linux flavours, they just provide the OS as required, no shenanigans.

They still have upgrade issues on fully compatible machines. I, and so many people I know, simply can't get their modern fully compatible PC's to upgrade from Windows 10 to 11. Literally have spent days on forums following all sorts of MVP suggestions, delving through logs of failed upgrades, etc. Windows never tells you why it rolled back at the very end, nor do any of the log files. None of the Windows Setup command line switches help either (like "/compat ignorewarning"). They need a "install the fricking thing no matter what" switch.

you never have to upgrade again.

The need for a MS account to which the W10 upgrade key could be associated and this be available for a reinstall, was widely reported on years back (I upgraded a bunch of systems in 2019 and dieliberately used a MS account during install to ensure the key was saved, although, I’ve not had cause to reinstall any of these systems…).

I seem to remember once the key had been associated with a MS account, account details weren’t necessary to reinstall and relicence hence no need to transfer the key.

I must say I've had no joy with two separate attempted W10 transfers for retail versions held in my Microsoft account. It should have worked, it didn't and Microsoft "support" was the usual pathetic, unhelpful offshore/bot experience.

Eventually I just gave up and purchased licences for £25 or so through one of the well known licence resellers. That worked fine.

The easiest way to get a Win 10 licence associated with a Microsoft account was to install Windows 7, activate it with KMS-Pico (which activates it with a generic OEM licence) and then download the Windows 10 upgrader and run it.

Upgrading a copy of Windows 7 that used a consumer licence key was much less reliable at getting a Win 10 licence added to your account.

I am told that a simple Google search will show you a Github respository that helps with Microsoft activation problems.

Apparently the repository contains powershell scrips that sort out any licensing/activation issues you may have and result in a fully licensed/activated copy of the OS/Office suite as required.

It is rumoured that Microsoft employees also use these scripts to sort out issues that are otherwise intractable through official channels.

I obviously cannot comment on the veracity of these tales.

Superb - strangely I had just come up against this in the past day, upgrading a elderly Win 7 laptop for an even more elderly lady who doesn't expect to last very much longer. I had totally forgotten that MS had closed the 7-10 upgrade route until the activation failed... Your post may or may not have resolved this issue, thank you! Not sure how I hadn't come across that before, but this is why I still waste time reading The Register - there's something to be learned in the comments most days.

(In this case having she had a plain black desktop anyway so I'm sure she could have lived quite happily with a watermark warning her to activate, but it was annoying to me nonetheless.)

At Christmas 2023, you could still upgrade a W7 installation using the W10 in situ upgrade from MS, however, the resulting W10 system needed a W10 licence key to be fully working/legit. Ie. MS would only tell you, you needed a licence/activation key after upgrading your ancient system to W10.

AFAIK security patches still work if you are running an unactivated Windows 10 install, as I have a VM with unactivated Windows 10 and it still works with Windows update to get patches. I know this because i only usually boot it up every few months and there is always a fsck ton of patches to download every time I do.

I think Microsoft do this to stop huge botnets of insecure PCs getting created because they didn't activate Windows.

Might be something to do with [1]this .

[1] https://www.engadget.com/2017-05-15-pirated-windows-china-russia-wannacry.html

Trouble is I would not know how to download and set up a different operating system and nor would most people hence we are captured slaves to the giant Microsoft. Windows 11 is unstable and screen goes to black very briefly before restoring itself. One would have thought that since I had terrible issues with a brand new Dell I5 laptop from day one I bought it, three years ago, and recently the hard drive also went, after an expensive new SSD installed and some data saved from the hard drive, and Windows 11 reinstalled, the 0S might have resolved the go to black shakiness of the product. But it has not. A few years ago I went to Windows 10 via Windows 8.1. (a weird and short-lived system). 10 was OK but in each change I lost out on something with compatible 365 software - the Microsoft Picture Manager for example which I used as at the time I had a digital camera for pix but no smartphone. In our hosue we began paying for a 356 subscription five years ago. Very expensive and they keep changing things including Outlook, and not always an improvement. One thing I did find strange was Back-Up. My Toshiba External Back Up broke easily - not an SSD. I invested in a Samsung TB1. Took me three hours to find the correct place to write to to register the warranty. Had to send a photo in the end twice, as I could not red the tiny print even with a magnifying glass. Now the system tells me it has not backed up anything. There is an error. And searching has produced experts on You Tube which say in Windows 11 I need to use Windows 7 to back up??? I really don't understand what is going on.

Just buy your Windows 10/11 key for a couple of quid on eBay like a normal person

I purchased an upgrade from Vista home OEM to windows 8 retail via Microsoft for the grand total of 25 whole English pounds (when they were desperate to increase windows 8 uptake). The key has been used subsequently to upgrade to windows 8.1 then 10 and since then the "downgrade" to windows 11 - going on 15 years of MS OS's now (all those other OEM licenses from machine upgrades have been wasted). This is linked to my MS account so with luck I will get a few more MS Os's out of it.....

Now who remembers calling the MS activation number for XP numerous times after another wipe to get the machine working again.....

Well if you will ignore how it's designed to work then that's down to you.