Activating After Hardware Change

[Sir Topham Hatt]

Just bought new a new PC... well, the components and out it all together.

Old PC had Windows 11 on it, which was Windows 10, which came from genuine Windows 7.

I'd signed in with my Microsoft Account all the way and I'm 99% certain the last one said it had activated with a digital licence.

Installed Windows 11 on new PC and signed in with my account but 2 hours later, still says it isn't activated. Tried the Windows 7 key but it said it wasn't valid.

Should I just wait and see?

I think it activated after a day or two last time, I can't remember.

[Steven P. Administrators]

You should call Microsoft to activate, it will be an option when you try to activate and it fails. Just tell them that you have replaced the PC that the original licence came with and they will activate it. (it might even be an automated call). It has been a long time since I did it, but it will work. If you speak with someone, be sure to tell them that the old PC is no longer in use with the license,

The other trick is with self build, even if you replace the motherboard and CPU, the licence will be able to identify other hardware that you had, this is how I was able to transfer my license in 2019 when I did a new build. I was not required to contact Microsoft, it activated on the new build because I guess I had enough hardware from the old build transferred over, like a GPU and SSDs and DDR4 memory.

[Sir Topham Hatt]

Ended up being directed to a website with some details of my MS account.

There was an option to say "I installed new hardware" and I had to tick my old PC details but then it's activated fine.

Guess the old details will be overwritten.

But I spend a fair bit on this new PC so hopefully won't need to go through this again for 5+ years.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 28/10/2022 at 12:19, Sir Topham Hatt said:

Ended up being directed to a website with some details of my MS account.

There was an option to say "I installed new hardware" and I had to tick my old PC details but then it's activated fine.

Guess the old details will be overwritten.

But I spend a fair bit on this new PC so hopefully won't need to go through this again for 5+ years.

ah so that's how it's done now, good to know

I'm pretty sure they retired the automated phone system that Steve mentioned back when 10 came out so wasn't sure how this type of reactivation worked now.