Activating Windows 10 is kinda like playing roulette

[UsandThem]

So to keep this short and not write a novel, I just had an interesting experience.

About a year ago I bought a copy of Windows 10 Home OEM from Newegg (sold and shipped by Newegg). The ID was sealed inside a cardboard envelope, and it wasn't tampered with. After I opened it and went to activate it on my son's computer, it refused to activate online, and I had to call in to their activation center in India, who gave me an installation ID for it to activate.

Fast forward to this week. I replaced his Z97 mobo/i5 CPU/DDR3 RAM, and reinstalled Windows since I switched him over to a Ryzen 1700X / X370 / DDR4 build. After getting everything installed and tested to make sure it all worked, I figured I would have to buy a new copy of Windows since the version I had was OEM. I figured I'd just try to activate for giggles, and tried it. To my surprise, it activated online with no issues. So from this experience I guess an OEM license is not tied to the motherboard?

Windows....you just never know what to expect.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

That's a heck of a story . . . .

Given the hassles we all go through over these "white-box" OEM Windows 7 . . . 10 releases, it almost seems . . . .incredible. There's not supposed to be a scatter of outcomes in this part of digital reality. I mean, if they were keeping track of your system on paper, with filing cabinets, maybe something could get switched around or changed. But you have to ask "How is this possible?!"

 

[Alpha One Seven]

It's tied to the system as a whole, and not a single part of that whole, once a certain percentage has been changed though, you have to call them to get it reset to the machine again.

 

[mikeymikec]

The OEM licences for Win10 that I buy these days also have scratch-away foil over the product key. Did yours have that?

 

[UsandThem]

The OEM licences for Win10 that I buy these days also have scratch-away foil over the product key. Did yours have that?

No it didn't. It had a card with the activation code that was similar to the ones they used to stick on the sides of pre-built PCs. But the outer packaging it was sealed in had rip tabs, so it was never opened by anyone than me.

 

[RhoXS]

Usandthem, was glad to read about your experience because I am preparing to make some changes on two machines and have really been dreading a potential activation hassle with both machines. It’s time for a clean install on both machines, a swap of the CPU between the two machines, and a new M.2 NVMe SSD in one of them. The mobos will remain and I will of course use the same W10 serial numbers with their respective mobo,s. Your experience gives me some hope these hardware changes will not result in any problems.

 

[UsandThem]

So another twist happened tonight with my Windows 10 key.

It was activated on my son's updated computer, and there have been no issues. So tonight I decided to use his old motherboard/CPU to build another folding machine, and the rest of the parts were different (SSD, GPU, Wifi card). My plan was to install Windows on this new PC, and order another OEM disc from Newegg for it. So I install it using a ISO on a USB drive from Microsoft's website, and after it was done installing, there was no "activate Windows" notification on the desktop. So I go to settings, and see it was automatically activated using a digital license.

So I guess Microsoft ties the key to the motherboard/CPU. What sucks is now I am sure it deactivated the license on my son's PC. Not the worst thing in the world, but if you ever decide to sell your motherboard and CPU, it appears if the person buys both of them, your Windows 10 license will go with it once they install Windows 10. I have to say I am not a big fan of how they do this.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Fast forward to this week. I replaced his Z97 mobo/i5 CPU/DDR3 RAM, and reinstalled Windows since I switched him over to a Ryzen 1700X / X370 / DDR4 build. After getting everything installed and tested to make sure it all worked, I figured I would have to buy a new copy of Windows since the version I had was OEM. I figured I'd just try to activate for giggles, and tried it. To my surprise, it activated online with no issues. So from this experience I guess an OEM license is not tied to the motherboard?

So I guess Microsoft ties the key to the motherboard/CPU. What sucks is now I am sure it deactivated the license on my son's PC. Not the worst thing in the world, but if you ever decide to sell your motherboard and CPU, it appears if the person buys both of them, your Windows 10 license will go with it once they install Windows 10. I have to say I am not a big fan of how they do this.

My experience is when I recently replaced a motherboard I had to call MS to have them activate 10 on the new hardware with the old hard drive. After some time on the phone they were able to do it after giving them permission to access the pc remotely. A couple of days later I was able to clean install it on that hardware without issue so if you call them they will transfer the license to the new hardware.