You Can No Longer Use Windows 7/8 Keys to Activate Windows 10 Either

Last week, we learned that Microsoft was no longer letting users activate Windows 11 using a Windows 7 or 8.1 retail product key. But what about Windows 10?

It’s a fair question: After all, Microsoft confirmed that it had closed the product key loophole for Windows 11 only. It never mentioned Windows 10. And the publication to which Microsoft gave that confirmation never even bothered to check. If you could activate Windows 10 using a Windows 7/8.1 product key, then a loophole still remained, as you could then upgrade that install to Windows 11.

So I checked: I installed Windows 10 Pro in a Hyper-V virtual machine and fully upgraded it with all of the available cumulative updates in Windows Update. And for the sake of completeness, I even updated all the apps with the Microsoft Store. And then, using a big set of Windows 7 product keys that had always worked when activating Windows 10 and 11 in the past, I gave it a shot. Using multiple keys.

The first step of the Activate Windows wizard seemed promising: When I tested these same keys against various versions of Windows 11 in late September, this is where activation failed in the Canary build I tested, immediately.

So far so good. But after pressing “Next,” I ran into the dreaded error message: “Unable to Activate Windows.” The product key, I was told, was not valid.

So there you go. Loophole closed.