Windows 10: New PC, old drive. Will Win 11 activate ?

My old OEM branded PC died just out of Warranty and I replaced it with an exact model with exact specs specs.. Rather than go through setup I want to simply install my old drive into the new PC. Will Windows 11 activate if I do this.

:)

 

Old win 10 pro key doesn't activate win 11

Hello,

I was using win 10 pro for 7 years with a multi computer CD key( original)

I recently built a new rig and installed win11 directly and used my old win10 pro CD key.

My old PC was synced with my Microsoft account and I used same account on win 11.

Now win 11 doesn't activate because of hardware change. I followed every possible troubleshoot from windows.

I was able to upgrade to windows 11 for free with my old PC but hardware requirements wasn't met.

I am not able to use my old cd key with win 11 ?

 

switching (C drives from old win 10 pro pc to new win 11 pc

Pretty self explanatory. The reason why I wanted to do this was because the new pc has a 256gb ssd and my old pc has a 500gb ssd, I also personally don't like win 11

Could I just replace the new ssd with the old one directly? Or would that mess up the OS?

 

Can I still upgrade to Windows 11 if I change the storage drive, CPU, and motherboard?

Thanks for the quick reply.

If I understood you correctly I'll have to follow the following steps:

1. Install the new hardware with Windows 10 still on the old drive.
   
2. Re-activate Windows 10 (probably requiring Microsoft Support).
   
3. Move the activated Windows 10 to the new drive.
   
4. Upgrade Windows 10 to Windows 11.
   

Is that correct?