Windows 10: upgraded my motherboard over Xmas now it wants me to reactivate windows

as the title says, upgraded my motherboard and it says to reactivate windows. I have followed the on screen prompts all the way to troubleshoot, just shows the old motherboard and not the new one when i click "i have changed hardware" option and it wont reactivate like it should. now when i did some digging into my MS acct, it shows that I have 2 devices with the same name, one with 16 gb ram old motherboard and one with 32 gb new motherboard. what would happen if i removed the old motherboard from my acct? would I loose the ability to reactivate windows on this new board? worried cause I

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Reactivating retail Windows 10 pro after upgrading motherboard

I'm about to upgrade my motherboard and I already have my Windows 10 license linked to my Microsoft Account. Can I erase the hard drive, upgrade the motherboard, clean install Windows 10 and then run troubleshooter to reactivate with the same Microsoft account? What would happen if I use the Remove PC option in the list of devices in my Microsoft Account? Is there a way to do a remote wipe from the Microsoft account with Find My Device?

 

Windows 10 and upgrading motherboard

Hi,



Thank you for bringing up your query on Microsoft Community.



The only hardware changes that can negatively impact activation status once you upgrade to free version are the changes to the:

• CPU
• TPM
• Motherboard replacement

The following changes are examples of hardware changes that will NOT impact the activation status:

• HDD/SSD
• Video card
• Adding extra memory

Let us follow the steps suggested by Andre Da Costa (replied
on July 26, 2015) in the following thread:



Will Upgrading Motherboard After Upgrading To Windows 10 Make Me Lose My Windows License?

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Kindly let us know if you need any further assistance with Windows, we are glad to assist you.

 

New Motherboard and Reactivation

I **think** that if you are replacing a broken motherboard with an identical replacement then you have a good chance of successfully re-activating your current Win10 installation

Once you have installed your new identical motherboard to replace the broken one I recommend you do the following:

• Speak to a Microsoft Activation Customer Service Representative on the phone.
• You will be able to get the phone number via the activation screen in "Settings"
• Clearly state that the motherboard used to initially activate Windows 10 had failed and needed to replaced
• Clearly state that this is a repair and not an upgrade
• Clearly state that you are replacing a defective motherboard with an identical like-for-like replacement (same make and model)
  
• Clearly state again that this is definitely not an upgrade of your existing hardware

FYI, I have successfully re-activated previous versions of Windows after replacing a broken motherboard with an identical make and model. I used the method to ensure success.

If you are not 100% clear in the way you are expressing your self then you may not be successful. ie They will not re-activate if they believe you performed a major hardware upgrade

Good luck.