Windows 10: Help with license activation

My old Asus hard drive HDD has called it quits after nearly 10 years not bad eh? So here's details. I upgraded the windows 8 to windows 10, as soon as the free upgrade was released.. a long time ago.

Last year my husband gave me his 12+ year old Lenovo which i immediately upgraded windows 7pro to windows 10. Recently it would no longer power up despite being plugged in.

Since the asus HDD was toast, and The Lenovo was no longer functioning, my husband took out the Lenovo SSD and put it into the asus.

Now instead of 2 non working laptops, I have one functioning one.

The problem is that Im getting a message that windows needs activation with a product key, which I don't have. Can anyone tell me how to resolve this?

Thank you in advance.

:)

 

help to remote connect

not sure how to use both programs u 2 suggested, i need more helpful steps thanks

 

Win 10 activation is expiring - volume license

Finally got it activated but still confused as to what is really going on with activation.

here is what I did:

-got another Win7 Pro key from a friend (non volume license one)
-I tried to activate it, but it gave the same error message as before, "could not activate with this key"
-following suggestion above, I tried it a second time. This time it activated !!! (internet was connected both times)

don't know why just doing it 2 times makes it work. maybe someone else can explain that.

I checked it with ShowkeyPlus and to my surprise it now said it was activated and showed the installed key as the generic Win10Pro key that is listed in above post. But I did not enter that key. ????

 

Licensing and activation

Activation depends on what type of license you have of Windows 7/8/10.

If Windows 7/8/10 came preinstalled with the computer, that is called an OEM license. For an OEM license, the license dies as soon as Motherboard dies. So essentially it is non-transferable. If that is the case you need to get a new license.

However, this is not same for retail licenses i.e. you purchased the license through Microsoft store. That does carry transfer rights. If that is the case, please see the below steps:

Run the activation troubleshooter on the new device using the below steps:

Go to Settings>Update and security>Activation and run the troubleshooter.

Select I recently changed hardware on this device.

Please note that Activation troubleshooter requires you to have digital license linked to Microsoft Account.

Alternatively, if that does not help, you would have to call Microsoft Support.

Contact Microsoft using the phone numbers below or use the chat support link(weekdays only)

https://support.microsoft.com/en-in/help/405170...

https://partner.support.services.microsoft.com/...

Please let us know if you need any assistance.