Donated Thinkpads / reinstalling OS

[robla64]

The high school where I teach received several Thinkpads from a local university.
The one I'm working on is a t570
All the machines were wiped clean including the recovery partition.
BIOS on them says Preinstalled WIN OS. When I lookup the number it says it WIN 10 Pro
I downloaded Win 10 from the Microsoft site and it installs Win 10 home. How can I install a legal copy of Win 10 Pro?

[dr_st]

Is there a product key in the BIOS? (I don't remember now if there is supposed to be one).

Maybe the instructions here will help:
https://softwaregroup.zendesk.com/hc/en ... an-OEM-key

Also this:
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-All ... =1#3848658

[theterminator93]

If you use a factory recovery it should activate automatically. Otherwise you can pull the OEM key from BIOS using this command from an admin command prompt or powershell terminal:

wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey

You can activate with that key as previously described.

With the machine's serial number you may also be able to go https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/en/us/lenovorecover and sign up to download the OEM restore for your system.

[axur-delmeria]

What I do is slightly modify the Windows 10 installer disk after it's created, by creating an EI.CFG text file in the sources directory, with the following contents:

Code: Select all

[EditionID]
Professional 
[Channel]
OEM
[VL]
0

This is how I installed Win 10 Pro on my brother's T460 after installing a new SSD.

[madicetea]

If you use a factory recovery it should activate automatically. Otherwise you can pull the OEM key from BIOS using this command from an admin command prompt or powershell terminal:

wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey

You can activate with that key as previously described.

With the machine's serial number you may also be able to go https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/en/us/lenovorecover and sign up to download the OEM restore for your system.

What I do is slightly modify the Windows 10 installer disk after it's created, by creating an EI.CFG text file in the sources directory, with the following contents:

Code: Select all

[EditionID]
Professional 
[Channel]
OEM
[VL]
0

This is how I installed Win 10 Pro on my brother's T460 after installing a new SSD.

Both methods are quite legal and good. I suspect the second one may be slightly less user-intensive.