I have an "hp pavilion entertainment pc" laptop running oem windows vista and another hp super low end laptop running oem windows 10. We consider the windows 10 pc to be so low-end that no one wants to use it and I'd like to convert it to a linux pc. However, i'd like to take the oem win10 license from it and give it to the more powerful vista computer. I'm pretty sure the w10 pc started out as windows 8 and upgraded, but the vista was passed by.
Can I legally remove the windows 10 license from my less powerful windows-8-then-upgraded-to-windows-10-pc and transfer it to my more power stuck-at-vista pc?
Since the activation is tied to the hardware, the only thing you could do would be to contact Microsoft support, but they can be hit or miss as to whether they allow stuff like this.
If not activated Win10 can BSOD on you if you don't eventually activate it.
At least I had it happen with the Insider Preview while I was apparently blocking too much and my installation couldn't reach the activation server. Fast forward a few weeks and Win10 randomly started bluescreening, screaming about a missing license. Not sure if this also happens with "consumer" installs though.
Other then that, if the license is tied to an MS account you might be able to migrate it, but OEM keys can be hit or miss since there's different types.