Hi, Jan,
I understood exactly what you meant, don't worry
I tried something different, just because I had Windows 10 installtion on my pendrive (from some installation at work). I launched the installation from USB and my Win7ProOEM Dell key was accepted right away. I think this is because I already converted 1 year ago a Windows 7 pro to version 10 on the same computer, from the same key. Microsoft kept my certificate on its servers and now when I entered the key again, it found the valid Win10 Pro certificate. The computer was indeed hard wired to internet at installation.
So it's not exactly what I'd call a solution to my initial problem, but I have what I needed, so it's OK.
Thank you again!