Windows 10: Win10 hard drive transfer / license key / activation?

Hi all!

I have a very odd question...

I have an older lady who I help with computer issues from time to time. She has an older Toshiba laptop that just bit the dust, and bought a new laptop. The old Toshiba and the new laptop both run Win10 Home.

Now...she has a lot of software on the older machine she's had for years that she no longer has the installers for so has no way of getting the software onto the new laptop without buying it again (and it's expensive software).

I am aware you can swap hard drives from one machine to another with Win10 (and YES, I know it's not the smart way anybody should do it) and then re-enter the license key to activate it again...I've done it before.

Would it be possible to take the hard drive out of her old laptop, put it into the new one and then re-activate Win10 so she could keep her software? Win10 is very good at auto-installing hardware drivers, so I am not worried about that at all, I would just like to know if I would be able to activate Win10 on the new machine with the old hard drive containing her previous Win10 install...?

I know on newer machines that come with Win10, the license key is embedded in the BIOS....would the new machine just activate Win10 on the old swapped-in hard drive using the license key in the BIOS?

Thanks!

:)

 

Win10 on new hard drive, how to activate

• Installed Win10 to new hard drive, but Win7 code does not work.
• Tried online (slui.exe 4) activation:
  • entered numeric codes online - which failed,
  • talked to 1st line tech who entered Win7 code - did not work,
  • transferred me to 2nd line tech and no one came on the phone line after 2.5 hours.

Win7 was pre-installed on HP computer with no media provided and HP support has no process to supply replacement media or ISO (last HP purchase). Tried to install Win7 to new drive using Recovery Disks I created, but it could not find system image.

Not willing to return to old hard drive as the new one has SSD and is at least 3 (7?) times faster.

QUESTION 1: Is my only option now to buy either Win7 or Win10?

QUESTION 2: Without activation, when will Win10 no longer boot? If 12 months, I can retry online activation later.

 

How to transfer Win10 license correctly?

No, you don't need to transfer any licenses.

If you upgrade your Win7 Pro to Win10 it will get a digital license for Win10 Pro in it's own right, based on having a qualifying activated Win7. Although MS have said the free upgrades have ended, quietly behind they scenes they still will be activated.

Use the Media Creation Tool to make an install USB then use Step 6 in this tutorial.

Upgrade to Windows 10

 

Windows 10 Pro License Transfer on hard drive failure

Just to be certain:

I had a desktop with a retail version of Win 10 Pro that experienced a hard drive failure. Obviously, I still have the USB drive and key. The old computer wasn't worth updating so I purchased a new computer that came with Win10 Home edition. I'd like to
transfer that version over to Win10 Pro. Before I hose my new computer, I need to know 2 things:

1. Is the license transferable? From what I see, the retail version seems to allow this but as the old hard drive is toast I can't uninstall or deactivate the other version of Win 10.

2. Is this a link to show the procedure to do this?

Thanx!