Windows 10: Activating Win 10 on an old PC with new hardware

Hi Folks


I have updated my 12 yr old PC with a faster processor and an SSD in the hope of being able to get Win 10 to boot in minutes rather than hours.


Now the machine is back on my desk I have happily booted it with the old HDD albeit pretty slowly. Win 10 asked for an Activation key and so I gave it the key from my Win 8.1 disc. I was forced into having Win 10 against my will. Win 10 accepted the key and things are all working much as before.


The computer repair guy put Win 10 on the SSD as an alternative boot to show off the speed. Certainly faster, but again it insisted on a Key. I gave it my trusty 8.1 Key but it spat it out saying "That's a Win 10 Home key. I'm Win 10 Pro".


As I am happyish with Win 10 Home I feel that my options are:


1. Delete the Pro install and then copy the HDD drive C: etc across to the SSD. The trouble is that I suspect win 10 will not like that. After all that would be the easy option.

2. Acquire from somewhere suggestions welcome Win 10 Home, do a new install with my Trusty Key and then go through the whole rigmarole of having to re-install all my apps.


I would be most grateful for the advice of this learned grouping on what I should do next.


Regards


Pete

:)

 

Activate Win 10 after changing the hardware (OS re-installed)

Hello,

Can anybody help me with the following issue. I've re-installed Win10 Pro after changing the hardware (motherboard, CPU, SSD etc.). An OS on the same PC previously was activated after it had been updated from Win 7 to Win 10 Pro. I've signed in to my account.
Tried to choose my PC from the list of proposed but got an error. Then I've deleted my PC with old hardware info from the device list in my account with preliminary changing the upgraded PC name. Now this PC is not available in the device list when I try to
re-activate the OS. Are there any actions, except for purchasing the new license, to re-activate my Win 10?

Thanks in advance.

 

Activating Windows on pc with new hardware

Im trying to activate windows on my pc with new hardware but I think I copied the product key wrong so it wont activate. I got windows 10 from a free update from 8.1. I cant seem to find my product key on my Microsoft account though my account does see
both the old pc and this new one. is there anyway to get it activated on this pc and deactivated on the old since I no longer have that hardware?

 

Activation on new hardware

In the activation troubleshooter, when it detects no problems or gets to the end screen, click "I changed hardware on my PC recently", and select the license that corresponds to your PC. You might need to restart your PC.