Windows 10, Update 1909

[leif erikson]

Even if you don't create a MS account, they remember your product code. I think it is stored in BIOS or equivalent. (what's that called, UEFI?) I do installs frequently for practice and I almost always set up the systems with only local accounts like Linux and previous versions of Windows have.

That has not been my experience. I do not think the OS can write to the BIOS, UEFI or otherwise, because updating a BIOS can be a painful experience if it goes wrong. I would hate to think ms is doing that as they cannot seem to get an update out without issues, never mind writing to my BIOS.

 

[zxcvbob]

That has not been my experience. I do not think the OS can write to the BIOS, UEFI or otherwise, because updating a BIOS can be a painful experience if it goes wrong. I would hate to think ms is doing that as they cannot seem to get an update out without issues, never mind writing to my BIOS.

They probably don't write to the BIOS, but they remember your machine somehow when you activate. I assume they are reading some kind of unique identifier from the BIOS but I don't know. I bought a refurbished desktop recently with a wiped HDD and no OS. Because it previously had Windows 8 or 8.1 Pro installed (not sure which), I was able to activate 10 Pro without entering a 25-digit key. I thought I was installing 10 Home because that's what I paid the refurbisher for, but MS remembered the machine and upgraded to Pro and activated automatically with a digital license the first time I connected to the Internet. There's a command you can run to extract the license key from an activated system... Let me look that up...

wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey

I have a few of those keys tucked away down from machines I have scrapped. I have no idea whether they are transferable (reusable) but I figure one might get me out of hot water some day.

I am somewhat knowledgeable about this, but I am not an expert and my observations could be totally misguided and wrong. But it has worked for me on about a dozen different machines; at home and at work and for friends.

 

[leif erikson]

wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey

I have a few of those keys tucked away down from machines I have scrapped. I have no idea whether they are transferable (reusable) but I figure one might get me out of hot water some day.

I am somewhat knowledgeable about this, but I am not an expert and my observations could be totally misguided and wrong. But it has worked for me on about a dozen different machines; at home and at work and for friends.

Good to know, thanks.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

But as of about version 1903 (we're way past that now) you have to say you don't have Internet during the install process when it asks you to sign onto a wireless network if you want to skip the MS account thing. If you have Ethernet, do the install with the cable unplugged.

On my mother's computer, I was able to get past the online account by putting in an invalid password a few times.

 

[Jürgen]

As far as I know, you can upgrade directly from Win7 Pro to Win10 Pro.

If I remember correctly, upgrading will cause Win10 to create a folder with all kinds of Win7 data in it for folks that might want to change back to Win7. It can take up a fair amount of hard drive space. For me, I back up all my data and perform fresh initial installs and add programs and data later.

When you install Win10, you may want to go to settings => privacy and decide what data you want ms to get from your install as well as what apps get access to your system resources. Have found Win10 to be pretty intrusive and willing to share more data on me than I like. I shut most of it off.

Yeah, ms requiring you set up an account is bothersome. The only advantage I can think of is that if you have to reinstall, they remember you so you do not have to type in the product code...

Hi Good afgernoon, I am not quite sure if you can help. But i recently installend Windows 10 (not bij ugrade win7) and upgrades my pc a bit. But Civ 5 isnn't working propper. I have large graphical issues. I posted an item on the forum, but did not get any reaction. Ik see your are a administrator.. maybe
you could help?

 

[leif erikson]

Not sure what you need help with?

Please make sure you video drivers are up to date. If you bought the game from STEAM, you can have STEAM check your local cache files to ensure they loaded properly. Beyond that, I have no idea how your computer system is configured, what graphics card you have or anything else?

 

[zxcvbob]

On some machines (like one of mine with marginal hardware) you have to *roll back* your video driver to the OEM driver after updating Windows. Or goto the manufacturer's website and download their Windows 7 driver and install that.