Windows 10: Reactivating Windows 10 Pro After Hardware Change

I got Windows 10 earlier last year in 2018 from the free downloadable installation media to upgrade from Windows 7. Earlier this month, I linked my computer to my Microsoft account in order to use a Digital License because I was going to upgrade components of my PC. I switched out the motherboard and ram this week, keeping the same hard drive untouched. It started up without problems, and Windows was deactivated as expected. I went to "Troubleshoot" and selected "I changed hardware on this device recently". From there, it will either tell me "Our servers aren't available right now.", or it will show me a list of my devices to choose from. After choosing my pc's name as the device I'm using, it will still say it was unable to activate Windows. I'm using Windows version 1803. The error showing in the activation panel is 0xC004C003.

:)

 

Windows 10 reactivation on hardware changes

Hi Florea,

It is possible that Windows won't be able to identify your computer correctly that is why the operating system is not activated. To address your issue, we suggest that you follow the steps in this
article on how to reactivate your Windows 10 after a hardware change.

Let us know if you need further assistance.

 

Motherboard change unable to reactivate Windows 10 Pro -


I have searched this topic and everything seems to be almost a year old. This is a homebuilt machine circa 2015. It started with an ASUS FM2+ motherboard with an AMD A5600K processor. It was Windows 7 Pro, upgraded to Windows 8.1 Pro then to Windows 10 Pro.
Saturday the motherboard died. An exact replacement could not be located so a Gigabyte card was installed. No changes to the hard drives. Booted the machine and Windows automatically started and then did a "revert" then installed the latest updates. C Drive was in the red so I deleted all of the old install files using Windows Clean-up. Went to reactivate, checked the significant hardware change and entered my MS account information - The computer (none of my computers) were listed and now it is telling me that I have to spend $200 to buy a copy of Windows 10 Pro.
Have not yet called Customer Support as the computer is at home and I work during the day -
I do have a disk image or two that may be a year old -

Suggestions - should I just shell out the $200 and move on

TIA

 

Motherboard change unable to reactivate Windows 10 Pro -

Activate using windows 7 pro key.