Windows 10: Can't transfer license to a new PC

Hi! My old PC has been dead for about 8 - 9 months now and I haven't tried to replace it. Till now, amidst the current crisis that I have to attend my classes through the internet and my phone isn't really cutting it anymore. So my father found an old PC from his workplace that ran Windows XP. Unfortunately support for Windows XP has been dropped from almost all programs, due to security problems most likely. Anyway, I decided to format it and install Windows 10 hoping that my digital license, linked to my Microsoft account, would transfer over to the new PC. For my misfortune though, that is not the case and going through the troubleshooting process revealed to me that my old PC has an unsupported version somehow, and now I'm stuck, trying to find a solution because I need to attend to my classes next week. My old PC was upgraded to Windows 10 Pro after running an Insider build a few months before the release. Never had any problems when formatting my PC, even when I changed to Windows 10 Pro N, for less clutter from apps I didn't use. Everything activated fine once I logged to my account. I have exactly the same version installed on the new PC Windows 10 Pro N albeit the 32-bit version instead of the 64-bit since the new PC is lower speced Pentium 4 3.00 Ghz, 1 GB Ram. I really can't find out why the same version of Windows is considered unsupported for transferring, and through my search around the internet I haven't made much progress so I would really appreciate if someone from the community or Microsoft Support can help me out here. Thank you all in advance and I hope you're all doing well in these rough times.

:)

 

Transfer a Windows 10 license to a new PC

I have purchased a new PC and I would like to transfer Windows license from my old PC to the new one. I am using Windows 10 (which was upgraded from Win 8.1) on my older computer and is activated with a licence linked to my Microsoft account. On my new PC, I have installed fresh copy of Win 10 using Media Creation Tool. To activate Windows on the new PC, I attempted the following, but have not deactivated Windows on the old PC (deactivation procedure described here)-

Settings > Update & Security > Activation> Troubleshoot> I changed hardware on this device recently> Logged into my connected Microsoft account > This is the device I’m using right now > Activate.

After performing the above, I am unable to activate Windows on my new PC. Please help me with the following-

1. Do I need to deactivate windows on older PC first?
   
2. Does Microsoft entitle users to transfer licenses to new PC?
   
3. Is there anything else which I have missed out?
   

If this helps- slmgr -dli gives the following

 

Transfer Win 10 license to a new PC

Hello,

I bought a new PC and read that I can transfer my Windows 10 license to it and I have a few questions.

#1

Few years ago I used Win 7 Pro license to install my two PC's.

When FREE update came I upgraded both of them to Windows 10 x64 PRO.

Yesterday I assembled a new PC which will replace one of them and I want to transfer the license to it from the one it is replacing.

The question is if I transfer the activation license will I lose the activation on the second PC or not?

#2

What are the steps to do the actual license transfer?

 

Transfer digital license from old PC to New one.

You would have to first ensure the Digital License is linked to your Microsoft Account. See instructions how to do that. You can then use the Troubleshooter on the new computer after installing Windows 10 to restore the license.

• Use a Digital
  License to Manage and Activate Windows 10 Anniversary Update

Please note, if your license was upgraded from a OEM preinstalled Windows 7 or Windows 7 license, it is not transferable.

See:

• How to Transfer your Windows 10 License to a New Computer