Win 10 license

tried in on a legit Win8.1 laptop. Upgraded fine except the 8.1 key was not accepted. Had to resort to the web to get an 8.1 key and now the Win10 is asking me to activate with nag text in lower right corner. Kinda figured it would go this way...
if the previous version is already activated, the windows 10 install will be activated when it gets online. so if you did a fresh install of the old version, do the network drivers, get online and active, then do the upgrade.