Windows 10: bought a secondhand pc with oem sticker

Hello,Like the title describes i bought a secondhand pc with the oem license sticker on it.But i am unable to activate windows with it.What option do i have except buying a new code? The lines to call to are down as i tried to call them today and yesterday and there is only a beeping sound.Friendly regards Freddy.

:)

 

dodgy coa sticker question

i belive this is going a totaly different direction i expected

i know the difference between oem and retail or volume licence , the problem is the sticker say windows 7 pro oa oem software but key checked via show key plus program list this key as windows 7 all volume editions volume mak and i am not sure if that is a coincidence that i mannaged to type in volume mak key that is similar to my sticker key, syicker key got rebranded as volume licence after binding it to microsoft account or was it a fraud sticker with volume key printed on oem blank coa sticker and i didn't noticed that before because everything was working on old pc

i was thinking of upgrading my oem pc with few things that may or may not make the broken pc unrecognizable by microsoft and use "this computer hardware has changed recently" option in troubleshooting
where i live this sorts of upgrade is regarded by law as legal as if this was the same computer with windows 10 digital licence it was however reworked to work only once per licence if i remember corectly

we had state inspection of software legality at work and few computers upgraded this way passed it as still being legal

 

Transferring OEM licenses between PC's

I have a Windows 10 desktop, this key was purchased online and successfully activated with my current setup. It's a custom buld PC

I also have a secondhand Dell laptop, with genuine key on sticker, coming to me in the near future.

One of the reasons for the purchase was that my desktop is pretty buggy

What I wanted to know is, can I swap the versions of Windows between the 2 machines and still stay within Microsoft terms.

Happy to do all the legwork myself, also is there any additional steps (like de-activation) that I need to take before installing fresh copies on each PC

Thanks

 

My First Secondhand PC - Making Sure It's Fit For Everyday Usage

I'm hard pushed to remember when (if ever) I bought a PC from new. Cash Converters is my 'supplier of choice' *Wink

Generally I'll first make a Macrium Reflect system image of the PC as received. Then I run the all OEM BIOS diagnostics, and Memtest++ to decide if I can trust the hardware. Then, as I'll never fully trust the software, I'll do a clean install of Windows 10 or Windows 11 as appropriate.