Boot camp Windows 10 Pro licence

[Feek]

Over the last week, I've completely erased my 2017 iMac and reinstalled macOS Ventura from scratch. I did this so I'd be able to set up a boot camp partition as I want to play ETS2 and ATS with proper wheel support and despite what Apple promised for Ventura, they never added full native wheel support.

This morning I used boot camp utility to partition the SSD and install Windows 10 using an ISO I downloaded from Microsoft yesterday. During install, I gave it an old Windows 8 Pro key for registration but that wasn't accepted because I understand MS have finally killed the old free upgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 10 programme.

While Windows was installing, I bought a Windows 10 key using my M2 MBA.

After Windows had completed the install, I went to activate it, only to find this.

I've never had Windows installed on this iMac before, the code I gave during setup wasn't accepted and even if it had been, it certainly wouldn't have been a digital licence.

Has anyone had this happen? I have no idea why Windows thinks I've got a digital licence on an iMac.

It's most peculiar.

 

[Combat squirrel]

Windows activation is linked the the mainboard bios/registration number, usually, or a unique hardware key for the combination of your hardware - since you've not changed any hardware, windows activation knows your 'pc' is the same one you had before, therefor knows its licensed and has auto activated - been this way since windows 8 AFAIK...... if you'd changed the mainboard for example (which you won't in a Mac), it would say it needs a new key.

 

[MrRockliffe]

Windows activation is linked the the mainboard bios/registration number, usually, or a unique hardware key for the combination of your hardware - since you've not changed any hardware, windows activation knows your 'pc' is the same one you had before, therefor knows its licensed and has auto activated - been this way since windows 8 AFAIK...... if you'd changed the mainboard for example (which you won't in a Mac), it would say it needs a new key.

He hasn’t used that Mac for windows before I don’t think


Did you login to your Microsoft account @Feek? Some licenses are tied to the account, and so when you sign in, it activates

 

[ChrisD.]

Did you sign in with your M$ account?

 

[Feek]

Windows activation is linked the the mainboard bios/registration number, usually, or a unique hardware key for the combination of your hardware - since you've not changed any hardware, windows activation knows your 'pc' is the same one you had before, therefor knows its licensed and has auto activated - been this way since windows 8 AFAIK...... if you'd changed the mainboard for example (which you won't in a Mac), it would say it needs a new key.

It's an iMac. It's never had a licence.

Did you login to your Microsoft account @Feek? Some licenses are tied to the account, and so when you sign in, it activates

Nope, I always use local accounts.

 

[Combat squirrel]

It's an iMac. It's never had a licence.


Nope, I always use local accounts.

Did you buy the iMac from new?

 

[Feek]

Did you buy the iMac from new?

Yup, 10th August 2017, direct from Apple. It was built to order.

 

[MrRockliffe]

Freaky, maybe MS saw they don’t have any data on you and decided to give you a free license


When downloading the ISO from MS, did you need to enter anything then?

 

[Feek]

Freaky, maybe MS saw they don’t have any data on you and decided to give you a free license

It's very freaky. I'm not the only one this has happened to, see here.

When downloading the ISO from MS, did you need to enter anything then?

Nope, just told it Windows and English (International) and let it download. I downloaded the image yesterday direct from Microsoft on my Mac Studio.

I'm not upset about this, I've just sold the licence key I bought for the same as I paid for it so it's all good but it's just really, really unusual.

 

[MrRockliffe]

It is very unusual. But then Microsoft, for the past few years, haven’t really cared about licenses being valid. Priority has been to get as many people using Windows as possible, likely for the data they provide.


Perhaps they genuinely are just activating them for free in hopes that, in the long run, the data you provide will be of more value than the license.

 

[HACO]

It's most peculiar.

Indeed. Heard this happen before (not to me though) and remember a thread on MR about it too.

It's most likely a bug in Microsoft's activation service.

 

[Rroff]

I don't know much about Macs but I know some older ones using 2011 platform Xeons actually had a Windows key embedded in the firmware where the hardware had been repurposed for Macs. (Not sure if a wider thing or a specific batch(s)).

EDIT: Though I'd assume in those cases it wouldn't say activated with digital licence.

There are some instances where Windows in a virtual machine activates with a generic key so not sure if related to that.

 

[Feek]

There are some instances where Windows in a virtual machine activates with a generic key so not sure if related to that.

I’ve had Windows 10 running in a Parallels VM on the iMac in the past but I don’t specifically remember activating it and even if I had, surely the VM itself masks the hardware.

Even if it doesn’t, isn’t a digital licence different from one that’s been previously activated via a key?

It's most likely a bug in Microsoft's activation service.

Could be. I won’t be reporting it

 

[Rroff]

Even if it doesn’t, isn’t a digital licence different from one that’s been previously activated via a key?

Once you log into a Windows install with a MS account it associates the key with that hardware and account and then is a "digital" license which can be reactivated by logging in with that account without needing to re-enter the product key.

Obviously irrelevant here if you've not logged in with an online MS linked account.