No upgrading current PC and being able to keep win 10

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ToddAT

Junior Member
Aug 29, 2019
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Well, I had plans to upgrade my really old PC to a new Ryzen system. Been contemplating various ways of doing this - fresh install, disk image, whatever. Was looking around on the Microsoft site and saw this:

When you upgrade from a previous version of Windows, what happens is the hardware, (your PC), will get a digital license. This is a unique signature of the computer which is stored on Microsoft Activation Servers. The Windows 7 or Windows 8 genuine license you were previously running will be exchanged for a diagnostics product key.

Anytime you need to reinstall Windows 10 on that machine, just proceed to reinstall Windows 10. It will automatically reactivate. The only exception where this applies is dependent on the license you upgraded from. If you change your motherboard and originally you upgraded from a Windows 7 OEM or Windows 8 OEM license, then your Digital Entitlement will be invalidated. You will need to purchase a new full version license.

My PC is currently running Win 10 and it was upgraded from win 7 (not sure about the OEM part, been a long time). So, If I am reading the above correctly, it seems that if I upgrade my motherboard and try installing win 10, my activation will be invalidated. Hopefully, I am not reading this correctly or maybe I am missing something. Also, I wonder if this only applies to motherboard replacement. I mean surely people have hard drives that die and need to do a reinstall and can keep their digital license. For that matter, motherboards go bad too. This is all a bit confusing to me, I have only ever just used a product key. Now, I am not sure I even want to go through with my PC upgrade - MB, disks, CPU, because I might lose my win 10 license.
 
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ToddAT

Junior Member
Aug 29, 2019
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How can they sale Win 10 Pro at that price? I have doubts that this would be a legal license. I also wonder what "global" means. If this is really legit, sure, I would get it and be happy. I would just hate to spend a lot of time and money buying an all new hardware system, doing installs and updates, programs, data, etc and to come up against some problem with the license.

Also. I take it that you are implying that my original post is correct, and I wont be able to use my current license if I do a hardware rebuild, although you did not explicitly comment on it.
 
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ToddAT

Junior Member
Aug 29, 2019
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How do you know? Hate to sound pushy about it, but my BS detector is really peaking. Win 10 Pro retails about anywhere for way more than that.
 
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ToddAT

Junior Member
Aug 29, 2019
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OK, did some research they had a little write up on cheap keys. Looks like it is legit. Said there are some shady places but vouched for Kinguin and they have it for about 30. Thanks for the heads up, I have no worries about PC upgrade now.
 
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Flayed

Senior member
Nov 30, 2016
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ToddAT said:
Also. I take it that you are implying that my original post is correct, and I wont be able to use my current license if I do a hardware rebuild, although you did not explicitly comment on it.
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You may be able to use your original license if you call Microsoft and get them to trasnsfer it to your new build. I suggested buying a cheap volume licence key because it is a lot less hassle.
 
mikeymikec

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
21,163
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mikeymikec

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
21,163
16,367
136
Note to OP: You can buy a Win10 retail licence (normally comes in an MS branded Windows 10 box, includes a memory stick and a non-OEM product key. It's a transferable licence.

Retail licences cost a little more but if you prefer to be 100% legit, then assuming that Win10 is truly the last version of Windows, that should save you money in the long run.

Having said that, when customers have had activation difficulties after say a faulty board was replaced, their original Win7/8x product key did the trick for me (because when a machine was 'free upgraded' in 2015/2016, the product key it ends up using in Win10 is not the original key).
 
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Flayed

Senior member
Nov 30, 2016
431
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deustroop

deustroop

Golden Member
Dec 12, 2010
1,915
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Look here
https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...fter-changing-hardware.2569391/#post-39913905
One can install new equipment all day without issue until the board changes.
Will you change the board? Seems so. The question then is whether the 7 licence was oem, and you cannot remember . So I suggest you do the new build and be prepared to purchase a new licence if required because you upgraded on an oem. The way to avoid a new licence is having proof you paid for the 7 licence . If you can do that, call MS support after the new build and they will issue a new licence .
 
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ToddAT

Junior Member
Aug 29, 2019
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deustroop

deustroop

Golden Member
Dec 12, 2010
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I did not address whether the proposed new licence is legit, only whether you will need a new one at all.
 
mikeymikec

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
21,163
16,367
136
Flayed said:
I believe they are volume license keys meant for businesses buying in bulk. I have bought and used Windows keys from urcdkey 3 times without any problem. YMMV.
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Which means they're stolen, see my previous response.

ToddAT said:
Well that's what I thought at first too but who knows what is legit these days. Look it, Donald Trump is the freakn president. An OS for $14 seems doable.
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The manufacturer of an item sells it at a certain price. Windows licences do not go 'out of date', they don't degrade in any way, they don't use up much space, and they can basically sit on the shelf for years, so there's no "sale / getting rid of old stock" principle at work here. If Microsoft sold Windows 10 for $15, do you honestly think that every supplier would sell it for approximately ten times the price and not ever try to undercut the competition significantly with that much wiggle room available? I've been buying Windows licences for about twenty years, I've literally never seen a legitimate supplier selling them for significantly less (what I've seen generally constitutes a 10% variation in price), it's only these dodgy ebay-style sellers who do it, because they've lifted the licences from elsewhere and re-sell them as much as they can until they don't activate anywhere any more. Then the buyers run the risk of having the licences de-activated after MS spots widespread piracy of a particular licence key.

- edit - My mistake - I've seen one legitimate supplier sell a Windows licence for a tenth of the normal price. It was Windows 2000 Professional being sold in ~2015 (ie. utterly obsolete).
 
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ToddAT

Junior Member
Aug 29, 2019
9
0
6
The law, taxes and software are all hard to pin down as far as what makes sense. For the amount of time I have spent trying to figure out all the upgrade paths for both hardware and software I think it would just be better to buy a retail version OS at standard pricing and move on with my life.
 
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whm1974

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2016
9,436
1,571
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ToddAT said:
The law, taxes and software are all hard to pin down as far as what makes sense. For the amount of time I have spent trying to figure out all the upgrade paths for both hardware and software I think it would just be better to buy a retail version OS at standard pricing and move on with my life.
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if I needed Windows 10 I would just buy the retail version and just be done with it.
 
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