Is Windows Edition, e.g. Pro, tied to User Account or Machine

I got some very helpful tips from this site on how to prepare the sale of my PC to someone. I particularly like the one that will create an OOTB experience for the new owner.

This is probably a 2 part question, so where I'm slightly confused is when the new owner signs in for the first time, will the machine retain the Pro edition that I've loaded it with or will the edition default to their MS login account?

Which leads me to the question on activation; will activation complete properly once they sign on? Is the activation still based on the machine? I sure don't want them to get home and find out that the machine didn't activate properly.

I just don't want to run into problems after the sale, so maybe these things will all work themselves out and I'm just paranoid.

Thanks,
Greg

Activation is tied to the hardware / device. Linking it to a Microsoft Account is just an optional extra. It doesn't matter what account is used, as long as the Digital License stored on the activation server matches the edition installed, and the hardware hash of that device, it will activate.

alphanumeric said:

Activation is tied to the hardware / device. Linking it to a Microsoft Account is just an optional extra. It doesn't matter what account is used, as long as the Digital License stored on the activation server matches the edition installed, and the hardware hash of that device, it will activate.

Thanks for the quick reply. I thought that might be the case but wasn't sure.

That helps a lot, thanks!