I had A PC running a free upgrade Win 10 Pro, but had to replace the mother board.
The "new" mother board was actually used, with Win 10 Home linked.
I linked them both to my Microsoft account, and yet Windows would not activate, complaining that the license is for Home.
Troubleshooter > I changed hardware, only lets me choose that I am using the old motherboard.
I have no keys.
Is there a way to get my Win Pro activated?
Thanks!
It's getting harder and hard to upgrade Home to Pro without a valid Windows 10 Pro product key that allows activation. The generic product key for Pro does not allow for activation, and MS has blocked it's use to upgrade Home to Pro unless the computer already has a digital license for Pro.
To transfer the digital license for Pro from the old computer to the new computer through your Microsoft Account, you will have to do a clean install of Pro on the new computer, which will not activate. Then you might be able to activate it by transfer through your Microsoft Account.
If I create a new partition and install Pro there? Would it work? Would it activate the old install?
I don't see why not. A digital license is linked to the hardware ID of the machine. As the hard drive is not part of this hardware ID (allowing you to replace a dead drive or upgrade an HDD to an SSD) then it shouldn't care what partition it's on, it should activate from the digital license.
Didn't work. I tried Installing the Pro fresh on a different drive ("too many partitions"), but still it wouldn't use the Pro license.
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