Issues activating after hardware change

AshB1989 · 15 Jun 2020 at 07:19

Good morning,

So I just bought a used computer as it was too good to turn down. I took the SSD from my comp and added them to the new comp, but when I tried to activate Windows 10 Pro it came up with an issue with not having a Valid Digital License. This was a genuine copy of windows, but still having issues.

I also tried a new key which was purchased for me by the seller, but that didn't work either.

I've looked online but cannot find a solution and in hoping you clever folk know of one!

Any help is massively appreciated.

drakulton · 15 Jun 2020 at 07:29

AshB1989 said:
Good morning,

So I just bought a used computer as it was too good to turn down. I took the SSD from my comp and added them to the new comp, but when I tried to activate Windows 10 Pro it came up with an issue with not having a Valid Digital License. This was a genuine copy of windows, but still having issues.

I also tried a new key which was purchased for me by the seller, but that didn't work either.

I've looked online but cannot find a solution and in hoping you clever folk know of one!

Any help is massively appreciated.

The PC may still be linked to his M$ account, did he unlink it before you got the machine.?
He needs to unlink it and you should be able to install and activate the win 10 on it

Also try a fresh install of 10.

AshB1989 · 15 Jun 2020 at 07:46

I have tried to login to my account, but bizarrely requires me to verify myself using an unknown email, so I can't.

I didnt unlink, sadly.

So is the activation key linked to the account, not hardware?

Not sure if it is important, but I previously has Windows 10 Pro and he has Windows 10 Home. Is there anyway to adjust this? I dont want to install and lose all of my files.

drakulton · 15 Jun 2020 at 10:25

If the previous owner was running win 10 home, the machine will only have been licenced for home, so a pro key will not work. So your pro ssd will not activate in this new machine.

Secondly, if the previous owner linked his machine to a M$ account then you will only be able to have a local account until the previous owner goes into their M$ account and delete that machine from his list of devices.
hence why it's throwing up the unknow email which presumably is the previous owns account.