Upgrading motherboard in Windows 10 - will I need a new licence?

spudbynight · 20 May 2020 at 12:49

I've got a PC at the moment running Windows 10. I am just about to upgrade the motherboard and CPU with a Ryzen 3600 setup.

I have a full licence for Windows 10. This licence was upgraded from Windows 8.1 Pro. The Windows 8.1 Pro licence was a retail licence sold by Microsoft on a special promotion a few years ago. It came via email and had a serial key. I no longer have access to the email address that was received on.

As I understand it that retail licence should mean my Windows 10 activation is transferable. Is it? If so, do I need to do anything before installing the new motherboard to ensure that this activates properly?

spudbynight · 20 May 2020 at 13:22

I read somewhere online that I might need my old windows serial to do so. Is there any way for me to find this from within Windows 10?

spudbynight · 20 May 2020 at 13:29

Thanks

spudbynight · 24 May 2020 at 10:32

OK, I followed the steps above. After I installed the new motherboard and CPU I had to reactivate Windows. It gave me a prompt where I could select "I recently changed my hardware", initially it said the Microsoft servers were down and to try later. I did this a few mins later and it activated OK.

Out of the blue this morning, after being activated, I have a watermark popup telling me I need to activate Windows. When I try to activate I get this :