Can't activate Windows 10 Pro retail key

[Cromulent]

I bought a second copy of Windows 10 Pro to run in a virtual machine for development purposes and when I tried to activate my copy of Windows 10 Pro it said it couldn't activate because it had already been used on another machine.

Now I did activate it before on another virtual machine which I deleted because I didn't realise you had to deactivate Windows 10 before you deleted it. How can I get Windows 10 Pro to activate now?

Do I need to call Microsoft technical support to get this sorted out or is there a live chat feature I can use to get this done quickly?

 

[bimbleuk]

The chat option was not avaiable when I've done this in the past so that may be quicker otherwise you can use the automated phone system which requires entering tedious blocks of numbers via the phone pad.

https://www.groovypost.com/howto/activate-windows-10-license-microsoft-support/

 

[Cromulent]

The chat option was not avaiable when I've done this in the past so that may be quicker otherwise you can use the automated phone system which requires entering tedious blocks of numbers via the phone pad.

https://www.groovypost.com/howto/activate-windows-10-license-microsoft-support/

Thanks. I managed to find a link to a live chat person and they sorted it out for me. Was a bit of a pain in the arse though. Oh well I'll just have to remember in future not to delete my virtual machines and to keep them running.

 

[marc2003]

Using VMware, I can install windows 10 pro without a product key and it activates automatically. This is because someone must have legitimately done this in the past and that basically opens it up for use by anyone with the same "hardware" - or thousands/millions of other VMware users. I suspect the same applies to other programs like virtualbox/hyper-v too. Try a clean install without a product key yourself - but make sure there is no network connection until after you've installed VMware tools/guest additions/whatever.

 

[Cromulent]

Using VMware, I can install windows 10 pro without a product key and it activates automatically. This is because someone must have legitimately done this in the past and that basically opens it up for use by anyone with the same "hardware" - or thousands/millions of other VMware users. I suspect the same applies to other programs like virtualbox/hyper-v too. Try a clean install without a product key yourself - but make sure there is no network connection until after you've installed VMware tools/guest additions/whatever.

Ah well. I've already bought a retail version of Windows 10 Pro to run in a virtual machine so not much point now. At least I got it all activated properly in the end. Took 20 mins using the live chat but got it sorted in the end.

Anyway because it is a retail copy I can use it for other things in the future as well.