I am finally upgrading my motherboard from a junk gigabyte board to a nice MSI board. I have been told that Windows 10 uses hardware identifiers so unsure that the drive is in the correct system and not stolen but i don't know if this is true so before i take my system apart and slap the new board in is there anything i should be aware of?
- You will likely have to reinstall your OS. Have a usb/cd ready.
- A new motherboard is basically a new PC. You will likely need a second Windows license.
I did something similar when I changed platforms in my pc. I had one mobo, used my 7 key with it and updated to 10 and it activated fine. I changed mobo, formatted and went back to 7 and it activated, but when I updated to 10 through GWX it would not activate.
I had to contact microsoft support and they ended up giving me a new key for windows 10.
I moved from an phenom to an fx 8350 with a mobo swap and had almost no issues..... idk maybe i just got lucky.
It depends on what time of license it is. I've been using a Windows 8 OEM license for years with at least 4 different motherboards, 2 different cpu's and upgrading to Windows 10. I usually have to call Microsoft to have it activated after changing the motherboard though.
Here is what you do.
Please note the following only works for retail windows 10 installations (and if you have trouble with a retail version M$ will provide you with support to update your key remotely if you call their hotline),
I do not think this works for OEM installations.
First you have to deactivate the current windows license for windows 10 which is attached to your hardware profile that Microsoft stores about the installation for your device you do this by:
Open a command line window in administrator mode by clicking START -> CMD -> CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER, or just find command prompt, right click it and open as administrator.
Type in: slmgr.vbs /dlv (this will show you your windows activation status with all the relevant info)
In the command prompt type: slmgr /upk , A dialog will pop up and say 'uninstalled product key successfully'
Now inside of Windows Activation status in control panel check the details to see if it says windows has been de-activated. It will say something like product id not available.
Now change your motherboard / hardware
Reinstall the Windows 10 Key by opening a command prompt in admin mode again and typing: slmgr /ipk
If you did it correctly a dialog will come up and say your key successfully installed
Hopefully this is helpful to you.
I get the Mobo tomorrow so I guess I will find out just how much I hate Microsoft. I was on Windows 7 but then upgraded to 10 and then did a full refresh of my system so it would run better. I would hate to have to reinstall windows 10 and go download and reinstall everything again. I have no way to back my system up.
not true at all you just tell them what you did and M$ support will get it working
I went from an 8370 to 5820k and they got it validated on my new install
Does this still work if i have win 10 because i upgraded from win 7?
yes
I contacted Microsoft support just to see what they would say and the guy told me to go to command prompt run it as administrator and type in " wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey " and write down the key change the hardware and then boot up the computer and log into windows and when i am asked to activate windows just to punch in the key and it would activate. So hopefully with that i won't have to de-activate the key. I would hate to take apart my computer 3 times just to get this working right.
So would my best bet be Microsofts? way or gameg33k?
If you are already dealing with M$ tech support then just get them to do it remotely, it doesn't take long for them to login and make the change, but they basically do the exact same process that I wrote above to change your key.
Then I will just do your method. I am a do it your self kind of guy. I ran the first command to pop up all the info and it shows I have a retail copy so it should all work just fine.
Well that didn't go as planned. I can't find the Win 7 box that i got over three years ago and Microsoft won't do anything with out that key. I did a system refresh after i upgraded and that erases your key and puts in a generic that cannot be used for re-activation. So could i just buy a cheaper windows 7 pro key and activate my windows 10 pro?
The answer was yes you can. GameVeo.com has windows 7 pro keys for $25.99.
Thank you everyone for the input and helping out.