Windows 10: Can't activate Windows 10 on new computer. (Long)

Hey everyone! Recently, I went about building a new computer, and as part of this I upgraded my slow Seagate to a much faster M.2 Samsung drive. I was excited to use my new computer, but first I had to put windows on the new SSD. After trying tools like EaseUS Todo Backup, which migrates your entire drive over to the SSD, I couldn't boot from the SSD, so I tried something else.


I used an 8GB flash drive with the Windows Media Creation tool, and put it into my new computer. After installing windows, I found that windows was not activated, even though I had signed in with my microsoft account. I tried the troubleshoot tool and it said that I couldn't activate windows because I don't have a key (0xC004F050) and that I couldn't use Windows 10 from my other computer (MSI laptop) because the MSI had Windows 10 Home and the flash drive installed Windows 10 Pro.


First of all, I was unsure how I got windows 10 Pro, but I found the answer. Before I built my new computer, I had a prebuilt Dell XPS 8900 which came with Windows 7, but I immediately upgraded to Windows 10. I learned that upgrading from Windows 7 to 10 came with a free Pro upgrade.


To try to remedy this problem, I ran the Windows Media Installation tool from my laptop, hoping to get Windows 10 Home on my computer instead of Pro. This worked (i'm typing this from my computer!), but Windows still won't activate. However, this time I have the option to "sacrifice" my laptop in order to get activated on my desktop. I would prefer not to do this however as I still would like to use my laptop. Additionally, I lost/threw away the original box for the Dell, so I can't find the product key on it.


I still have the Seagate hard drive with windows on it, and all the original components from the Dell XPS.


Thanks everyone!

:)

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Pressing “Windows+Pause Break” (it’s up there next to scroll lock) opens the “System” Window.

Windows 10: In the new version of Windows, Explorer has a section called Quick Access. This includes your frequent folders and recent files. Explorer defaults to opening this page when you open a new window. If you’d rather open the usual This PC, with links to your drives and library folders, follow these steps:

• Open a new Explorer window.
• Click View in the ribbon.
• Click Options.
• Under General, next to “Open File Explorer to:” choose “This PC.”
• Click OK

credit to Lifehacker.

 

Windows 10 Activation (Insider)

How long did you wait for activation?
When I re-installed with a fresh install... it took a few hours to sync and activate.
However, it did, finally, activate.

 

Windows 10 Activation (Insider)

I did a full clean install of Windows 10 a while back and it will not activate. I didn't do a clean install from Windows 7/8/8.1 it was from Windows 10 (activated) so I expected it to activate just fine since it was fine before hand.

My Windows 10 license wasn't created from a previous Windows 7/8/8.1 key I got it from signing up to be an insider back in Nov of 2014. I installed a preview build on my laptop from the insider program and it worked just fine and it automatically upgraded to newer and newer preview builds and then to the full release automatically, fully activated and working fine. I did a full clean install not long ago (expect it to go through without issue since it was working before) and now it will not activate and I can't find any info on how to get it to activate and I can't seem to find the insider Windows 10 key.

Microsoft online support was useless and the gave me the toll free number to tech support.. I am currently on the phone waiting, they said it could be a 1hr 30min wait.. sigh.. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.