Win 8.1 ->10 asks for the product key and can't skip

Hi guys,
original win 8 updated to 8.1
what to do?
the key from win 8 doesn't work
tried install from the booting usb, but also can't skip
tried istalling from the media creation tool, went to 100% and nothing happened. did it 3 times.

what version of windows 10 did you download ??

Windows 10 pro N x64

If your not running Windows 8.1 Pro, you need 10 Home, not 10 Pro. 8.1 Core gets you 10 Home, 8.1 Pro gets you 10 Pro. "N" means no Media Player? You know that right?

Windows 10 pro N x64

That's the problem. You need Windows 10 pro for 64 bit without the N. The N means without media player for other countries it isn't licensed in.

Enter winver from a elevated command prompt.
Post resulting output here.



This is fromn a Win 7 system but output will be similar.

Hi guys,
original win 8 updated to 8.1
what to do?
the key from win 8 doesn't work
tried install from the booting usb, but also can't skip
tried istalling from the media creation tool, went to 100% and nothing happened. did it 3 times.

Also, are you upgrading from the Windows update version or the .iso? You have to install the free upgrade from Update before doing a clean install with the .iso. If you don't you need to purchase a product key.

Enter winver from a elevated command prompt.

Just for future reference, winver doesn't need an elevated command prompt. It can even be run just by typing it into search.

Ok, So I am downloading now the win10 x64 pro, without 'N'


So the thing is I had windows 7 installed and I didn't do clean install, I have upgraded. Then it was all fine, windows 10 was working it was activated.
Then I decided to do a clean install because I wanted to have faster pc (it was one year after I bought it and had no reinstalls)
I waited a day, just to be sure that when I install win10 again it will be in my bios and will know the product key.
After a clean install it didn't want to activate windows10 for 2 days so I decided to install win7 again and then upgrade it to win10.
Didn't work, wanted a key. So I installed win8, upgraded it to win8.1 and now I am trying to install on it win10.
I am so stupid, I should have stayed with win10 when I had it.

I waited a day, just to be sure that when I install win10 again it will be in my bios and will know the product key.

Windows 10 will not write any product key to your BIOS nor will it read Windows 7/8/8.1 keys from bios.