Trouble upgrading Acer Aspire One netbook from Win7 Starter to Win10 Home

[dr_andus]

I was hoping to upgrade an old (2011 make) Acer Aspire One netbook from Windows 7 Starter edition to Windows 10 Home, to take advantage of the free offer.

I did a clean install from a USB stick, in the process wiping everything from the netbook.

Win10 Home managed to install, but it would not allow me to activate my product key, giving me the error code: 0xc004f210

I looked for a solution and one thing that seems to have worked for some people was to upgrade to Win 10 Pro version and then try the activation again. Unfortunately it didn't work in my case, I keep getting the same 0xc004f210 error code.

Would any of you know a way out of this situation? What are my options?

It seems that I can no longer downgrade back to Windows 7 Starter, as I wiped that from the system. I'd prefer not to reinstall it (unless that's my only option), as Win7 Starter was never that great.

I don't want to invest more money into this machine either, so buying a Win10 product key is not an option (the whole point was to try to take advantage of the free offer).

I suppose I could try to install Chromium or Linux on it, as last resort?

This was my first ever try to install Windows 10, and this experience is not encouraging me to upgrade my other devices at this point.

Any idea why MS doesn't want to recognise my legit product key with a legit upgrade path?

Any thoughts, suggestions would be appreciated, especially as there are only a few days left before this free offer disappears.

[4wd]

You could try the method here to install Windows 10 with the generic key and then validate with the Windows 7 key, (you do have that key, yes?).

Original post referring to above method: Can you clean install Windows 10 Pro on a laptop which has an embedded Home licence?.

I also have an Aspire One but I installed XP Pro on it, clean installed 8/8.1 Pro, then clean installed 10 Pro on it.

[Target]

I also have an Aspire One but I installed XP Pro on it, clean installed 8/8.1 Pro, then clean installed 10 Pro on it.

-4wd (July 25, 2016, 12:16 AM)

and how does it stand up?  I've got one as well but wasn't going to bother 'cos I thought it might struggle

[Ath]

According to this MS supportpage the errorcode 0xc...210 implies that the Windows 10 edition installed (Pro) doesn't match the Windows 7 Starter edition key you are trying to activate. You should revert to a Windows 10 Home edition to activate properly. Maybe the originally installed W10Home should have been manually activated by contacting MS support.

[4wd]

I also have an Aspire One but I installed XP Pro on it, clean installed 8/8.1 Pro, then clean installed 10 Pro on it.

-4wd (July 25, 2016, 12:16 AM)

and how does it stand up?  I've got one as well but wasn't going to bother 'cos I thought it might struggle

-Target (July 25, 2016, 01:06 AM)

Tbh, the only time I've used it is when I need a basic computer to handle interfacing to hardware, eg. firmware install on mobile, upgrade something, etc

Bit slow as you would expect but as long as you're doing something basic it's ok.

Mine was originally the Linux version so maximum RAM is 1.5GB.

ie. It's the original A110L version of the Aspire One, circa 2008.

[dr_andus]

Many thanks for all the suggestions! 

I tried everything but nothing worked. Looks like I misunderstood the upgrade and product key validation process and got rid of my Win7 Starter before actually upgrading the key, so there was no way to recover from that.

But it also could have been a malfunctioning (outdated) hardware element (according to the MS support person I talked to) that just prevented MS from validating the product key.

In the end I went with Ath's suggestion and tried to find out how to validate it manually via MS support.

I followed the process described here:

Activate Your Windows 10 License via Microsoft Chat Support

First it put me through an automated service that couldn't validate the product key. Then I talked to a customer support person who also couldn't validate it through her system.

So I was put through to technical support in India, over a terrible quality phone line, where I spent an hour and a half trouble-shooting with an otherwise very helpful technical guy.

He had to remote into my machine eventually to carry out the upgrade. As far as I can tell they just gave me a new product key for a slightly different version of Win 10 Home. It didn't look like they managed to truly validate my old one.

In the end it wasn't for free, as I spent 2 hours on the phone getting this sorted (and time is money, right?). Still, I'm impressed with the huge resources MS seems to be throwing at the support end.

I didn't have to wait at all to get through, and then the guy was willing to stay with me for almost 2 hours over a toll-free number, and even called me back to check whether it's all worked out, while he was telling me that they are getting a huge volume of support calls of this nature.

It's all hunky-dory now, and I'm glad I managed to rescue this old kit, so at least I got one Win10 machine in the house to experiment with.

Thanks again, everyone.

[Deozaan]

Now do it again, but on a VM so you can truly be free to experiment with it.

[anandcoral]

Now do it again, but on a VM so you can truly be free to experiment with it.

-Deozaan (July 25, 2016, 05:10 PM)

Well he said "Time is Money". He may not be willing to spend more   

[dr_andus]

Anand, you truly understand me