Windows 10: Activation after new hardware upgrades?

I have 4 systems to maintain - all had Win7 Ultimate 64bit, and all upgraded (free) to Win10 Pro successfully. Toward the end of this year, all 4 systems will have new motherboards, CPUs, memory and possibly SSDs.

I understand that major hardware changes will cause a deactivation state in Win10 (although I never had any issues with Win7 and hardware upgrades). It would be nice to just pop the old SSDs into each new system, do a few driver updates and be done...

I have seen references that the Win10 upgrade was ONLY good for the hardware it was installed on and you will have to purchase a copy of Win10 for your new hardware. I have also seen references that all you have to do is call MicroSoft, explain about your new hardware and reactivation should not typically be a problem.

I know I can start from scratch and put the original 7 on all of them and then do the free Win10 upgrade again, but this is tedious and I will likely lose most, if not all, of the third-party software (and games) that I had installed across the systems.

So the question is: has anyone done a major hardware upgrade after a free upgrade to Win10 from a valid Win7 / Win8 and successfully reactivated (assuming you were prompted for a reactivation)?

:)

 

Planning to upgrade processor, motherboard, RAM, etc

I have updated to Anniversary version 1607 and I read somewhere on some websites that after upgrading hardware there is option while re-activating to choose with new hardware. But before upgrading our e-mail should be linked to PC. In version 1607 there
is facility to re-activate after changing hardware.

 

Can't activate on new "hardware".

Hi DirkXZ,

If the license was purchased from Microsoft Store, you will really receive a digital license. You will only get a product key if you purchased it from an authorized retailer. Digital license is more convenient as you won't need to have the number with you
to activate the license. It's it tied up on your Microsoft account. To activate your Windows, make sure that you will use your Microsoft account as the administrator account on your device.

If this is what you've been doing, can you tell us the exact error message? Also, which VM are you using? Can you try with Bootcamp one more time and check if the heating issue persists? If so, you might have to report this issue on Apple. For initial troubleshooting,
review these articles:

• Activation in Windows 10.
• Get help with Windows activation errors.

We look forward to your response.

 

If you put in a new motherboard and CPU - it is a very BAD idea to move the old Windows installation over to it anyway due to the major differences in drivers that will result.

But, if you really want to try it that way - replace all the components and put in a blank hard drive or SSD. Install Windows 7 to it. Upgrade to Windows 10. Make sure that is activated. Then either put the old hard drive back in or clone the old hard drive to the new hard drive/SSD. The old Windows 10 should calculate the same Hardware ID for the new components as the upgrade Windows 10 did and will retrieve the activation from the activation servers that was pushed when you did the Windows 7 to Windows 10 upgrade prior. Maybe. Worth a try.

If you previously had Windows 7 retail licenses and product keys, read the Windows 10 upgrade EULA and notice that it says that retail licenses are supposed to upgrade to retail licenses and retain transferability, but in reality they upgrade to OEM licenses of Windows 10. Push the issue with Microsoft and they might give you retail Product Keys for Windows 10.

If you had OEM licenses for Windows 7 before, then it violates the EULA to transfer those Windows 7 (and resulting Windows 10 upgrades) to the new systems created by a motherboard and CPU upgrade.

 

Interesting approach - and I do have retail copies, not OEM...

 

I took an image of one system and put it on a fresh SSD and installed that SSD on a different motherboard that I had never used. It went through a couple of updates, black screens, then some registry updates and then booted up with no issues. I checked the activation, and as I suspected it says that I needed to call MS for activation, which I have not done yet since this was just a test for now.

 

But you had never upgraded that motherboard from Windows 7/8/8.1 to Windows 10 previously? That was the first step of my suggestion.

It should have been install fresh SSD on the new motherboard. Install Windows 7 on it. Upgrade it to Windows 10. THEN copy the other Windows 10 image over to it.

 

Right - my point was to see what would happen if I tried the OS from one system on a totally different motherboard, and it went better than I expected, other than the activation - which I expected. I did chat with a Microsoft rep today online and he confirmed that after the hardware upgrade on a free Win10 upgrade that they (Mircosoft) will have to remote access my system to verify the proper key, etc. before they can reactivate it.

 

I'll have to look back in old posts but someone found a way to install Windows 7/8/8.1 on a second partition on a cloned hard drive on a new motherboard, ran the getosstate.exe found on the Windows 10 ISO, copy the resulting XML file to a specific location on the cloned Windows 10 and get an activation for the Windows 10.

 

Was it something like this: (?) Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First - Windows 10 Forums

 

Based on the same procedure, but more applicable to your situation:
Activating windows 10 after major hardware change help - Page 2 - Windows 10 Forums

 

Wow - thanks, there is a lot to absorb in that thread. I will have to read through it carefully.

 

So we know a motherboard change will cause a deactivation, but how about if you only change memory? Or only a hard drive? Or only a video card?

 

Well, I verified that changing memory / hard drive / GPU had did not cause any activation issues.

 

The grey area seems to be changing the cpu on same motherboard. I have seen people claim it does not affect activation, and others say the opposite (on other forums). However, most people change a whole mobo.