Final week, we realized that Microsoft was now not letting customers activate Home windows 11 utilizing a Home windows 7 or 8.1 retail product key. However what about Home windows 10?
It’s a good query: In any case, Microsoft confirmed that it had closed the product key loophole for Home windows 11 solely. It by no means talked about Home windows 10. And the publication to which Microsoft gave that affirmation by no means even bothered to test. Should you might activate Home windows 10 utilizing a Home windows 7/8.1 product key, then a loophole nonetheless remained, as you could possibly then improve that set up to Home windows 11.
So I checked: I put in Home windows 10 Professional in a Hyper-V digital machine and totally upgraded it with the entire obtainable cumulative updates in Home windows Replace. And for the sake of completeness, I even up to date all of the apps with the Microsoft Retailer. After which, utilizing a giant set of Home windows 7 product keys that had at all times labored when activating Home windows 10 and 11 prior to now, I gave it a shot. Utilizing a number of keys.
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Step one of the Activate Home windows wizard appeared promising: After I examined these similar keys in opposition to varied variations of Home windows 11 in late September, that is the place activation failed within the Canary construct I examined, instantly.
Up to now so good. However after urgent “Subsequent,” I bumped into the dreaded error message: “Unable to Activate Home windows.” The product key, I used to be advised, was not legitimate.
So there you go. Loophole closed.
