Microsoft surprise

I had an old laptop that came with Vista, got upgraded to 7 and then 10, all Home versions. A friend who works in IT gave me a fully legal and unused 8.1 Pro retail key he had no need for. It upgraded the old laptop to Windows 10 Pro. But that antique got so slow that it became a problem, so I got a new laptop with 10 Home to replace it. I expected the 8.1 Pro key would work on it, but thought I would at least have to resort to Activation Troubleshooter or maybe even a phone call to Microsoft to explain this was a replacement. But nothing. The laptop smoothly upgraded to Pro and was activated just as if the key had never been used before. Is Microsoft slipping or don't they keep track of used keys after a period of time?

Plankton said:

I would think it would depend on the keys themselves.....whether they are OEM, VLK or Retail. The first two they keep track of relentlessly.....as for the retail keys....you can use them as much as you want but only on 1 pc at a time.

That sounds about right. But it brings up another question: how would copies of Windows 10 Pro for Insiders be categorized? I started on the Windows Insider Preview program well before 10 was released. MS emailed keys or maybe just a single key for 2 PCs and a link for downloading 10 Pro. I'm still running updated builds on them (1 now Dev Channel and 1 Beta). I've even changed motherboards in both and 10 Pro transferred over with no problems. The only key(s) ever used is/are original courtesy of MS.

Plankton said:

I would think it would depend on the keys themselves.....whether they are OEM, VLK or Retail. The first two they keep track of relentlessly

I would respectfully disagree with the statement that they keep track of OEM product keys relentlessly - based on personal experience.