Convoluted Story

[BabyPCMR]

Hey guys,

 

This is essentially my situation. I removed both of my hard drives and my motherboard and installed new ones. I then installed Windows using my product key. I did not wipe the old drives. I took the old drives and old motherboard and put them in a new computer. I booted it up and windows is working fine from what I can see on both of them. My question is how? I only have one license, how can 2 separate computers be using it? Is something actually happening but I just can't see it? My theory, but rest assured I have no idea what I'm talking about, is that because both computers are signed into the same Microsoft account it's allowing this use of Windows. Not sure, would love to hear what you guys think.

 

Thanks!

 

(Sidenote, when I booted up the computer with the old motherboard and drives it prompted something about having a new CPU and RAM, I didn't get to read it before it left the screen though.)

[Tabs]

Windows is either licensed to the computer, or licensed to your Microsoft account. As far as Windows (and Microsoft) is concerned, you have one install since it's on one machine - Windows uses a unique machine identifier to determine whether you're installing to the same hardware, or to completely different hardware.

 

The only hardware change likely to cause activation problems is if you swap out your motherboard, so in this case I'm assuming your license is tied to your Microsoft account, and therefore transferrable to new hardware.

 

Edited the above: I just got home from work and half read your post, my bad.

Edited November 27, 2017 by Tabs

[SansVarnic]

51 minutes ago, BabyPCMR said:

<snip>

The license is tied to your hardware, specifically to your motherboard. Your MS only recognizes that you have licensed hardware.

41 minutes ago, Tabs said:

Windows is either licensed to the computer, or licensed to your Microsoft account.

<snip>

The Motherboard.

[Tabs]

32 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

The license is tied to your hardware, specifically to your motherboard. Your MS only recognizes that you have licensed hardware.

The Motherboard.

I'm not quite sure what your post is getting at. @BabyPCMR changed his motherboard and remained activated - you may be confusing the old style of activation without digital entitlement/digital licensing, which was introduced in 1607.

 

If you have a retail license tied to your Microsoft account, it will either automatically (or manually via the troubleshooter) reactivate on new hardware, up to a limit of 10 times, depending on the severity of the change. The only time this completely fails if every piece of hardware is changed, since the CMID/CHID is generated using identifiers of different device types, with varying levels of importance.

 

This identifier is generated based on the number of bits used to identify each part of the computer, with larger hardware components having a higher weight (And therefore a greater impact on the id generated), a small change in hardware results in a small change in the total value of the final "identifier" string. In versions of windows prior to Windows 10 1607, this would be combined with the product key to produce the CMID/CHID, but is no longer tied to the key when digital entitlement is used instead, making it far more flexible (and far less hardware dependent).

 

See here and here for Microsoft sources, along with a news article from zdnet which discuss this change. A lot of the technical information (including basics of CMID/CHID generation) are from webinars that I just spent the last 30 minutes trying to find, but couldn't. You can verify that these update on ANY core hardware change (not just motherboard), by using slmgr.vbs /dlv and comparing the activation ID/installation ID to a machine before and after a hardware change (like a different gpu). It will change the ID, but it won't affect activation.

[SansVarnic]

35 minutes ago, Tabs said:

which was introduced in 1607.

Pretty sure your off a bit there.

 

40 minutes ago, Tabs said:

I'm not quite sure what your post is getting at.

This;

@BabyPCMR I am pretty sure your License is a Retail version since not a OEM version, there is a distinction here,

If it was OEM your license is linked to the hardware (Motherboard) an can be only used only the one time. But there is a loop hole to this of course but you need to consult Microsoft to re-activate the license when replacing the board.

Since it is most likely a Retail version you may install it multiple times on up to 10 devices as correctly stated by @Tabs.

 

As for the MS Account, it works as more as visual verification to the user that you have used the license on the device and helps keeps tabs on how many times you have used that license e.g. number of times installed and on what devices. That is the basic idea. Your license is not linked directly to your account as then it would not be effective when someone does not have a Microsoft account when activating the license and if it was then you could move the license from device to device with no accountability there for your license, each install key, is linked to the Motherboard it was installed to.

[Tabs]

4 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

Pretty sure your off a bit there.

 

This;

@BabyPCMR I am pretty sure your License is a Retail version since not a OEM version, there is a distinction here,

If it was OEM your license is linked to the hardware (Motherboard) an can be only used only the one time. But there is a loop hole to this of course but you need to consult Microsoft to re-activate the license when replacing the board.

Since it is most likely a Retail version you may install it multiple times on up to 10 devices as correctly stated by @Tabs.

 

As for the MS Account, it works as more as visual verification to the user that you have used the license on the device and helps keeps tabs on how many times you have used that license e.g. number of times installed and on what devices. That is the basic idea. Your license is not linked directly to your account as then it would not be effective when someone does not have a Microsoft account when activating the license and if it was then you could move the license from device to device with no accountability there for your license, each install key, is linked to the Motherboard it was installed to.

The first link I posted (Here again for you) is the exact point this change was implemented. This was finalised in 1607. I'm not sure why you keep calling me wrong, especially in this case where I literally posted the relevant sources originally. 

 

These digital licensing changes were implemented in 1607, but before this build it was basically just a convenience linking your license to your Microsoft account, as it meant you didn't have to manually activate on the same hardware if you reinstalled. The changes enabling reactivation on new hardware came in 1607.

 

My bad since I obviously didn't clarify that enough on my last post.

[SansVarnic]

32 minutes ago, Tabs said:

I'm not sure why you keep calling me wrong

I have not said that you were wrong.

 

33 minutes ago, Tabs said:

These digital licensing changes were implemented in 1607

I missed that. When I read 1607 the first time for some reason I read year 1607 

 

I will check out that link and review it to make sure I am up-to-date.

 

[BabyPCMR]

Thanks @SansVarnic and @Tabs

 

Yes this is a full retail version of windows, Sans you mentioned something about 10 devices, that doesn't mean activated on 10 devices i'm assuming? Should just deactivate the license on one of the machines and get a license for that one? 

[SansVarnic]

47 minutes ago, BabyPCMR said:

Thanks @SansVarnic and @Tabs

 

Yes this is a full retail version of windows, Sans you mentioned something about 10 devices, that doesn't mean activated on 10 devices i'm assuming? Should just deactivate the license on one of the machines and get a license for that one? 

With a retail you can install the license on up to 10 devices but the "key" will be linked to that device. So essentially you cannot move that key from that device.

So if I have pc #1 thru #10 I cannot de-activate the key from say device #3 and move it to a new device #11. 

But if you upgrade the hardware in device #3 you can still maintain use of that key from #3 with the upgraded/replaced hardware.

 

Now as for the information I was not up to date on that @Tabs pointed out is MS made it possible to link your license to your MS account for simpler recovery via a troubleshooter. There is of course a more lengthier explanation involved and I am in the process of reviewing that so I cannot explain it at this time.

[Tabs]

@SansVarnic My bad again, I interpreted what you said incorrectly. Yeah, Microsoft have become a lot more lenient now about how Windows activates - I think they prefer having Windows 10 in as many places as possible instead of putting barriers up for people building new machines etc who might otherwise try to run Windows 7 or 8.1 on there if they couldn't get Windows 10 to activate. Their "unsupported" status for Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, and Ryzen certainly pushes that agenda as well.

 

@BabyPCMR You can't really do that, but it shouldn't be an issue, unless you plan on using this key through a lot of major upgrades (rebuilds mainly). Eventually, through constantly changing to different hardware, Windows would stop activating... but 10 different hardware configurations really is a lot. Minor changes have no effect on it, so it won't be an issue for upgrading piecemeal.

[SansVarnic]

31 minutes ago, Tabs said:

@SansVarnic My bad again, I interpreted what you said incorrectly. Yeah, Microsoft have become a lot more lenient now about how Windows activates - I think they prefer having Windows 10 in as many places as possible instead of putting barriers up for people building new machines etc who might otherwise try to run Windows 7 or 8.1 on there if they couldn't get Windows 10 to activate. Their "unsupported" status for Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, and Ryzen certainly pushes that agenda as well.

No worries.

31 minutes ago, Tabs said:

@BabyPCMR You can't really do that, but it shouldn't be an issue, unless you plan on using this key through a lot of major upgrades (rebuilds mainly). Eventually, through constantly changing to different hardware, Windows would stop activating... but 10 different hardware configurations really is a lot. Minor changes have no effect on it, so it won't be an issue for upgrading piecemeal.

Just to add that while prior to version 1609 the License key ties to the motherboard and with post 1607 it still does the newer troubleshooter allows for a better simpler re-activation process (this assuming that I am getting this correct for the moment) of said key for the replacement of the motherboard as long as the replacement is of a similar model. But yes MS will only recover that key so many times eg doa mobos and such before they say no more.

 

@GoodBytes could you chime in on this I need verification on my interpretation before I eat my foot, Thanks.

 

*edit 

I had this all down back in the early previewer days but lately work has hindered my keeping up with this stuff ... /shrug.