Solved Restoring Windows 7 after failed upgrade to Windows 10

[simonc8]

I wanted to upgrade an old laptop running Windows 7 Pro to Windows 10 but the in place upgrade wouldn't work. (Not completely sure why, it just put up a dialog box saying Windows 10 Upgrade Failed after it got about 75% through.) In desperation I tried a clean install of Windows 10 which worked but resulted in an OS which wasn't activated. I don't have the activation key for Windows 7 so I can't use it to activate Windows 10.

Before attempting the upgrade I saved a full Windows 7 system image and I would now like to restore this, to return the computer to the state it was in before the upgrade. I imagined I would be able to do this from Windows 10 but I can't find a way to point Windows 10 to the Windows 7 image.

Can anyone advise me on how to do this?

Thanks.

 

[SIW2]

point Windows 10 to the Windows 7 image.

No.


You can use win7 installation media /repair disc to restore the image.

 

[Megahertz07]

With what program did you created the Win 7 drive image?

Please edit your profile with ALL your hardware specs. Use System two. It will help us to help you
System Info - See Your System Specs

Once you have Win 7 back you can retrieve the activation on a file to be used to activate a Win 10 clean install.
Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First | Tutorials

 

[simonc8]

SIW2
Thanks for the advice. I downloaded a Windows 7 ISO and booted the machine from that. There was a Repair option which enabled me to load my system image without having to do an install of Windows 7 first, which was great.
The machine is now back in the state it was.
Megahertz07
Thanks for the pointer to the tutorial on clean install of Windows 10. It specifies a method for transferring the product information from the old Windows 7 system to Windows 10 without knowing the product key, which I will try out today.

 

[SIW2]

 

[Megahertz07]

simonc8, did you succeed?

 

[simonc8]

Hi Megahertz07, thanks for getting back.

Unfortunately it hasn't worked (yet). I've clean installed Windows 10, copied the genuineticket.xml file to the correct folder, rebooted but Windows 10 didn't activate. When I looked for the genuineticket.xml file it had been deleted. I copied it over again and rebooted again, but still no activation.

I'm going to try again with internet disconnected in case there is some activation query traffic which is preventing the file being used.

Do you have any other thoughts?

Thanks

- - - Updated - - -

Booting with internet disconnected didn't help. Not sure what to try next...

 

[SIW2]

it had been deleted

Never heard of that before.

Are you using win10 22H2 ?

 

[simonc8]

The file definitely gets deleted each time I reboot - I've tried it several times.

The installed version is 21H2 and there doesn't seem to be an update available for 22H2. That might be because I've had to install 32-bit Windows 10 because the laptop originally had 32-bit Windows 7 installed (not sure why, as it is a 64-bit machine...). According to advice from the internet if I can get 32-bit Windows 10 to activate I can then do a clean install of 64-bit Windows 10, which is what I ultimately want, and it will activate.

Do you think there is any chance that I could go straight to a clean install of 64-bit Windows 10 and use the genuine ticket method to activate it?

 

[torchwood]

can you run this, lets have a look at your product key....
in reality the key, provided its Retail, should be acceptable for either a clean or reinstall, is still valid

https://www.sevenforums.com/attachm...vation-issue-posting-instructions-mgadiag.exe

 

[simonc8]

torchwood
I presume I need to restore Windows 7 to run this. But I know the Windows 7 OS wasn't a retail edition because I looked for the product key in the registry before trying to do the upgrade and it's not a 25 character string, it's only 20 characters and has the letters OEM in the middle.
The laptop is an old school computer so would have been originally set up ages ago by the school's IT department.

 

[SIW2]

Do you think there is any chance that I could go straight to a clean install of 64-bit Windows 10 and use the genuine ticket method to activate it?

Yes, it doesn't depend on the bit version.

you could mount the .vhd file in diskmgmt make sure it has a letter, and then run winntsetup which will show the key of all attached installations. Then you can check it with one of the key checker programs.

winntsetupv425
https://mega.nz/folder/ObATya7C#oR2t79bT-4MGjKxOAYwkbQ

rt click in the top pane and select local windows and it will show you

 

[simonc8]

It worked!!!

A clean install using the 64-bit Windows 10 ISO was activated using the genuineticket.xml file. So for some reason that method works for 64-bit but not for 32-bit.

Thanks to everyone who made suggestions.

 

[Megahertz07]

Now that you have a "Digital License" for the laptop you can reinstall Win 10 32 or 64 Bits that it will activate without using the genuineticket.xml file.

If the laptop has 4G or less memory it will work better with 32 bits

 

[SIW2]

That momentus is an interesting disk.