Windows 10: Built a New PC - Can't Activate Licence

Hi All - Thanks in advance for the help!


I was using my old PC with a retail version of Windows 10 installed, with activation screen stating Windows is activated with a digital licence linked to microsoft account.


I have built a new PC, installed windows 10 using a USB drive after downloading from Microsoft website.


I have logged in to the new PC with my Microsoft account and everything appears to be working fine, however Windows is not activated.


My expectation was that i would be able to transfer the activation from the old PC to the new one, is this not the case?


I have tried using the troubleshoot to activate via "I recently changed hardware on this device", however this only displays my old PC to activate and not the new one. I find this odd as when i log in to my microsoft account, both old & new PCs are showing in my devices.

:)

 

Activation of Windows 10 on new PC

I've recently built a new computer and am trying to activate Windows 10 on it. I have a digital licence that's tied to my Microsoft account, but when I try to go through the activation steps via the "My hardware recently changed" option, it doesn't show
my new computer on the list, though it does show the old one I'm trying to transfer the licence from. I have signed in on both with the same Microsoft account, and both are listed as devices connected to my account. I've tried signing out of my Microsoft account
and back in on both of them, to no effect. It was a free upgrade from Windows 7, but I made sure to activate it to tie it to my account.

 

windows 10 activation - licence will expire soon

There are two new entries in the Diagnostic report.

1. Activation Scenario Code:

2. ProductKey Code:

Both are blank on my PC.

My guess is 1. above relates to this VAMT Step-by-Step Scenarios (Windows 10) | Microsoft Docs - if so non-volume users won't be affected.

No idea about 2. - there are more than enougn PK entries already!... was hoping some more digital licencing stuff would come up.

Gonna have to do some more digging and testing,,,

 

activating win10 licence on a different computer

Hi Chris

Because you have a full retail licence then you can transfer that licence to a new PC

Before you sell that laptop, here are the steps to remove your Windows 10 licence form that laptop

Click your Start Button, then just type cmd

From the resulting list, right click Command Prompt and choose 'Run as Administrator'

Paste this into Command Prompt and press Enter

slmgr.vbs /upk

When that command completes, close Command Prompt

That's It, that will remove your Windows 10 licence form that laptop . .