Posts Tagged ‘Windows 8’

The Windows 10 Hidden Gotcha!

Posted by South City Computer

South City Computer Windows 10 The free Windows 10 product key works very differently from previous versions Windows. In the past the product key would always serve to activate your copy of Windows. However if you upgraded to Windows 10 from a previous version of Windows then you probably never received a product key for Windows 10. Since a Windows 10 update released in November it may be possible to use your previous Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 product key to activate Windows 10. But, basically the Windows 10 upgraders just don’t have a product key.

The Windows 10 license key is now bound to your computer’s hardware. During the Windows 10 activation Microsoft created a fingerprint of your computer’s hardware that corresponds to your product key. They did this in order to identify your computer again if it requests to activate Windows 10. If you reinstall Windows 10, then you will probably not have any issues. If you replace your hard drive, video card, a broken screen or RAM you will probably not have any issues re-activating Windows 10 either. However if you replace your computer’s CPU or motherboard, you will be surprised that Windows 10 will no longer activate.

If Windows 10 is instructing you to activate your copy of Windows, then you will have to call Microsoft support. They will decide whether or not you deserve a free licensed copy of Windows 10 again. They will probably inform you that you have to purchase a copy of Windows 10 in order to use the operating system on your computer.

There might be a workaround, a way to get a Windows 10 license again. But this is only good while the Windows 10 upgrade window lasts. But before I tell you, I want you to agree that you will not do anything that violates your license agreement with Microsoft. If you are able to re-install the previous valid licensed copy of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, then you could possibly just upgrade to Windows 10 again.

Windows 7 reaches End of Sales date this October 31

Posted by South City Computer

Windows 7 End of SalesOctober 31, 2014 marks the End of Sales date for Microsoft Windows 7 Home Basic, Home Premium, and Ultimate. End of sales refers to the date when a particular version of Windows is no longer shipped to retailers or Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). Examples of OEMS are Dell and Toshiba—PC manufacturers who often preinstall Windows software.

This means that Microsoft will no longer offer retailers the ability to buy and sell new copies of Windows 7 and the operating system will no longer be offered pre-installed on new computers. This also means customers will no longer be able to order custom built computers with Windows 7 pre-installed or purchase new copies of Windows 7. When a version of Windows reaches its end of sales date, it’s probably a good time to think about upgrading to a newer version of Windows.

This deadline does not mean you will no longer find computers with Windows 7 pre-installed on them, and copies of Windows 7 available for purchase at big-box computer stores. Retailers already have a stock of computers that have Windows 7 pre-installed on them and will continue to sell the existing stock they have. However there are now a limited supply of these computers since manufacturers and retails can no longer order new computer with Windows 7 pre-installed.

Windows 7 Professional will not be affected by this date, as Microsoft has not yet specified a date to end of sales the operating system software. Institutions, corporations and businesses have been leery to make the switch to Windows 8 and have relied on Windows 7 as there have been too many bugs that needed to be fixed before the OS is ready to be a reliable business computing platform.

If you think that you may be running a version of Windows 7 that has reached the End of Sales date Microsoft urges you to start thinking about upgrading. However, realistically, you probably do not need to do anything at this point to your existing computer. You probably will not have to upgrade as the end of main stream support date for Windows 7 does not come until January 14, 2020.

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