windows 10 activation

[StalePie42]

i am building my self a new pc and i have an old windows 10 oem pc my question is can i transfer the licence using my Microsoft account ?

Thanks in advance

[BiotechBen]

14 minutes ago, StalePie42 said:

I am building myself a new PC and i was wondering do i need to activate windows 10 if i have previously owned a windows 10 PC as long as i sign into both of them with my Microsoft account

Thanks in advance

For some reason if you do the windows media creation tool from an OEM license onto the new one and use the same account it doesn't have the watermark? It is only intended to be used as backup media should your device completely fail, but for some reason there is a bug in it.

[Kilrah]

OEM licenses are tied to the specific machine and non-transferable.

[StalePie42]

do i get updates if i don't activate windows?

Thanks in advance 

[Zando_]

Yep. You just have a possibly annoying watermark (depends on if you care or not) and you can't change the UI color options. All other functions work AFAIK. 

[LogicalDrm]

*** Threads merged ***

 

Please keep your questions about Windows licenses and activation in this one thread.

[Robchil]

On 1/27/2022 at 7:21 PM, Kilrah said:

OEM licenses are tied to the specific machine and non-transferable.

no. you should be able to have up to 5 devices.  and if you added it to your microsoft account you can move them to your next pc build. 

 

[Kilrah]

4 minutes ago, Robchil said:

no. you should be able to have up to 5 devices.  and if you added it to your microsoft account you can move them to your next pc build. 

 

For a normal retail license yes, but not an OEM one. 

[Robchil]

4 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

For a normal retail license yes, but not an OEM one. 

weird i only have oem licences and can move them on. 

as you can still reactivate them after hardware changes...  so basicaly move them.

[Kilrah]

You can reactivate after gradual hardware changes since you're allowed to change components, but if nothing's the same in that machine it shouldn't.

[Robchil]

22 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

You can reactivate after gradual hardware changes since you're allowed to change components, but if nothing's the same in that machine it shouldn't.

but it does.

 

[StalePie42]

3 hours ago, Robchil said:

but it does.

 

I didn't really understand how you transfer your windows licences from a prebuilt pc 

[Robchil]

7 minutes ago, StalePie42 said:

I didn't really understand how you transfer your windows licences from a prebuilt pc 

install a pc. enter licence key? 

[StalePie42]

26 minutes ago, Robchil said:

install a pc. enter licence key? 

but how can you do that with an oem licence?

[wseaton]

OEM licenses lock to the motherboard.  Not sure how the algorithm works fully, but you can change pretty much any other component without issues but a MB swap usually trips it.

 

Sometimes OEMs will reactivate automatically if moved to machines with the same manufactured MB because the reg code is in the BIOS. HP to HP for instance. Clone an OEM Dell to a Lenovo though and I guarantee it won't activate. Third party OEMs though seem to be more liberal. 

 

Technically the license with an OEM cannot be moved from the MB it was initially registered with, and this included virtualization.