Guys anyone been in this situation, i am activated with windows 10 pro on a new build, but looks like i am having to replace the motherboard, so 2 questions, if i buy the exact same motherboard model again will my windows 10 stay activated, and other question, if i buy a different motherboard model will it stay activated ? and if not, do you think if i phone microsoft they will understand and reactivate ? cheers
Anyone been in this situation before.....
- Thread starter Daytrader
- Start date
Free upgrade, shame if bios upgrade deactivates windows thou, as i updated bios 3 times in a week, new boards gets bios updates like every 3 or 4 days, especially skylake, millions of people with new builds will be updating there bios.
All I could find was this:
Q: What happens if I change the hardware configuration of my Windows 10 device?
A: If the hardware configuration of your Windows 10 device changes significantly (e.g. motherboard change) Windows may require re-activation on the device. This is the same experience as prior versions of Windows (e.g. Windows 7 and Windows 8.1). The free upgrade offer will not apply to activation of Windows 10 in such scenarios where hardware changes reset Activation.
If you are exchanging it for the exact same board then I would think a quick call to MS would get the problem resolved anyway. It's not like your changing to upgrade, just to correct a fault.
Q: What happens if I change the hardware configuration of my Windows 10 device?
A: If the hardware configuration of your Windows 10 device changes significantly (e.g. motherboard change) Windows may require re-activation on the device. This is the same experience as prior versions of Windows (e.g. Windows 7 and Windows 8.1). The free upgrade offer will not apply to activation of Windows 10 in such scenarios where hardware changes reset Activation.
If you are exchanging it for the exact same board then I would think a quick call to MS would get the problem resolved anyway. It's not like your changing to upgrade, just to correct a fault.
If your changing the motherboard for the same model due to a fault then you should be ok even if you upgraded from an OEM version of Windows but you may have to call MS to activate it. They may look at your system remotely to see that your motherboard is the same as when W10 activated previously and hopefully force through your activation.
If it's a completely different model of motherboard and you upgraded from an OEM version of Windows I think you'll have a hard job not forking out for a new licence.
If you upgraded from a retail version of Windows then W10 should still retain the Retail rights from the previous version and therefore should not need a new licence. Whether it activates automatically or not is another matter, so you may still need to call MS to sort it out but if you know you upgraded from Retail there shouldn't be any debate involved as to legitimacy.
If it's a completely different model of motherboard and you upgraded from an OEM version of Windows I think you'll have a hard job not forking out for a new licence.
If you upgraded from a retail version of Windows then W10 should still retain the Retail rights from the previous version and therefore should not need a new licence. Whether it activates automatically or not is another matter, so you may still need to call MS to sort it out but if you know you upgraded from Retail there shouldn't be any debate involved as to legitimacy.
Yeh, im hoping just a phone call will sort it, cheers
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Cheers, guessing putting my original win 7 back on and upgrading wont work again, otherwise you could just do this every time couldn't you.
Yeah, probably wont work if W7 was OEM. Your best bet if your previous version was OEM is to see if anyone has a cheap w8 or w7 either OEM or Retail but if you install that once the new motherboard is in place you can then upgrade to W10 again.
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Yeh, thats what i will do, but hopefully if i phone ms they will see i have only just activated and changed motherboard.