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Question

Windows 10 on second hard drive

Aug 29, 2015 2:05AM PDT

I have a functioning retail version of Windows 7 on one internal drive and the original corrupted version of W7 on a second drive. I was thinking of doing a clean install of W10 on the second drive from an ISO, after formatting the drive, to enable a check on the compatibility of various programs and hardware. I assume that I wouldn't be able to validate the W10 version on the same machine but I would use this set-up to enable a decision on which OS to go for.
Is this feasible?

Discussion is locked

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you MIGHT get away with it
Aug 29, 2015 6:52PM PDT

you might get away with it but oem software is tied to the original computer and can never be transferred to another. I have seen too many cases where users have gotten away with violating microsofts eula by transferring their oem os or reuse an os that justified an upgrade but months later get declared non-genuine. You never know when microsoft will make changes to their genuine test in order to catch cheaters.

It is amazing the number of users in the different forums getting help who were trying to upgrade to win10 but finding out their os is not genuine. In some cases they were unaware what they did was not legit.

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Well said, renegade600. What's legal & what U can get away-
Aug 29, 2015 7:20PM PDT

-with aren't always 100% coincident. I once got away with temporarily installing a copy of Windows 7 Pro as a stopgap until I could get a PC with a legitimate copy of it. I got constant messages that it wasn't activated, and it put a few restrictions on what I could do, but I was able to do what I needed for a short period.
Since the upgrade to 10 invalidates the 7 or 8 license regardless of whether it's OEM or retail, you can't legally reinstall that 7 or 8 system on ANY computer. MS has rewritten the rule book with 10, and they've been very poor at communicating the changes, but I've been closely following the MS Windows 10 forum since 10/1/14 and know what I've seen them say.

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Validation confusion!
Aug 30, 2015 1:21AM PDT

My understanding was that it's possible to download an ISO copy of W10 without going through the upgrade route. My intent was to wipe the corrupted drive and install W10 on it temporarily but not validate it so that I could check out compatibility before deciding whether to upgrade to W7.
The possibility of upgrading on the corrupted drive only came up as a result of these discussions. If I did that and decided to revert to W7 it would reinstall the corrupted W7 . But would the good version on the other drive still be valid!

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Ahhh...you are a slide one, hehe.
Aug 30, 2015 5:26AM PDT

You could try but I don't think you should waste your time. I thought of that first and tried it....and it didn't work. My experience with that...win10 will not boot up until the key are filled in and it will look for that key on that computer. I suspect it will not find it because the harddrive is corrupted.

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Not OEM
Aug 30, 2015 1:27AM PDT

It's definitely a legitimate version of W7. See my reply to Digger's query.

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No, OEM doesn't mean illegal.
Aug 30, 2015 5:33AM PDT

OEM mean that license belong to that one computer...and that one specifically. You cannot use it on some other computer.

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Reply to ....
Aug 30, 2015 10:00AM PDT

I worded that badly. I wasn't intending to say that OEM wasn't legit. My understanding was that a retail version (non OEM) of W7 could be transferred to another computer providing the original installation was erased. It would seem from these discussions that the upgrade to W10 would negate that freedom. Not that I had any intention in doing so.
All I wanted to do was install an unvalidated version of W10 on a temporary basis for comparison purposes . It would seem that won't be possible from what wpgwpg and others have said.
I certainly stirred some interest in the arcane workings of Microsoft validation processes!
Thanks for all the comments but I think I'll stick with W7 for the time being at least. At least I'll be able to continue running my old programs and not risk loosing the use of my expensive peripherals.

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:-) Arcane is nice way to put it. U could say weasel worded
Aug 30, 2015 10:15AM PDT

on the part of MS. They certainly have done a really lousy job of communicating with this release. Maybe they just want to see how many folks will leap before they leap?
`
Good luck.

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Answer
Answer to my Question
Sep 3, 2015 1:39AM PDT

There is a very lucid explanation of the licensing complexities here:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?source=navclient-ff#inbox/14f906a4b3e2bc3d
It would seem that my idea for dual booting will definitely not not be possible so now I know where I stand.
Another idea I had of using the 64 bit version on one disk and 32 bit on the other ( the retail version came with both disks) again to check compatibility is also a non starter. I installed the 32 bit version originally to be sure that there were no compatibility problems.
Incidentally the confusion over validation keys is covered here:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/uktechnet/archive/2015/08/06/licensing-logic-windows-10-faq.aspx