Select the Start button, then select Settings > System > Activation. Prepare your Windows 11 device for a hardware changeįirst, follow these steps to find out if Windows 11 is already activated. Then, use the following info to help you successfully prepare for a hardware change and reactivate Windows. To find out which you need, see "What activation method do I use, product key or digital license?" in Activate Windows. To activate Windows, you'll need either a digital license or a product key. If you make significant hardware changes on your device, such as replacing your motherboard, Windows will no longer find a license that matches your device, and you’ll need to reactivate Windows to get it up and running. When installing Windows 11, the digital license associates itself with your device's hardware. This guide works for both Windows 11 and Windows 10.Activation helps verify that your copy of Windows is genuine and hasn’t been used on more devices than the Microsoft Software License Terms allow. Guide: Move a Digital Linked License to a New Computer Also, learn to check if and how Windows is activated. More info about types of Windows licenses is found in this other article. I didn’t want to lose my retail Windows license, so I plan on buying a simple OEM key for the old Dell laptop, but for that to happen I need to move the retail license first. It’s something that did come in handy recently, as I’ve bought a new ASUS laptop and needed to activate Windows. I’ve detailed the entire “adventure” in the article linked above if you want to read it.Īt this point, I wondered if it’s possible to move a digital license stored in your Microsoft account to another computer. I suspect that was the moment the actual key got disconnected from the digital license but was still stored on my local machine, for backup.
That’s of course not correct, but the two PCs once activated were linked to my online Microsoft account, and showed up as digital linked.
For example, I was recently surprised to discover that according to Microsoft two of my computers were using the same license key.
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