Windows 10: Win10 Digital License Will not Activate After Re-install

I have a Windows 10 digital license on my account from and Windows 8 Pro upgrade. My system was having random reboots lately so I decided to reinstall. Once I logged in with my account which has the license I went to the Activation section of Settings and it is not active. It displays, in yellow text, "Windows reported that the hardware of your device has changed. Error code 0xC004F211". The only H/W change during the re-install was removal of an Nvidia GPU as I only need Intel iGPU for now.


I selected Troubleshoot > "I changed Hardware on this device recently" and I receive a dialog stating:

"Unable to activate Windows

We can't find any device linked to your Microsoft account that can be used for reactivating the device you're using right now..."


I am signed into the correct account, I tried booting with the GPU back in and still receive the same issue. Did Microsoft just consume my license?


Side question: Selecting See other device > learn more, load an MS support page which quickly resolves to:

"AADSTS50196: The server terminated an operation because it encountered a loop while processing a request"

as well as any MS support page results in the same error. Is it just some MS services are down right now and perhaps this could be affecting my activation?

:)

 

Digital license

Thats how licensing works with Windows 10, the digital license is attached to your Microsoft Account and makes it easy to reactivate Windows 10 in the event you reinstall it.

Learn more:

• Use a Digital
  License to Manage and Activate Windows 10

 

Activation issues -- digital license

Hi. I am running Windows 10 Pro N under parallels on a mac. I originally was running windows 7, and at some point a while back, I upgraded to Win10. That Win10 says it's running on a digital license connected to my microsoft account.

Unfortunately, at the time I originally installed, I must have accidentally installed the 32 bit version, and I have critical apps that have started to require 64 bits.

So I created an install ISO from the media creation tool and booted it under parallels. However, it's not activated and says it's not connected to a digital license. I can see both parallels instances on my account.microsoft.com page. Everything about them
looks identical on that page, and the hardware configuration of parallels is the same for both as far as I can tell.

When I try activation on the 64 bit Win10, it fails with "we can't activate windows on this device because you don't have a valid digital license or product key. Error code: 0xC004C003" (according to the working 32 bit version, there is no product key, it's
a digital license tied to my microsoft account)

The Microsoft support person I spoke to says I'll need to re-buy Windows 10. I don't understand why I can't just connect my 64 bit VM Win10 to my digital license and then I can just drop the 32 bit version.

Any ideas on how I can either salvage a workable product key from the working Win10 or connect the 64 bit Win10 to my digital license?

 

Digital License

Windows 10 Digital License

When you upgraded from a previous version of Windows or receive a new computer preinstalled with Windows 10, what happened is the hardware (your PC) will get a digital entitlement, where a unique signature of the computer will be stored on Microsoft
Activation Servers. The Windows 7 or Windows 8 genuine license you were previously running will be exchanged for a diagnostics key.

Anytime you need to reinstall Windows 10 on that machine, just proceed to reinstall Windows 10. It will automatically reactivate. You will prompted to enter a product key a couple times through the installation, click I don't have
a key and Do this later.

There is no need to know or get a new key, but if you have issues with Digital Licensing or the Activation Troubleshooter, you can utilize an existing Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 product key you already own to
reactivate if necessary. or use the reset function in Windows 10.

Activate Your Windows 10 License via Microsoft Chat Support

Reinstall by Performing a Direct Clean Install

If Windows 10 was already installed and activated on your system, just proceed to perform a direct clean install as described in the following articles.

Step 1: How
to download official Windows 10 ISO files

Step 2:

• How to: Perform a clean install of Windows 10