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[grahamb]

I'm about to replace bits and pieces in my pc with more up to date bits and pieces; ie, new motherboard, cpu, ram and m.2 ssd.
My W10 digital license on my current build is linked to my Ms account so my question is: will I be able to do a clean install from the W10 disc I bought for my current pc on to the new ssd and then reactivate it through my account? Or will I have to clone my current boot ssd to make this work? The misgiving I have with doing that is things won't work properly as the drivers on the c: drive will be all am3+ related and I'm moving to am4 pcie4.0. Unless windows auto-updates all the drivers for me? 

Anyway, thoughts please.

 

[tubaman]

Changing all of those parts effectively makes it a new PC, so it certainly won't license on a clean build and I think you'll find it'll deactivate after a while if you clone the disk.
You could try telling Microsoft something like "the power supply blew up and took out everything else", but whether that'll wash I don't know.
 

[g3uiss]

They are generally quite good. If you use the automated system and confirm it’s on one PC you should be fine if you have a product key ?

[tubaman]

They are generally quite good. If you use the automated system and confirm it’s on one PC you should be fine if you have a product key ?

Yes, I've just realised the existing license is linked to a Microsoft account (not the hardware), so as long as you have a product key it should be ok.
 

[jelv]

Does it help in such situations if you change one thing at a time?

[grahamb]

Ah excellent, thanks for your responses. Now i just have to make sure I put the new cpu in the right way....


@jelv

AM3+ to AM4. I won't be able to do one at a time. 

[g3uiss]

Does it help in such situations if you change one thing at a time?

I don't think so as eventually the hardware hash is wrong

[vic0239]

I did this just last week. I installed Windows 10 using Bootcamp onto my Macbook and activated it with the digital license previously on my Intel NUC 10. The process was quite straightforward, in the Activation dialogue click "Troubleshoot" then "I changed hardware on this device recently". This takes you to your Windows account where you can chose you new device and it will inherit the license (as long as it's not an OEM license). This worked fine with completely different hardware. I suspect that once the license becomes a Digital one that the product key is rendered invalid.

[Ronski]

Windows 10 generally behaves its self very well when changing between motherboard's. I've got an installation I've moved between a Supermicro intel board and a intel micro ATX board, no issues whatsoever. Admittedly not AMD, but I'm sure I've done that as well before.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Windows 10 generally behaves its self very well when changing between motherboard's. I've got an installation I've moved between a Supermicro intel board and a intel micro ATX board, no issues whatsoever. Admittedly not AMD, but I'm sure I've done that as well before.

I've had to involve Microsoft support several times when doing this.  Its kinda nerve racking the first time as they remote into your PC to issue the reauthorisation commands.

Last time they didn't even bother to do that much, they just issued a new registration code.

So yeah, its a bit hit and miss if you will be deactivated but as long as its a retail edition of Windows, they will happily sort it out for you.

[parkdale]

You need to deactivate the motherboard first, then activate the new one/build.
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-transfer-windows-10-license-new-computer-or-hard-drive
You can also use this https://getcid.info/ to re activate.... very easy.. but will tell you if you need to phone MS. It is timed so you need to be quick!!

I transferred my Office 2016 pro plus as well.

[grahamb]

Update:

IT LIVES!!!


Well, at the moment it does. It's taken me since around 3 this afternoon to get to a point where it looks as if I can type this without the system crashing, which it has three or four times now. Anyway...

After installing the new bits and switching on, I decided to clone the disk that already had W10 on it to the new m.2 ssd (rather than do a clean install) which went ok - although I got the "unable to reach Windows activation servers" message a few times whilst trying to re-activate Windows but it did it eventually - as it was able to boot from the m.2. However, I had to merge and expand the new partitions due to the usual problems of cloning from smaller to larger; ie, unallocated space.

Then after suffering a couple of crashes, I decided that the bios needed updating as I thought that might help stability and it had the new parameters necessary for a future upgrade to W11.  And that was the beginning of my biggest problem as the new bios version might have listed my sata drives, but it declared my m.2 drive as "not present".    So, after doing some searching on my mobile, I found out that I had to enable a new item called the 'Compatibility Support Module' (CSM) which helped a lot as my new drive was now present and the PC boots quite happily off it. Btw, I think the crashes are happening because the Radeon drivers that are on the drive are incompatible with the X570 motherboard that's now in the PC, though the drivers, and the Catalyst software, appear to have mysteriously gone missing. On the upside, there hasn't been a crash for about an hour now so hopefully it will all go well from now on.

I've still got all the peripheral bits to put back into various usb ports so that'll probably take me well past midnight before I go to bed, fingers crossed I don't get any more problems.

Thanks again for all your responses. 

[Chrysalis]

I have had to do reactivation twice, both times it was automated on the phone I entered a code, it gave me a code, I typed in the code, and it reactivated.

I also can confirm windows 7/8 technet keys if used on windows 10, still give you 10 activations per key.

[Ixel]

The last time I upgraded my PC I was able to successfully keep Windows 10 installed and it adapted to the new hardware (new motherboard and processor too). However, generally speaking I wouldn't normally do this. I prefer doing a fresh install if there's serious hardware changes (e.g. motherboard). Windows 10, at least for me on that occasion, remained activated. I guess I was fortunate. At some point I do need to reinstall though, a past buggy Windows Update caused me to no longer be able to print. I even reinstalled the printer drivers (Xerox Workcentre), so at the moment I'm sending files manually via the HTTP URL of the printer.

[grahamb]

I am thinking that I may have to do a clean install if my pc keeps crashing. However, having ripped the audio from a blu-ray disc this morning, gone out for a few hours leaving the pc on, and having just finished farting around in No Man's Sky for a couple of hours, there's been no crashes at all, so I'm thinking that things may have settled down.