So I have a dell inspiron n5050 that i just recently installed windows 10 on with a usb installer that I created using the windows 10 creation tool(I have used the usb to install windows on other machines). It used to have windows 8 installed until I decided to install different distros of linux on it(hasn't had windows on it for a few years). So as i was installing windows I skipped the product key part, since I didn't have one as I was just going to test some things on windows for a bit. I went through the settings and noticed that it was activated, I found this weird as I had never put a key in and never had windows 10 installed on the machine. So I wanted to know if anyone knows why it would do this.
Thank you.
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Windows 10 - despite the official grace period for owners of win7, win8 and win8.1 to "upgrade" for free is long gone - still accepts those versions keys.
As of win8 and above the OEM is meant to bake your windows key into the UEFI - that's why there are no stickers anymore.
tl;dr - Win10 found your win8 key in your UEFI and happily activated.
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I know on some Windows 8 machines the key is in the BIOS.
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So if one buys an old win 7/8 pc, they can still upgrade for free to 10?
Thats awsome news.
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Yep, same happened to me when I upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7 Ultimate.
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Oh I see, it kinda spooked me. thought I should ask. Thanks for quick well explained reply.
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It is, indeed spooky as its just one more stone in M$ plan to inhibit the "normal" user from using anything despite windows - as is secureboot without the option to add own keys... which, when the bootloader for your Linux distro isn't signed by M$ would prohibit it from booting.... but that's actually another story.
That's why I'm never installing windows on my new ryzen build I'm building soon. I don't want it to infect my machine 
Yup. You can buy a $30 win7 key and use it with Windows 10.
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