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Windows 10 activation woes. Can anybody help?
Okay, this is somewhat convoluted but I'll try to explain it as clearly as I can...
My old (self-built) PC was running Windows 8.1 Pro which was itself an upgrade from Windows 8 Pro and purchased direct from Microsoft when the OS was first released. A while back I upgraded the PC to Windows 10 Pro and activated it without issue. It has been happily running Windows 10 Pro for a month or two.
In early January I built a new PC and installed Windows 10 Pro (November Update) on it. Even though it was all new hardware I was able to activate it using my Windows 8 Pro key. I gather Microsoft added this convenient feature in the November Update which meant I didn't have to install Windows 8.1 Pro first and then upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. The old PC was disconnected and no longer in use. It's HDD was removed and erased.
All was fine until I decided to give the motherboard, CPU and RAM from my old PC to my son. These parts were used to build a PC for him and Windows 10 Home was installed on it as an upgrade from Windows 7 Home Premium (which he already owned). His machine activated with no problems.
Shortly afterwards, out of nowhere, my new PC declared itself no longer activated and will no longer accept my key. The error message is that it is being used on another PC, which it most certainly isn't - it was but it isn't now! Now, I can see how Microsoft's activation servers could get confused with this hardware 'musical chairs' but how do I fix it, if indeed that's the cause of the problem?
I have phoned support and they told me that the solution was to go back to Windows 8.1 Pro on my new PC and activate it first before upgrading to Windows 10 Pro. Well, I tried that but it won't even activate Windows 8.1; instead I get the same error message - that the key is already in use on another PC.
I daresay that sorting this out will involve more phone calls to Microsoft but if anyone can offer any other ideas or insight I'd be most grateful.