Transferring an old hard drive with Windows 10 installed to a new PC

[United_Chi]

Hi all,

 

I couldn't find the answer my self, so I tried to find the answer myself. I'm building a new PC, but have a old SSD with windows installed. I've heard you can move the hard drive with windows installed on it to the new PC but only in a certain situation. Foreword, I am not the most technologically savvy person, nor am I a computer builder (I've never done it). But this will save me $100 for a copy of windows and $70 for a similar SSD to which I have. This money will be used on my new PC to buy a better GPU. If this information is not correct, please comment below. This is just the information that I found and received from Microsoft support.

 

The Plan:

Move an old hard drive with Windows installed on it to a new computer with all new parts except for the hard drive you are moving from your old PC to the new PC.

 

You CANNOT do this if:
If you purchased a pre-built computer it has a version of Windows 10 called OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer.) Basically, cheaper copies of windows that CANNOT be transferred once installed on a single machine.

 

You CAN do this if:
However, if you upgraded to windows 10 from windows 7 or 8, you have something called a Digital License. Which means you have a copy of windows 10 tied to your Microsoft account. This is just how they decided to go about upgrading everyone's operating system. 

 

I contacted Microsoft and they essentially (My summarized version) provided me the following step by step guide:

 

Remove hard drive with windows installed on old PC.

Install old hard drive into new PC.

Turn PC on.

When it asks for windows key. Say you DO NOT have a key.

This launches windows but an "Unofficial / Unlicensed" copy of windows.

Sign into  you Microsoft account.
(Your Microsoft account acts as your product key / activation key) 

Done. 

[rcmaehl]

This is correct. You may not even get a windows key prompt if the new system is similar at all to your old system.

[rcmaehl]

One additional note. If you're switching from AMD to Intel or vice versa, you may need to reset Windows.

[United_Chi]

20 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

This is correct. You may not even get a windows key prompt if the new system is similar at all to your old system.

In my new build it will not be anything similar besides intel to intel.

New motherboard/CPU/GPU/Memory the whole shebang except keeping hard drives. It will probably prompt to enter key, but it shouldn't be a problem if I follow what Microsoft told me above.

[lloose]

With a chipset change, I highly recommend just reinstalling Windows 10. You can still go through the same process to activate the new install since the key is tied to your microsoft account.

[United_Chi]

1 hour ago, lloose said:

With a chipset change, I highly recommend just reinstalling Windows 10. You can still go through the same process to activate the new install since the key is tied to your microsoft account.

As in download to a flash drive, load it up, refuse entering key, and then signing into Microsoft account? Would that even work?

[United_Chi]

Just now, United_Chi said:

As in download to a flash drive, load it up, refuse entering key, and then signing into Microsoft account? Would that even work?

And even so, I want the SSD in the new build anyway. Would I have to move it to another computer and delete windows off of it, so the new one would be able to be installed?

[lloose]

It shouldnt be a problem unless both machines are powered on and connected to the internet. And honestly even then its probably going to work.