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You can no longer activate new Windows 11 builds with Windows 7 or 8 keys (www.neowin.net)
submitted 2 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
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You can no longer activate new Windows 11 builds with Windows 7 or 8 keys::Bad news for those planning to activate Windows 11 with a Windows 7 or 8/8.1 key: users noticed that the latest Windows 11 preview builds no longer allow activation with old license keys.

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[–] 21 points 2 years ago (1 child)

I mean, you'd have to want to activate a Windows 11 build in the first place. I'm doing just fine on Windows 10 and don't see any reason at all to "upgrade". Let's see if they can manage not to bake ads and tracking into whatever comes after 11 and I'll consider it then.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Not a problem right now but Windows 10 is reaching its end of support two years from now in Oct 2025.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    When Windows 10 launched, wasn't it said that this would be the "last" version of Windows and it would just get continually updated?

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yep, and that lasted all of about a year I think before MS backtracked on it. Microsoft has an MO, they release a bad version of Windows which everyone hates, then they remove/fix most of the things people hate and release a good version of Windows, then they get cocky and cram a bunch of stuff people hate into the next version and the cycle repeats. Right now we're on the "everyone hates it" part of the cycle with Windows 11 where they crammed ads, tracking, and a mandatory MS account sign-in into it.

    I'm expecting Windows 12 (or whatever they end up calling it, probably not 12 as that would be sane), to bring back offline accounts, remove the ads, and at least tone down the tracking, but that will only happen after enough people refuse to "upgrade" off of 10.

    Alternatively they could go the XP route and release essentially Windows 11 SP2, which rips all the garbage out and makes it not suck, but I think that's less likely.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    W11 still has local account.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    From what I recall last I looked into this, that's technically true but there were a couple gotchas. I can't remember exactly but it was either that it's a major PITA to setup during install (deeply buried in a very non-obvious location), or else that you had to use a MS account to install, but once installed you could then make and use a local account. In either case it's very clear MS is doing everything they can to force you into using their online accounts. I wouldn't be surprised if they remove the ability to activate Windows 11 without using a MS account soon if they haven't already.

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