Dell replaced motherboard/HD, re-installed Winows Pro, won't activate

purplenate26 said:

P.S. The troubleshooter did not work.

Had you reverted the Microsoft account to a local account?
Did Activation Troubleshooter show you the following?
Windows 10 Activation questions - Page 8 - Windows 10 Forums

Matthew Wai said:

Had you reverted the Microsoft account to a local account?
Did Activation Troubleshooter show you the following?
Windows 10 Activation questions - Page 8 - Windows 10 Forums

I had did the re-install from the Dell recovery partition as a local account, then I logged onto Windows and upgraded to a Microsoft account from there. Before, I had always done the install with a Microsoft account, but that creates weird usernames that are based on your Microsoft account name. This time I wanted my username to be "C:\Users\nate" and not some freak based on my Microsoft email account. So after logging in with a local account with the username nate, I could upgrade to a Microsoft account knowing my username would stay nate.

Does that help you. I wasn't quite sure if you were saying I had to do the install with a Microsoft account in order to activate, but I got the new motherboard, so even installing with a Microsoft account doesn't sound like it would help. As far as I know, the only people who have free reign to freely move from computer to computer or re-activate endlessly through hardware changes are those who buy the retail version of Windows. But you all know so much more than me. I'm a Penguin head for 20 years, who's only had a Windows computer to call his own for a year.

Compumind said:

Curious...

What's going on with Dell mobos?
I'd like to know why they failed.

Everybody using a UPS?

Mines a laptop. No idea why mine failed. My hard drive went bad, and then it turned out to be my motherboard. Chief among the evidence, was a failure of Bitlocker due to an account of the TPM 2.0 chip failing, well I guess it's a chip, don't know much about it.

purplenate26 said:

I wasn't quite sure if you were saying I had to do the install with a Microsoft account in order to activate

What I said has nothing to do with installation.
I meant this: Link Microsoft Account to Windows 10 Digital License | Tutorials

If a Microsoft account is linked to a digital license, Windows can be activated via Activation Troubleshooter after a motherboard change.