Move an activated Windows 10 to new owner - How to?

Burgurne · 29 Dec 2017

I have inherited a laptop with an activated windows 10 Home. Now I want to delete the dead owners account, and put myself as admin of this laptop. But how do I do that? The license for this windows 10 is tied to his Microsoft account?
Is it possible to move this digital license to my Microsoft account? If so, how do I do that? :)

AndreTen · 29 Dec 2017

You could switch to local account and later to a new ms account.

to local switch-local-account-windows-10

back to ms 5375-switch-microsoft-account-windows-10

mahoneycutt · 29 Dec 2017

If you reinstall Windows 10 from scratch, it should automatically activate and you'll be happier with the performance. Download the Windows 10 Media Creation tool at: Download Windows 10

Superfly · 29 Dec 2017

The PC has the licence... irrespective of the dead.

The "tied to MSA" is not licencing related.

Burgurne · 30 Dec 2017

I HAVE clean installed windows 10, but in order to activate it, I had to log in to the dead owners account!! I tried to log in to my account at first, but then windows wrote that I had to buy a new license! I then reinstalled again, and this time I used the dead owners account, and it activated right away. I don't have a cd-key, only the digital license.

cereberus · 30 Dec 2017

Burgurne said:

I HAVE clean installed windows 10, but in order to activate it, I had to log in to the dead owners account!! I tried to log in to my account at first, but then windows wrote that I had to buy a new license! I then reinstalled again, and this time I used the dead owners account, and it activated right away. I don't have a cd-key, only the digital license.

Simply create a new account in accounts settings and create a local account, choose whatever name you want and make it an admin account, reboot and login to that, then delete original account, and optionally change your account to MS account.

Superfly · 30 Dec 2017

Burgurne said:

I HAVE clean installed windows 10, but in order to activate it, I had to log in to the dead owners account!! I tried to log in to my account at first, but then windows wrote that I had to buy a new license! I then reinstalled again, and this time I used the dead owners account, and it activated right away. I don't have a cd-key, only the digital license.

Strange... the only time the MSA login is required is when hardware has changed... user accounts are not tied to licencing, never has been.

alphanumeric · 30 Dec 2017

Superfly said:

Strange... the only time the MSA login is required is when hardware has changed... user accounts are not tied to licencing, never has been.

I've logged in with a local account on clean installs, skip key entry, activated no problem with a Digital License. It just shows as "Activated with a Digital License". Then when I switch to a Microsoft Account it adds the "Linked to your Microsoft account" part. To the best of my knowledge what account is used has nothing to do with activation. It's the hardware that's checked. Are you sure you installed the correct Edition the first time?

Burgurne · 30 Dec 2017

Yep. In both cases I installed Windows 10 Home 64 bit, and I did it the same way, answered "I have no CD-key" during install.

PolarNettles · 30 Dec 2017

I am 1 for 2 on activating a digital license on a clean install of 1709 without linking a MS account. One activated automatically on a local account; the other had to be linked. No hardware changes on either machine.

So there's some other factor that the activation servers are looking at besides the hardware hash. Luckily you can convert a linked user back to a local user after the activation goes through.