I have seen quite a few recent threads that Windows 10 64bit isn’t like the old Windows 7. I don’t have to reinstall everything. It is a plug and play, set and forget solution, PROVIDED that you link your account beforehand, replace the CPU and/or mobo. Turn it on, and “everything” is there.
My PC is sort of center for our home theater/network, which I really depend on it given the work from home situation. It is for gaming and productivity. I don’t want any additional trouble for data loss or additional inconvenience.
I have designed my current set up by having an m.2 with OS and all applications, and an SSD drive for dropbox, gaming, downloads, and then another larger HDD for long-term storage, thinking that one day if I do any upgrades, I will just move the SSDs/HDDs, and wipe the m.2 to the new machine. I only learnt of this method today. Windows has really made great strides.
My PC account is a local account and I have activated it using KMS back in 2015/6. My question is whether/can Microsoft recognize the licence, and allow me to reactivate it (in time) during my switch to a new mobo.
Will network settings, file sharing settings and app settings (ie. anti-virus settings, download/saving directories, chrome accounts still signed in) be alright straight out of the box? Once I unlink it, can I run on KMS again? What if I don’t unlink it?
I do not use linked account. The description of its benefits somehow completely avoids me. And from what I see other people avoid it too. Your questions actually prove to me that both - me and others - are good to keep far from it.
So your questions are:
does license carry over to new comp - this concerns only OEM, ass with BOX you are always able to transfer license)
yea I’ve heard/read that linking the current installation could allow you to do this.
I’ve also heard about many other scenarios of moving or upgrading license that works because MS allows it for the time being. My predicament with that is that I cannot rely on that.
does Windows settings, application settings, applications, documents transfer. How are they synchronizing?
By quick googling I see that MS is probably using mechanisms, that I think it has since Windows 2000 (local/roaming app data). Now probably local servers are replaced with cloud services more and more.
This tells me that it all should depend on the specific applications - where they store the settings. And if application would use mechanism that allow for roaming then they also need to take into consideration that some things always need to be only local.
At best I would expect that most of the windows settings will successfully move (e.g. color theme). As for the rest I would expect at best random effects.
The best approach would be to do the disk image backup and start experimenting. Do not even consider expecting of your documents to move to new system unless you explicitly do have them in One Drive.
KMS (key management server) does not provide permanent activation, it’s typically 60-90 days. Your KMS is advertised via DNS or Active Directory, and constantly renews the license for Enterprise computers. A MAK (multiple activation key) is often provided to enterprise customers as a way to permanently activate computers that won’t be participating in Active Directory or checking in with corporate DNS, such as a mobile workforce using laptops.
A MAK activation in my experience, is not stored in a linked account. Changes to the underlying hardware will require a new activation, however the same key can be reused (often up to 500 times)
I had a z97 motherboard die on me several years ago. I returned it and the 4790k cpu to Microcenter who gave me my money back on their extended warranty and I replaced it with a z270 motherboard, 7700k and 16b of DDR4 ram (couldn’t reuse my DDR3). I kept the GPU and the SSD and the computer booted and showed that windows was still activated. This is with the cheaper OEM license version of windows 10.
Years later it still shows as activated. After talking to someone who swore that wouldn’t work, I logged into my microsoft account and saw the license was showing as tied to my new motherboard. I don’t know why that worked but it did.
i switched from an intel i7 920 to an amd 2700x and windows deactivated. i signed into my windows account and still wouldnt.
i got in touch with microsoft and they remote’d into my system and gave me a new key. then i tried updating the bios only for it to brick the board…
i replaced that motherboard and got in touch again…
the second time i asked they did the same but this time gave me a copy of the key in text form.
so not sure what the issue is… they could have easily charged me as the original win 10 i had was a free upgrade from win 7 way back when…
so yeah go for it…
So, to be clear, my comments are about clean install with linked previous account.
By looking at this thread again, I lost my confidence if you are asking about clean install or components switch and starting old windows installation.
A bit of both.
My PC builds were designed then to make a clean migration with a new OS installation because Windows XP and 7. Logic and experience tells me that i should do the clean installation.
It’s clear taht Microsoft’s business model has changed considerably too, from annual licences to paid services and devices. Apple never charged anyone for a licence for Mac OS, so over the past few years they’ve clearly taken a page from their book. I wonder how seamless this migration is.
Now it seems like it is as easy as 1-2-3…How times changed, but some members here clearly have experienced the odd issue.
I’m just freighted about what the repurcussions might be on the OS level, mainly because I used KMS activation, because I don’t want to run into additional inconveniences.
To share and would be great to give you a full context
I run a 7700k on an asrock z270 mitx mobo (http://www.asrock.com.tw/MB/Intel/Z270M-ITXac/index.asp). mobo was great (at the time) with having A LOT of USBs, but it didn’t have a BIOs reset button.The m.2 on on the mobo which helps with temps. I still stand by this selection then today. There was a time I got it to run a stable at 4.6ghz at 1.32v. I pushed it to run harder. After I resetted the BIOs manually, the mobo was a terrible overclock as I struggled to get anything above 4.5 ghz since.
Overtime, I cleaned up my cable clutter more, relied heavily on cloud services. Apple TV and wife and kids can access the scratch drive to watch their shows. I run dropbox+onedrive+googledrive in the background for work.
I’m horrible with chrome tabs and youtube. I probably have over 60 tabs opened at the same time, with most of the pages I do revisit when my day is about them. It was clea that demand for CPU tasks is increasing.
Recently, with the work from home situation, I did a simple spring clean up of files. Changing names and moving files around was such a slow task. I wanted to revisit OC-ing.
Given my usage, my RAM and CPU speed I decided to try my hand again with the z270 mobo. I upgraded BIOs but this time I couldn’t reach 4.5GHZ, and the system won’t run above 1.33v. Once I set it back to default, it runs 4.37ghz… at 1.3v. I can play most major titles and work on a day-to-day basis. But knowing that this delidded 7700k can do so much better.