Windows activation/licensing question

[ho72]

My path to Win 10 was: 7 pro (oem) > 8/8.1 free upgrade > 10 free upgrade. When I recently did a clean install of 10 to new hardware and tried to activate, it wouldn't take the previous Win 10 (old hardware) product ID/CD key but activation was perfectly happy with that data from 8.1.

All good, so far.

My question is, I have the old Win 10 disk in my new machine for reference and it's bootable. If I let it connect to the internet (which I haven't as of yet), will I run into licensing issues?

 

EDIT: I posted before I saw there is a dedicated Windows section. Mods, please relocate if necessary. Thanks.

[RZomerman]

no - as long as your hardware did not change massively .. you are good to go

[ho72]

It was a total new build: mobo, cpu, system disk, etc.

[RZomerman]

 

[Needfuldoer]

43 minutes ago, ho72 said:

It was a total new build: mobo, cpu, system disk, etc.

It's a whole new system with completely different hardware IDs. It's not going to affect Windows licensing for your old PC.

[ho72]

11 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

It's a whole new system with completely different hardware IDs. It's not going to affect Windows licensing for your old PC.

Even if the "old PC" (which exists now only as an OS drive) is running on totally different hardware?

[Needfuldoer]

Sorry, misread your question.

 

If you just boot the install media on the new PC, it won't affect the old one.

 

If you boot the new PC off the old PC's Windows install, it will be de-activated. Because the root of your Windows 10 license is an OEM copy of a previous version of Windows, I don't know if it will activate.

[ho72]

2 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

Sorry, misread your question.

 

If you just boot the install media on the new PC, it won't affect the old one.

 

If you boot the new PC off the old PC's Windows install, it will be de-activated. Because the root of your Windows 10 license is an OEM copy of a previous version of Windows, I don't know if it will activate.

That's probably OK, assuming it attains the same status, i.e is 99% functional, as a non-activated new install. My main concern was borking the new install on the new drive, which was activated following the same chain as the old install. I hope that made sense.

[wseaton]

On 2/15/2022 at 9:08 AM, ho72 said:

It was a total new build: mobo, cpu, system disk, etc.

Connecting the old machine shouldn't cause an issue.

 

The fact you were able to reactivate that old OEM license key on new hardware is lucky though. OEMs typically die with the old MB as they were supposed to. However, its not a 100% rule , and using a pro version seems to help your odds.

[LogicalDrm]

If you have connected license to your Microsoft account, just logging in should work. I'm on my 3rd mobo with my current Win7 license (upgraded to Win10).

[ho72]

On 2/17/2022 at 3:08 AM, LogicalDrm said:

If you have connected license to your Microsoft account, just logging in should work. I'm on my 3rd mobo with my current Win7 license (upgraded to Win10).

It all went well. Windows is happy and my other licensed software is happy, mostly. I had to re-activate my Adobe stuff but everything else was fine.