Trouble reactivating licenses after reinstallation of Windows 10

Hi Everyone

I will try to keep this brief, but it is a little complex...

My company bought 300 Windows 10 licenses for products we were providing to our client. We were able to activate all the licenses in our assembly line (in China), although we had to use the Microsoft internet-based activation service.

When our product was shipped to our client, they decided to update their operating system (additional programs etc) and chose to create a master image. They "installed" this image on all 300 units, and when they tried to reactivate the Windows license, they got nothing more than an error message (from the activation service). Trying the telephone activation service also bore no fruit, so we ended up having to replace the licenses.

We sent the originals back to our supplier, who has said that there is nothing wrong with them. Also, of the 300, not all failed (although it was a very high failure rate).

As far as I was aware, as long as no hardware changes were made to the PC, the license should be able to be reactivated on the individual PC even if the operating system has been reinstalled.

Can anyone shed any light on why this is happening, and if there is any way to solve this problem?

I know the licenses are not "Volume Licenses", so the count should not be a problem either.

I am happy to answer questions, and would like to hear your feedback.

TIA

Hi Denis

Thanks for the reply. To answer your questions, the licenses do not have any regional constraints on them, and the updated image used by our client is the same operating system as the original one (Windows 10 64bit).

One thing that may mean something is that the original activation was done in China (where the units are assembled), although the licenses were purchased in Europe. When the reimage is done, and reactivation attempted, the units are back in Europe. I'm not sure if this changes things.

How was the image done if it was done without using sysprep is a clone image then all PC's would have the same licence and serial number which could cause it. With that number of PC's you should have got volume license and activate via Kms server locally

Sorry Denis, I overlooked the "Pro" part. All licenses were Windows 10 Pro 64bit :)

Samuria said:

How was the image done if it was done without using sysprep is a clone image then all PC's would have the same licence and serial number which could cause it. With that number of PC's you should have got volume license and activate via Kms server locally

The image is a clone, created by and installed using Clonezilla. This is initially done in our China assembly. Once the operating system is ready, the new license is installed, and activated (usually using the internet-based activation centre as it's quicker). This activation goes without a hitch.

Once it reaches the client, they re-image it, using CloneZilla and an updated version of the image we put on. When they try to reactivate using the same license, we have these problems.

Hope that explains a little more

When you activate a pc you can backup the licence and then restore it (must be same pc this isnt a crack) Advanced Tokens Manager - Free download and software reviews - CNET Download.com

Superfly said:

We will need to know the error code (which, admittedly, can be completely off - but better than nothing)

Chances are the clone has changed the HWID and lost the licence. If they have OEM keys why not just re-activate each with them individually?
I agree a VL would have saved a lot of the trouble here.

Thanks for the reply. Re-activating each individually is what they are trying to do, but the activation fails after the new image has been written. I've read a little more into it, and found that if the HWID changes considerably, then the activation will fail. The question is; would simply updating the image (same OS, but updates on software for things like printers/scanners etc) be enough of a change to cause this?

TIA