

"They've done 'get legal' programs before, but those have always come with some kind of cost," said Michael Silver, an analyst with Gartner, referring to various initiatives, including one in 2007 aimed at prompting users to buy legitimate licenses. The move would be unprecedented for Microsoft, which has spent years, devoted significant resources and developed numerous technologies to battle piracy, notably in the enormous Chinese market, where an estimated three-fourths of all installed software is pirated. "Non-genuine" is Microsoft-speak for illegal copies. Even though the two-step method doesn't save any time, it still eliminates two unnecessary steps.The company is going to upgrade "all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10," Microsoft confirmed today, reiterating what Terry Myerson, the chief of Microsoft's operating systems group, told Reuters.

If you have saved the product key from your original Windows 8.1 operating system, then use that product key again to install Windows 8.1. Use your Windows 8.1 disk to do a new installation of your original Windows 8.1 operating system.

You've already mangled your existing operating system by upgrading to a pirated version of Windows 10.
