Windows 10: Installing new instance of Windows 10 but is automatically activated?

I've got this computer I replaced the hard drive on. It had Windows 7 on it and I purchased a Windows 10 Home OEM license key from Microcenter. I used a USB stick I created using the Windows Install Media Creation Tool. When the machine booted up, it was already activated! How can that be? Not only that, it was activated with Windows 10 Pro as a "digital license". Why was I not prompted for a license key? Further, I tried to replace the license key with the one I bought and I get an error telling me it did not work. After that I used an elevated CMD and issued slmgr /upk and slmgr /cpky. When I reboot, it still says it's activated. If I issue slmgr /upk again, it tells me there is no product key.

What the heck?

:)

 

Installing Windows 10 on New PC?

I'm going to be building a new PC on Christmas and want to install Windows 10 on it. I have Windows 10 on my current PC, which I installed upgrading from 8.1 with the files on a USB. How do I go about installing a clean copy of Windows 10 on this new PC? I think I recall something about installing it once makes Microsoft recognize your hardware, but since this will be a PC I'm not sure what steps I need to take. Do I need to go 8.1 -> 10 or is there a method of going directly to 10?

 

Windows 10 activation question

do the upgrade
it should activate automatically when online
if you want todo a clean install after that simply boot from your windows 10 installation media and when prompted for a key during install/post install select skip ..
it will re-activate within 5M of being online

 

windows xp installation and dual core am

could someone please list the steps they follow to install windows with a dual core processor and windows xp service pack to. I'm reletively new to amd dual core and i feel i'm missing a step. All help will be appreciated. thanx