Create new W10 VM but only have W8 license

[jdxjohn]

I created a W8 VM back when W8 was sold for £25 or something similar to encourage adoption, on DVD. I installed it in parallels and have been using it happily through updates to 8.1 and the free upgrade to W10. But like many others the April 2018 update is not working for me so I wonder about creating a new W10 VM (I only use it as a sandbox for RDP, no applications installed).

But I don't imagine my license key is valid anymore for W10... is it? In fact I'm not terribly sure I have the key written down after these years. Is there a standard technique I could use to do what I want, or do I have to stray into grey areas legally?

 

[AlBundy33]

Have you checked this: https://forum.parallels.com/threads...ith-april-update-1803-on-parallels-12.344602/

I'm not sure if you can still upgrade for free from 8 to 10.
You can create a snapshot of your vm and reinstall windows inside the vm (format harddisk during install).
Theoretically windows should check that you windows is already registered and activate it automatically.

Why don't you use a rdp client on yoir mac?

 

[Hemnath@Parallels]

so I wonder about creating a new W10 VM (I only use it as a sandbox for RDP, no applications installed).

There have been instances where Windows users who did the free upgrade before were able to activate a new Windows 10 virtual machine with their older Windows version license. This may work in your case too.