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hello,
ive gotten all the parts for a new pc (new motherboard, gpu, psu, cpu, ssd) and plan on building it this week. my windows 10 license is the digital license after upgrading from windows 8. last time i did an upgrade, all i had to do was attach my old hard drive and i was able to install windows fresh on the newer hard drive by making it my boot drive. i was able to activate it by just signing into my microsoft account since i dont have a key -- only the digital license attached to my account. will this still be possible on my new pc?
i no longer have my original windows 8 product key and i cant find it in cmd entering the proper command. i will not be using my old pc at all, and plan on only using this new one. have tried to look into this myself, but im not getting any clear answers. some say its possible, but then others say ill need to buy a brand new license. if i remove my old pc from my account and add my new one, shouldnt i then be able to activate windows on the new pc? the terms say that only one device can be activated at a time
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Answer accepted by question author
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Thanks for updating me.
Depending on the screenshot, your license key is a Windows home retail and you can reuse it to activate your new computer.
Reactivating Windows after a hardware change:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/rea...
Please feel free to ask if you need further assistance.
Answer accepted by question author
Hi,
I'm Dyari. Thanks for reaching out. I will be happy to assist you in this regard.
Let me clarify it for you briefly.
Activating Windows after hardware change depends on the type of license you have.
If your computer came preinstalled with an OEM license, the license was tied with your old motherboard and it would not be transferred. You should buy a new one.
If you bought the product key separately and it was a retail key or if it is a digital license linked to your Microsoft account (as yours), it should activate the Windows automatically after signing in with your Microsoft account as long as you install the Windows edition that matches the license type. (if you have Windows 10 Pro, you must install Windows 10 Pro on your new computer).
If does not work, try to troubleshoot it by going to Start > Updated & Security > Activation > Troubleshoot.
Based on your explanation, you've performed an upgrade previously. I was wondering whether you upgraded from Windows 8 to 10 or if it was a hardware upgrade.
If you did a hardware upgrade (only the motherboard) and you were able to activate your Windows, you should be able to reactivate this time too.
And yes, only one device can be activated at a time.
So, if you still have access to your old computer, kindly click on Start > Run CMD and type the following command then hit enter:
slmgr.vbs /dlv
A dialogue box should appear > Take a screenshot and post it back to see the type of license you have.
awesome, thank you for your help!
thanks for the reply
the motherboard was given to me by a friend, so it wasnt brand new. but i activated windows using my own account, and i had upgraded from windows 8 to windows 10 in the past.
i was actually able to find the key by looking in regedit just now, but i believe this is the original windows 8 key. if i run into problems activating it by signing in could i still use this key?
here is what i see after entering that command:
when i found my key in regedit, i confirmed that it matched the partial license key shown here
