Thinkpad t520 windows 10

we own a few Thinkpad T520 / W520 laptops that came with an OEM Windows 7 Professional. During the years they were reinstalled with the restore partition several times, without the need to apply the Product ID marked on the sticker on the chassis.

Now, all the stickers have faded / lost, and we need to upgrade those laptops to Windows 10.

The Product ID that we can get from the PCs are all the same ID, so, the question is: what will happen when upgrading (or doing a clean install) to Windows 10? Will we be asked for a Product ID that we no longer have?

Thanks and regards.

United States of America

51852 Page Views

• Posts: 4281
• Registered: ‎12-11-2015
• Location: United States of America
• Views: 51852
• Message 2 of 3

Re: Install Windows 10 on Thinkpad T520 and similar without Windows 7 Product ID sticker

The T520/W520’s are not listed on Lenovo’s list of systems compatable with Windows 10, although some have reported doing so with some success. See the link below for more info.

Regarding the Product ID, I have used a free program called KeyFinder to successfully obtain the original Product ID from the registry in the past with good success. A couple of AV programs claim it to be malware, but I have used it many times with no problems or malware, so I think that their heuristic programs may just see its scanning of the registry as a threat.

Another option is to request a new key from MS by following the instructin on this link. http://pcsupport.about.com/od/osproductkeys/ht/windows-product-key-replacement.htm

Good Luck

United States of America

51852 Page Views

• Posts: 4281
• Registered: ‎12-11-2015
• Location: United States of America
• Views: 51852
• Message 3 of 3

Re: Install Windows 10 on Thinkpad T520 and similar without Windows 7 Product ID sticker

Note that an upgrade to Windows 10 from a previously activated version of Windows 7 or 8.1 should not ask for an earlier Product ID, but a clean install will, so having them on hand is always a good idea.

• Introduction
  • Community Spotlight
  • Welcome & FAQs
  • Forum Housekeeping
  • Recently Released Service Tips — Read Only
  • Recently Released Critical Drivers — Read Only
• Special Events
  • Lenovo @ CES 2021
  • Lenovo @ IFA 2019
  • Lenovo @ MWC 2019
  • Lenovo @ CES 2019
  • Special Event Archive
• ThinkPad Notebooks
  • ThinkPad X1 Fold
  • ThinkPad: T400 / T500 and newer T series Laptops
  • ThinkPad: P and W Series Mobile Workstations
  • ThinkPad: X Series Laptops
  • ThinkPad: X Series Tablet and Helix Laptops
  • ThinkPad: S Series, ThinkPad Yoga and Twist Laptops
  • ThinkPad: 11e (Windows), 13, E and Edge series Laptops
  • ThinkPad: L, R and SL series Laptops
  • ThinkPad Chromebooks: 11e, X and Yoga
  • ThinkPad; T61 and prior T series plus Other Legacy ThinkPads
• ThinkBook Notebooks
  • ThinkBook Notebooks
  • ThinkBook Plus Notebooks
• Lenovo Notebooks
  • Lenovo Yoga Series Notebooks
  • Lenovo IdeaPad 1xx, 3xx, 5xx & 7xx, Edge, LaVie Z, Flex Notebooks
  • Lenovo B and G Series Notebooks
  • Lenovo U and S Series Notebooks
  • Lenovo P, Y and Z series Notebooks
  • Lenovo C, E, K, M, N and V Series Notebooks
  • Lenovo Chromebooks
• Lenovo Phones
  • A5 [L18021] Smartphones
  • A Series, Vibe B & Vibe C Smartphones
  • P1, P1m, P70 & P90 Series Smartphones
  • P2 [P2a42] Smartphones
  • K9 [L38043] and K9 Note [L38012] Smartphones
  • K8 [XT1902] Smartphones
  • K and Vibe Z Series Smartphones
  • S and Vibe X Series Smartphones
  • Smartphone Accessories and Wearables
  • Legion Phone Duel
  • Legion Phone Duel 2
• Lenovo Mirage AR
  • Mirage AR Hardware – Technical Questions
  • Star Wars™: Jedi Challenges
  • MARVEL Dimension of Heroes
• Gaming – Lenovo Legion
  • Gaming Laptops
  • Gaming Desktops
  • Y Gaming Accessories & Curved Gaming Monitors
  • Legion Game Hub
• ThinkPad Tablets
  • ThinkPad Tablets
• Lenovo Tablets
  • Android Yoga Series Tablets
  • Lenovo Android based Tablets and Phablets
  • Windows based Tablets
• Yoga Book Community
  • Yoga Book C930
  • Yoga Book (Android)
  • Yoga Book (Windows)
• ThinkCentre Desktops
  • ThinkCentre A, E, M, S Series
• Lenovo Desktops
  • Lenovo All In One (AIO) Desktops
  • Lenovo Desktop Towers
  • Lenovo Beacon, Stick 300, D, J and S Series Desktops
• ThinkStation
  • ThinkStation Workstations
• Datacenter Systems
  • BladeCenter / Flex Systems
  • Converged Systems — HX Series
  • ThinkSystem
  • System x — X6, M5, M4
  • ThinkServer
  • Lenovo Sales Configurators
• Datacenter Storage
  • Enterprise Storage
  • LenovoEMC Storage
  • Lenovo Iomega Networking Storage
• Datacenter Networking
  • Datacenter Networking Hardware
  • Networking Management/Devops
• Datacenter Systems Management
  • Server System Management
  • Lenovo XClarity
  • Solutions on Lenovo Servers
  • LiCO — Lenovo Intelligent Computing Orchestration
• External Displays, Options and Accessories
  • Displays, Options and Accessories
• Virtual & Mixed Reality
  • Lenovo Explorer
  • Mirage Solo & Mirage Camera
• VR Classroom
  • VR Classroom Hardware
  • VR Classroom Software, Content, and Educator Resources
• Software and Operating System
  • Pre-Installed Lenovo Software and Applications
  • Enterprise Client Management
  • Lenovo Patch for SCCM
  • Security & Malware
  • Windows 10
  • Windows 8.1, 8, 7, Vista and XP Discussions
• Smart Office
  • ThinkSmart
• Smart Home
  • Lenovo Smart Display & Lenovo Smart Clock with Google Assistant
  • Lenovo Link App, Smart Home Essentials and Smart Frame
  • Lenovo Smart Tablets with Amazon Alexa
  • Lenovo Smart Tablets with Google Assistant
• Lenovo Developer Community
  • Windows Ecosystem Developers
  • Android Ecosystem Developers
  • Lenovo Technologies
• Special Interest Discussions
  • General Discussion
  • Feedback on the support site
• Linux Operating Systems
  • Fedora
  • Red Hat and CentOS
  • Ubuntu
  • Debian
  • Other Linux Discussions
• Ideation — Idea Exchange
  • XClarity Ideation

Community Guidelines

Please review our Guidelines before posting.

Check out current deals!

Most Popular Posts

• Re:T14 AMD battery drain in standby (Linux) 6
• X1 review: Dolby Voice for PC 4
• Lenovo Community Participation Rules 3
• Re:T14 AMD battery drain in standby (Linux) 3
• Re:Trackpoint randomly stops working 3
• Re:Ideapad 320 microphone not working on linux 2
• Re:Legion T7 34IMZ5 — BIOS preventing RAM upgrade 2
• Re:How to disable or change RGB profile during start up — Legion 7i 2
• Re:Trackpoint randomly stops working 2
• Re:T14s webcam performance issues 2

• Username
• Match exact username (no wildcards)
• User ID
• Email address
• Match exact email address (no wildcards)
• IP address
• Match any of the above criteria
• Duration of ban(Days)
• Duration of ban(Hours)
• Duration of ban(Minutes)
• Make ban permanent
• Internal reason for ban
• Public reason for ban

Welcome to Ideation!

Ideation sections have been created for customers to engage with us by discussing and promoting ideas and improvements relating to Lenovo’s products and services.

As a reminder, your participation in Ideation is governed by Lenovo’s website Terms of Use and by Lenovo’s Forums Community Guidelines. Additional terms governing the Ideation Program are included in the Ideation Terms and may be found here. For your convenience, here’s a

Quick summary of the highlights:

• This area is for ideas – improving our products or suggesting entirely new products – please keep technical support issues on the other boards designated for that purpose
• You’re giving your ideas freely for us to use so we can improve our offerings to you
• The ideas you give us are your own and are not confidential
• If we decide we want exclusive use of your idea, you’re agreeing to sell it to us at a fixed price

By clicking on “Yes” below you certify that you have read and agree to the Community Guidelines and the Ideation Terms, and acknowledge that by submitting any ideas, material, or information on the Ideation site you grant Lenovo the right to use any such submissions by you in any way without acknowledging, notifying, or compensating you, as described in those documents.

Thinkpad t520 windows 10

My current Lenovo ThinkPad is a T520, type 4240, s/n *******, Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit.

When attempting to upgrade to Windows 10, the process stops me by ticking off the main boxes EXCEPT for my display, which the message says is incompatible and that I need to contact the manuracturer.

Is this a common / expected problem with my specific ThinkPad, or, is something amiss with my ThinkPad?

What do I need to do to upgrade to Windows 10 with this specific ThinkPad? Am I able, in fact, to upgrade to Windows 10 with this specific model of ThinkPad??

Warm thanks in advance,
Dorian

178175 Page Views

• Posts: 12950
• Registered: ‎06-06-2011
• Location: Russian Federation
• Views: 178175

Re: Upgrade compatibility for Windows 10 for Lenovo ThinkPad T520

Do not forget to remove the apps unsupported.
Also, I’d suggest, reinstall win10 from the scratch after win10 upgrade. It’ll keep the activation but free the system from the incompatible trash.

x220 • Gobi 2000 3g | hdd, msata ssd, wwan, wifi, gps — unique config
ThinkPad 25 Special Anniversary Edition. #Retro. Signed by D.Hill
T470p | X1 Carbon Gen3 | Miix 2 10″ | Yoga Tablet 2-1050F (Android) + BT Keyboard
ThinkPad Stack • 2.4/5 Wireless Router, HDD 1 TB, BT Speaker, Power Bank, Mobile Projector

Do it well, worse becomes itself

Communities:

178175 Page Views

• Posts: 12950
• Registered: ‎06-06-2011
• Location: Russian Federation
• Views: 178175
• Message 2 of 7

Re: Upgrade compatibility for Windows 10 for Lenovo ThinkPad T520

If you mean not Nvidia graphics adapter with Optimus feature, but LCD itself, issue looks a bit strange.

What if to remove display and its driver from Device Manager? Windows 7 will install default display driver. Then perform Windows 10 upgrade and apply Lenovo display INF file for win10.
http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/products/Laptops-and-netbooks/ThinkPad-T-Series-laptops/ThinkPad-T520/downloads/DS103618

x220 • Gobi 2000 3g | hdd, msata ssd, wwan, wifi, gps — unique config
ThinkPad 25 Special Anniversary Edition. #Retro. Signed by D.Hill
T470p | X1 Carbon Gen3 | Miix 2 10″ | Yoga Tablet 2-1050F (Android) + BT Keyboard
ThinkPad Stack • 2.4/5 Wireless Router, HDD 1 TB, BT Speaker, Power Bank, Mobile Projector

Do it well, worse becomes itself

Communities:

• Posts: 5
• Registered: ‎06-25-2016
• Location: South Africa
• Views: 62
• Message 3 of 7

Re: Upgrade compatibility for Windows 10 for Lenovo ThinkPad T520

Thanks for the quick reply, much appreciated.

You make a good point, sorry, I should have been more explicit :-).

It was not the «physical» monitor I don’t think, that was the problem, but, rather, to your point, the actual driver which was the issue. To assist you with information around this, the driver listing under «Display Adapters» in Device Manager is as follows:

— Intel(R) HD Graphics Family [Version 8.15.10.2358, dated 2011/09/26 ]

— NVIDIA NVS 2400M [Version 10.13.18.5445, now updated to 2015/11/05 via automatic online update (see below)]

Two pieces of info. which may further assist your understanding around this issue:

1. As mentioned above, I updated the NVIDIA NVS 2400M driver to the latest version via the «search automatically» feature in Device Manager. However, that still did not allow me to upgrade to Win’s 10. The same incompatibility message came up.
2. The Intel(R) Graphics Family driver was, according to the Device Manager «search automatically» feature, already the latest driver.

Strangely, I also found a third driver under «Display Adapters» in Device Manager called «LogMeIn Mirror Driver», version 7.1.542.0, which is dated 2006/05/22. Note that I used to have «LogMeIn» software on my computer quite a while back which I uninstalled in favour of TeamViewer. Is this LogMeIn driver linked to that previous LogMeIn software, or, does LogMeIn supply a driver to Lenovo for its displays, which seem rather unlikely? Could this LogMeIn driver be the problem, do you think, especially since it dates back to 2006 (?!) (I bought my ThinkPad in 2012).

SHOULD I THEREFORE UNINSTALL THIS «LOGMEIN» DRIVER IF YOU THINK THAT IT SHOULD NOT BE THERE?

Hopefully now having clarified that it’s the display driver, rather than the physical monitor, that seems to be what is causing the problem, do you perhaps have a more confident idea of what the problem may perhaps be?

I’d very much like your updated opinion based on the above information I’ve just supplied before I try your previous suggestion of uninstalling the current NVIDIA driver. In the interests of prudency, I’d much rather obtain the most informed understanding as possible, via your expertise, before I go ahead and uninstall the current driver :-).