Win10 upgrade and a retail purchase of Win10 Pro- not the same.

alphanumeric said:

And then Microsoft figures out what you did and deactivates all 4 PC's. Assuming it actually works in the first place. I'm not testing it out to see. If your intent on cheating the system, IMHO that's what your doing, then you may do that. On the other side of the coin, they get so strict that legitimate installs won't activate.

You seem to be getting confused. Nobody is talking about running it on 4 PC's simultaneously. We're talking about TRANSFERRING it to 4 different PC's over the lifetime you own the OS.

However, while it's illegal to run it on 4 PC's, there is nothing that would stop you from doing it. Microsoft does not disable keys unless they think it's been leaked on the internet and you get a large number (hundreds or thousands) of users activating the same key. Even then, any computers that have been previously activated do not become deactivated. I know this for a fact, as I've been in companies where they violate the license and use the same key to install dozens of PC's.

I'm not advocating that anyone do this, but the fact is, Microsoft can't know how many PC's are currently activated on a single key. There is no official "de-activation" process. So they have no way of knowing if you have removed it from your old PC or not. Especially if the PC is not connected to the network, or firewalled (as many corporate PC's are).

Microsoft knows that if they try to enforce activation too strictly, it will backfire on them. They have to walk a thin rope and give users the benefit of the doubt in all but the most egregious situations.

Microsoft has *NEVER* deactivated an OS that was previously activated, and they're not going to start now. So please stop with the tin foil hat theories that have no historical basis to support them.

pal said:

Microsoft will of course not allow that. If you use your retail license to upgrade another machine, you'll lose the first one. Nothing else makes sense.

Legally, yes. Technically, no. It's an honor system that you will delete the old OS from the old machine. But, that's not really the point, as we're talking about transferring a copy.

Mystere said:

No, not true. You transfer it to another PC by first installing Windows 7 or 8.x on that PC and activating it, then you can perform the upgrade on it. I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand (you claim to not understand how this could work)...

That's because you and I disagree strongly on what constitutes a "transfer" -- and this disagreement is the heart of the argument.

You see the process of installing Win7/8.x on the second PC, and then doing a second upgrade as "transferring"; I see it as "reinstalling". To me "transferring" is the process of taking what's on the first machine and copying it (in this case, the Win10 installation), to the second machine -- and that clearly is NOT being done. You're not actually copying the first install to the second machine; instead, you're reinstalling from scratch -- starting with Win7/8x and then doing a NEW upgrade to Win10.

My guess is that the presumption is, since the original Win7/8x key was retail, not OEM, when the activation servers see the same license key a second time, but with a different hardware hash, they're going to OK the activation of the second PC.

And, that could very well be the case -- I won't dispute you on that; I'd just like to get confirmation from someone who has actually done this -- not quotations from a EULA, which might not hold up in actual practice.

Mark Phelps said:

That's because you and I disagree strongly on what constitutes a "transfer" -- and this disagreement is the heart of the argument.

You see the process of installing Win7/8.x on the second PC, and then doing a second upgrade as "transferring"; I see it as "reinstalling".

Dude. "Transfer" refers to the license. The right to run the software. Not the physical copy of the OS itself. The License allows you to transfer it, it doesn't provide the means to do so, nor does it obligate Microsoft to provide a way to do so without going through the upgrade a second time. Microsoft does not make any guarantee that you can transfer the physical bits to another machine, only that the *LICENSE* can be transferred to the new machine, and the *right* to be allowed to copy the software to that machine.

You really don't understand licensing?

Ztruker said:

Sounds like hair splitting to me.

One qualifying installation of Windows 7 or 8 can be upgraded to one copy of the equivalent Windows 10.
If you take that same Windows 7 or 8 and install it on a different computer then upgraade it to Windows 10, that is flat out illegal.
I don't care how you phrase it or if it's retail or OEM, it's illegal.

How can you possibly say it's anything else.

Will you be able to do it? Probably. Will it activate, probably. Is it legal, no.

It is only illegal if it's an OEM copy. Retail licenses are explicitly allowed to do this per the EULA. This has been posted dozens of times, why do we have to keep posting it?

From the EULA:

Stand-alone software. If you acquired the software as stand-alone software (and also if you upgraded from software you acquired as stand-alone software), you may transfer the software to another device that belongs to you. You may also transfer the software to a device owned by someone else if (i) you are the first licensed user of the software and (ii) the new user agrees to the terms of this agreement. You may use the backup copy we allow you to make or the media that the software came on to transfer the software. Every time you transfer the software to a new device, you must remove the software from the prior device. You may not transfer the software to share licenses between devices.