I wanted to reset a rather old Windows 10 computer, so used the Windows 10 reset option. This resulted in an endless boot loop, and while trying to fix this I found a backup and restore method from Dell. I tried that, it worked, but it turns out that the computer is now back to Windows 7 Professional. My guess is that it was a free update to Windows 10.
NB: I don't have the W7 key, and the sticker on the side is unreadable.
Is is possible to do another upgrade to Windows 10? Can I prove somehow that this computer had an update before? Will an upgrade or fresh W10 install destroy the recovery partition from Dell?
Best Answer
I've not tested this solution because this never happened to me, but I know that Windows 10 activation for PC which benefited from the free Windows 10 upgrade is automatic, since it is linked to the hardware.
So, I recommend you use the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool to download a fresh copy of Windows 10, available here. Then you can clean install it on your machine, and when you connect to internet after the install it will activate automatically.