How do I transfer win 10 license to new computer? Upgrades involved

sdsubball · 22 Jul 2016

I'm wondering if anyone knows how to successfully transfer a win 10 license to a newly built custom pc?

Let me explain my situation:

I have an old desktop that I built and upgraded some parts over the years that initially had win XP on it. I don't remember if it was OEM or retail, may have been OEM. (When I checked recently using some method or software, it said I had a retail copy of win 8.1 pro or win 10 pro). Then I think around 2013, I bought Win 8 pro upgrade for a big discount provided by Microsoft themselves. Ended up updating to 8.1 pro later on. Then recently I finally upgraded my old pc to win 10 pro 64-bit from 8.1 32-bit. Everything went well as far as upgrading on my old pc.

Now recently I built a new pc and have been wanting to transfer the windows license from my old pc to my new one. I tried deactivating my license on my old pc and then entering the license on my new pc for activation, but it said the license was currently being used on another pc or something like that.

I then tried calling MS tech support and they tried some things with me, but didn't a work, got the same issue so they escalated the issue to another Dept. They called me back and I didn't have time for them to help me with them connecting remotely to my pc and I didn't want them to anyway. The tech support rep did tell me to try installing win 8 on my new pc and then upgrading to win 10. I tried installing win 8 pro and after installing the activation didn't want work. It said the key is being used by another pc.

I plan on trying something else soon, but does anyone know if there's a way to transfer my old license to my new pc in light of my circumstances? I feel like all that needs to be done is my old pc needs to be taken off MS's activation servers and the license needs to be allowed to be activated on my new pc. Not sure if it works that way.

cereberus · 22 Jul 2016

Assuming your 8.1 pro is retail status as you think, you would need to reinstall 8.1 pro on new pc and use telephone activation to transfer it.

Problem here is you have a pro upgrade key not a full install key, and afaik, you cannot reinstall 8.1 pro on new pc and use 8.1 pro key to activate it, or use telephone activation (worth a try though). So I cannot see way of transferring 8.1 key.

However, you have a digital licence on old pc as you have upgraded to 10 pro, and if you update to Redstone in August 2nd, yiuy may be able to sort your problem.

This has the ability to transfer digital licence to a new mobo but it is not 100% confirmed it will work for a total new pc (I have tested it works between vms but not between two pcs), but it does look like it will work.