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Time to upgrade - ugh

884 views 21 replies 5 participants last post by  Johnny b 
#1 ·
I have an HP desktop PC that came preloaded with Windows 7 and Office. I've noticed that this site separates windows 10 questions from any other software but one of my main concerns is if I will lose my existing Office when I do the upgrade.

I've found an article dated as recently as September that says if you have 7 or 8 on your computer, you can still upgrade through Microsoft for free...

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-get-windows-10-for-free/

1) I am worried (if this is still an option) that if I do it, I will no longer have the MS Office suite that came preloaded. I hate the very concept of Office 365 and its monthly fee to use and I do not do anything on the cloud. I've looked into buying Office and its nearly as much money as a clean new version of Windows 10 (From Walmart I found a Windows 10 Home for $129 and the Office is like $109). How can they justify that price for a program being nearly as much as an entire operating system?

2) I also recently purchased a brand new HP laptop with 10 already on it, but again it wants me to activate or purchase the subscription to 365. I've read a lot about these "account keys" you can purchase online, but I've also read they are all mostly scams and are not legit....if you buy one, you may be able to use it for a time then when MS catches on, you can no longer use your Office. Grrrr. BTW, I've tried Libre and it always changes the formatting of my existing Word documents when I use it to open them on the laptop.

First thing first though...I hope question 1 falls within the purvue of this sepcific forum...Can I still use the free upgrade for my PC and will I lose that version of Office already on it?

As for question 2: do I need to post questions regarding MS Office on the specific forum for Office products or can you answer that here?

Any help and/or referrals to legitimate sites would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
 
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#2 ·
I have an HP desktop PC that came preloaded with Windows 7 and Office.
So, you bought the Office suite, right? Either as a bonus with the PC and Windows, or as an add-on cost. You should have an Office Product Key. If you don't have it saved with whatever documentation you have I think you can easily retrieve it with Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder. And, I don't know what version of Office you have or with exactly which version Microsoft began, but you can probably (very legally) download your version of Office for free.

That's in case you do a clean install of Windows 10 or something fails with an attempt to do an Upgrade install. A successful Upgrade install will preserve your data and applications (including the Office programs).

EDIT: Windows 10 was still free when I helped a friend "upgrade" from Windows 7 a few weeks ago.
 
#3 ·
Usually when office comes already installed, the key is on a sticker attached to the computer. Do you have this key? If so, you simply install with the key. If it does not activate, then you call ms.
Office 2013 and later change the way to key is stored on the local system. It is only the last 5 digits that is stored locally so the key finder only shows the last 5 of the install key.
 
#4 ·
I will repeat what @TerryNet stated earlier:
A successful Upgrade install will preserve your data and applications (including the Office programs).
I can count on less than one hand the number of Win7/8/8.1 upgrades to Windows 10 that I've had fail. And among those few several were fixed by turning off third-party security suites in "permanently off until you turn it back on again" mode and trying a second time. One was simply a burp, and worked when tried again after having done nothing.

One should always take a full system image backup and separate user data backup prior to doing an in-place upgrade.
 
#5 ·
So, it is finally done with the process, so while in Settings, in small print near the bottom it says that Windows is not activated..... So I click it and I get the following
Font Screenshot Parallel Number Document


I am connected to the internet and have gone to Google to get to this site so I can post from here instead of my laptop. Is this something I should worry about?
Will it just automatically pull my key as soon as their servers become available?
 
#6 ·
I would not worry (at all, really) unless this hangs around for more than a few days. If it does, and the Activation Troubleshooter doesn't resolve it, it should give an 800 number to call Microsoft. I have known of a few machines that were particularly recalcitrant about activating, but a call had it activated in short order. Microsoft wants anyone with a copy that should be activated to have said copy activate.
 
#7 ·
Brian,

I did some more research about the specific error code I am getting and I wanted to clear this up with you before I contact Microsoft:

1) Several years ago, upon the advice of a different forum (which I stopped using when I found this site) instructed me to create an Administrator account on my machine and log into that to do any of the scans and fixes they instructed. Since then I have forgotten the password and have never been able to go into that account. Could there be an issue with the fact that I am not logged in as the administrator to do this? Even if not, I want to eliminate that "user" and have just the HOME user for this PC. Can you please recommend a safe password retriever? I've read about programs you download and save to a flash drive from a different computer and then it can be used to recover your administrator password but don't know which one I can trust not to install a bunch of other crap.

2) One of the Microsoft help forums stated 2 things that concern me....one of them is that this error could be caused by having a static IP address using Host files. I did in fact switch over to host files long ago (using HostsExpert program). How do I remove that and reset the DNS? The second thing I read makes me think none of this is going to work. It stated that if I bought this computer pre-loaded with Windows 7, it is considered an OEM version and is not transferrable - meaning I may end up having to buy a Windows 10 program and install it new rather than upgrade.

Again, any help you can give with these issues would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
 
#9 ·
create an Administrator account on my machine and log into that to do any of the scans and fixes they instructed.
Are you implying that you are using a non-Administrative (various names depending on the Windows version) account? If so, you will probably want to do a clean install so that you can create a proper Administrative account. Those other accounts are good for "guests" and if you like to hamstring yourself.
 
#8 ·
OEM versions of Windows 7 can and do upgrade to Windows 10 without issue. Transferring it is not possible (which means taking it to another machine entirely).

Contrary to the advice you received elsewhere way back when, I never recommend using the built-in Administrator account except under very exceptional circumstances. If you have an account with administrator privileges it should be able to do 100% of the things you need to do routinely and 99.9999% of those you don't have to do routinely, but may be called upon to do .

Given what you have just shared, once you have gotten this Windows 10 instance activated (which, by the way, I am almost certain you can do even if Microsoft needs to be called, and it may not be), is to wipe the slate clean and start completely from scratch again with Windows 10 afterward. There is a pinned topic authored by me at the top of this very forum about doing a completely clean reinstall of Windows 10, which gets you a "fresh as a daisy" system with all the defaults that Microsoft chooses. You do not need to worry about what you did, or did not do, with hosts and lots of other things that have likely faded into the mist of memory. This presumes, of course, that you have backed up your user data for restoration afterward and that you've collected the program installers for the third party programs you'll need to reinstall on a fresh system.

I do not know what you mean by HOME user. User accounts under Windows 10 are as they have been since Windows 8, and the capability of creating a local account rather than a Microsoft Account linked Windows 10 User Account is available, too (though as I've said elsewhere I strongly prefer the MS linked account for a multitude of reasons). When you do a completely clean reinstall you will create your account(s) entirely from scratch, and one of those with admin privileges gets created as part of the Win10 install, as you must have at least one account (whether local or MS-linked) that has admin privileges on any Windows computer. Local accounts behave exactly as all Windows user accounts did under Windows 7 and older.
 
#10 ·
OK, I'm starting to get lost and overwhelmed. I am upgrading from Windows 7, that is why one of the users is called "Home". When the windows 10 upgrade was finished, on the main screen in the lower left side it showed the 2 users associated with this computer: Administrator and Home. Home is the original user account and I added the administrator account (apparently unnecessarily). As you can see by the screenshot on the left side...it still has the original Windows 7 desktop link named "home"...
Screenshot Font Terrestrial plant Rectangle Electronic device


I also do not fully understand this statement of yours:
"This presumes, of course, that you have backed up your user data for restoration afterward and that you've collected the program installers for the third party programs you'll need to reinstall on a fresh system."

What do you mean by user data and program installers? All I did before doing any of this was to make a back-up of all my documents just in case the upgrade didn't work. Please be patient with me...I am completely computer UNsavvy and 'Tech' declared war on me long ago...if its technical...it gives me nothing but grief and headaches in the form of ridiculous problems that [almost] nobody else ever seems to experience. Everything from an Amazon Fire Stick to my crappy Motorola smartphone....nothing but constant headaches getting anything technical to work the way it is intended. So I end up on this forum begging for help. Please guide me step-by step. I will report back once I contact Microsoft and get this installation of 10 activated.
 
#11 ·
There's nothing wrong with having deficiencies in your tech skills and background, we were all there once, and even as you remedy some that will still leave others. There is no one here, including myself, that knows literally everything. It's just that some of us "have been around the block" so many times over the decades that our store of knowledge has become substantial, and that we have a certain talent for and interest in technology that "your average user" does not and will not ever have (nor should they, necessarily).

I have to believe, just based on your screen shot, that you have installed third party programs on your computer in the past. I see MS-Word, likely installed as a part of one version or another of MS-Office, Quicktime [in the quick launch area along with Word, looks like the letter Q], and possibly others. In order to have done this you either had to have downloaded installers (usually EXE or MSI files) and run them or had installers provided to you on CD/DVD optical media (which is now rapidly disappearing these days). All I mean by, "having collected the installers," is having on hand the actual media, if it's a CD/DVD, or the installer file, if it's an EXE or MSI, that you used when you originally installed the program. Were you to do a completely clean install of Windows 10, you would also need to reinstall your third-party programs like MS-Office and Quicktime that don't come as a part of Windows 10, and to do that you need your installer files or media, whether that's CD/DVD or, perhaps, a USB thumb drive.

You have already, essentially, made a backup of your user data by copying it off to an external drive, whether that's a USB thumb drive or an external hard disk or solid state disk that connects to your computer via USB. You have also already successfully run the upgrade, though the activation had not taken place.

But, in the end, given what you've offered regarding your system and its history, as soon as I knew the current upgrade installation is activated, I would still wipe the slate clean again by Doing a Completely Clean (Re)install of Windows 10. There are just too many "unknowns" and stated odd tweaks to the system that was used as the base for the upgrade for me, personally, to feel any comfort or certainty about the stability of the Windows 10 installation derived from it. My colloquial statement is, "You can't build on quicksand and expect the result to stand," and there are just too many things you've said for me to think that we have any certainty about the state of the Windows 7 installation that was upgraded. I can't get any more specific, step-by-step, than I did in the instructions linked above, particularly if one doesn't know the make/model of the computer and what BIOS (if it's older) or UEFI (if it's newer - and don't worry about either term) it has. But that can be determined.

Your first order of business should be getting this Windows 10 instance activated, and if the Activation Troubleshooter doesn't get you there then definitely call the 800 number it gives to Microsoft when it can't succeed on its own.
 
#12 ·
The quick launch button for Word is because I like quick-launch. When I bought this HP Pavilion it was such a great deal because it came with both Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2010 pre-installed.

I received no cd's for either program. Back when I got the computer, I learned that without the discs, I had to create a System Image. I purchased an external hard drive and followed the instructions for said System Image. At one point I was just going to start all over from scratch and tried to reload everything on this machine using the system image, only for the computer to tell me the system image was not working (the Tech War)...so I completely reformatted the hard drive, now use it as external storage for my Channel Master DVR, which for some reason has worked for me with no problems whatsoever so I won that particular battle :/

I have never again tried to create a system image (once bitten.....) So I am really stressing that I will eventually lose my Office 2010 in all of this. I did manage to successfully run Magic Jelly Bean and I actually copied and pasted the keys for Windows 7 and Office 2010 into a notepad file (.txt), saved it with the other documents I saved onto a usb drive before doing the upgrade, and printed it out so there was no mistake of transposition or not being able to read my own writing which has happened more than once. As inept as I am, I am a total type-A and as thorough as my level of knowledge allows me to be.

Quick time can be downloaded again when I need it to view things that only it will read. The Cannon printer folder was copied and if necessary I can always go online to reinstall its driver. Its usb and was pretty much a plug it in/"windows is searching for drivers"/"Windows is installing drivers"/Printer is now ready for use. So I don't think that will be an issue.

I do however agree with you that once Windows 10 is activated, I want to completely reinstall fresh and have it be as if this computer came with it. My Office 2010 is really the only thing I want to be able to transfer to the new OS (and of course my keyboard and mouse).
 
#14 ·
@ TerryNet:

So I clicked on the "here" link you provided, yet all I see are the instructions for installing office, yet nowhere on the entire page do I see any "download" links/buttons. I'll worry about it after I get the actually Windows 10 activated and running properly.
 
#15 ·
In case you still do not see the "download and install Office" link in

"Install 32-bit (default) Office 2010
Insert the Office 2010 disc into the drive. If the setup wizard doesn't start automatically, navigate to the disc drive and click SETUP.EXE.

If you don't have a disc, you can download and install Office with your product key."

you can click on this.
 
#16 ·
As FULLY anticipated, Microsoft was completely useless. When they check my key, the guy with the nearly non-understandable accent tells me I need to contact the retailer for help because my key "has exceeded its time limit". So I am taking this to mean that I am out of luck and will have to purchase a Windows 10 from a retailer and just do a fresh install that way. Grrrrrr.
 
#18 ·
because my key "has exceeded its time limit".
Never heard that excuse before! And never heard anything about a Microsoft Product Key expiring. Although, I guess it is possible that the guy means that the free "upgrade" to Windows 10 officially ended years ago. Call back--you'll get somebody different, and if you happen to hear the same phrase ask to speak to a supervisor.

Are you calling about the Windows 7 or Office key?
 
#17 ·
just in case, here is the system info from the utility that the virus and malware forum instructs to use before any help:

Tech Support Guy System Info Utility version 1.0.0.4
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 Home, 64 bit
Processor: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 450 @ 2.20GHz, Intel64 Family 6 Model 22 Stepping 1
Processor Count: 1
RAM: 2047 Mb
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 6450, 512 Mb
Hard Drives: C: 453 GB (82 GB Free); D: 11 GB (10 GB Free);
Motherboard: FOXCONN, 2A8C
Antivirus: Windows Defender, Enabled and Updated
 
#19 ·
It was to activate my upgrade to Windows 10 and it was the actual key he was referring to and kept repeating that I need to contact the retailer I bought the computer from..it came preloaded with an OEM Windows 7.

Also wanted to point out that one of my earlier comments about things happening to ME that nobody has ever heard of and your first two comments confirm that
 
#20 ·
Well I have decided that I am just going to buy a brand new PC, yank the hard drive out of this one and give it to one of my geek friends that like rebuilding computers () A newer PC will run faster and I won't have to jump through all of these flaming hoops. If there is one thing I try to avoid MORE than spending money is dealing with stress.
 
#21 ·
So my brand new HP Pavilion 590 is here. I have not even fired it up yet and still want to get Office installed. I found a deal on Ebay where you buy 3 get one free, which would cover my PC and three laptops for around $30.

However, a search today just brought me to a site and I wanted to run it by you to get your opinion. It is a way of supposedly getting Office to activate without even having to buy a key. The poor grammar makes me think its some foreign scam though...

https://getproductkey.net/download-activate-microsoft-office-2019-without-product-key/

Let me know what you think. Thanks.
 
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