Curious about having 2 activated win10 pro on my Asus 2 in 1 laptop.

sdowney717 · 12 Nov 2019

When I bought this laptop, it had a single copy on win10 pro, activated to my Microsoft account with a digital license, and it still does but I never boot to it anymore as it is on the original terrible slow abysmal sata 3tb drive that came with the PC.

I had an unused copy of win7 pro, which I decided to put on a new NVME drive on this PC, and I then upgraded it to win10 pro. And activated it to my Microsoft account digital license.

So then 2 activated win10 pro I have on here.
My thinking at the time was reliability of always having access to a win10 OS in case one had a problem, I could quickly select the other installed win 10 pro. And it is so slow with that drive, I will never need it or use it.

But its been so good with this Western Digital NVME drive, I dont need the other installed win10 pro and its way behind on updates, I have not logged onto it in 6 months or more.

How could I recycle that win 10 pro install to a new machine?
Login and reset it? Login to MS web account and do something there?

- - - Updated - - -

I am sure someone here knows, there have been 186 views.
So dont worry about me, I will figure it out on my own, I often solve my own problems without any assistance.
Still amazed that one guy on here told me the PC could not run windows 10, even though it was running windows 10. As soon as he had found out I built it and not an oem system, it was a dud to him. I told him I did not believe a word he had said, and I was right. That was my thread on making the 5.1 sound work.

NavyLCDR · 13 Nov 2019

Your thread is only 5 hours old and you have so many complaints? Hopefully you do figure it out on your own since our response time of >5 hours does not meet your standards.

sdowney717 · 13 Nov 2019

NavyLCDR said:

Your thread is only 5 hours old and you have so many complaints? Hopefully you do figure it out on your own since our response time of >5 hours does not meet your standards.

Honestly If I know and am reading a thread, I tell them how. But you also now have an attitude, as I am sure you know and wont say as well so honestly I dont care what you say either.

I did recall one was win10 home.. I have seen it before on here, some people do try and the info they have is defective. but they do try. And some people think pretty high and mighty like they are windows gods, and I wont be groveling at their feet for tidbits.

And that is absolutely correct. I have figured out many things on my own using other published help articles and no one bothered to say anything here. My recent thread on how I was able to repair updates for example. Its kind of like talking to the wind. And for me that was more critical to get it done, so I had no time to wait. If you want it done right, do it yourself, don't rely on the uncertain help from other people, you get old enough, that is what you discover about life, that some have an axe to grind.

This interest I have in splitting windows here is not critical, it is just a matter of personal interest for me as someday might want to use it on another PC. And I will be very surprised if anyone actually tells me how on this site, such as yourself, even though they know.
There was another similar thread recently and it seemed to go nowhere with not very useful information shared.

And now there are 1448 views and only one useless responder. Maybe the thread topic is of interest to some people?

Andrew129260 · 13 Nov 2019

sdowney717 said:

I had an unused copy of win7 pro...

From where? Was it Retail?

You can't take the license that came with your asus laptop and put it on another machine. You would need to restore the original asus license from your microsoft account. You can change the license without reinstalling.

However, depending on where your copy of unused win 7 pro came from, you could put that license on another computer. (If its retail for example.) And then upgrade to 10 like you did before. Although you should be able to install 10 with the 7 key without needing to install 7 and then upgrade it. Or simply just log into your microsoft account and it should use the correct license.

Also you need to tone down the complaining. View numbers means anyone on the web viewed it, doesn't mean they have an account on this forum. All help here is free and volunteered. Not required.

Kyhi · 13 Nov 2019

I have 4 different versions of windows 10 activated on my PC...

sdowney717 · 13 Nov 2019

Kyhi said:

I have 4 different versions of windows 10 activated on my PC...

Yes, there are 2 versions of windows 10 on this Asus 2 in 1 laptop.
A version of home running 1809 on the original sata drive, this was oem came with the laptop from Asus
A version of pro running 1903 on the NVME added by me, retail copy upgraded to win10 pro of windows 7 pro that I bought.

I logged into the ASUS with windows home, then went to my microsoft online device management page, it took a while, but the info changed. I still show 5 windows 10 devices, but the Asus laptop info changed from pro to home and the pc name changed.

It no longer shows the ASUS laptop machine with windows 10 pro.
I had been thinking it would show 6 devices.
It will let me remove the win home from my account, but I guess there is no point as it is OEM from Asus and it knows it goes to this hardware instance, so then

I dont suppose it could be used on a different PC?
But what if I said its hardware died?
Still could not reuse that win 10 home on a new pc?
(which means to me its dead and useless waste of win 10 home)

I am not even sure what would happen to my win 10 pro on here if I released it.
Both home and pro are linked to my online account.

Any one care to share more about that? It seems I could release win10 pro off my account, then setup win10 pro on new hardware, then use the original win 7 pro key to validate it. Also means I need to search my desk for that key I used.

Still leaves the ASUS win 10 home out in the cold, really what about if the hardware died?

Kyhi · 13 Nov 2019

The Home Version - which is OEM - is tied to that PC Hardware and can not be transferred to another...
You can only transfer the Retail Version..

sdowney717 · 13 Nov 2019

Kyhi said:

The Home Version - which is OEM - is tied to that PC Hardware and can not be transferred to another...
You can only transfer the Retail Version..

So it dies when the hardware dies then.

I wanted pro and it was a cheap upgrade buying win7 pro off ebay a year ago, so it is ok regardless.

MS has changed the activation message, it will say activated, but it no longer say activated with a link to your digital account. I checked that on 2 other PC I have.

I am so busy, I dont always recall exactly what I did with stuff, so maybe that showkeyplus will reveal it, dont know. I may have saved it in my email the key

OK, found it in the drawer, yes full retail win 7 pro install disc with the key printed on the label in very small letters. I need to put this into my email to save a copy in case I ever need to refer to it. Might loose the paperwork.

======================================================
edited and adding this
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, showkeyplus does not reveal the windows 7 key I used to install win7 pro!
I am pretty certain I used that disc to upgrade this Asus laptop,

I ran showkeyplus on the OEM windows 10 home install, and on the windows 10 pro install, and showkeyplus shows the OEM Dell key as the same on both installs, and lists a generic win 10 pro key also. Really dont have a clue. It does also say key requires to be activated with a digital license. So honestly if you lose your original key, you may never get it back. OR, I bought more than one win7 copy to upgrade this Asus laptop and this copy of win 7 pro in my desk is unused.

Anyone know if the key displayed wont match the key used in an install? Which if true makes it useless say if you lost your original paperwork and needed to do a new install onto new hardware.

- - - Updated - - -

wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey

Run that in cmd, and it retrieves the windows 10 home key even while running the windows 10 pro install.

- - - Updated - - -

I can understand how volume licensing makes sense now.
Imagine you have lots of installs, and you need to release a pc and reinstall the os on new hardware, then you grab the wrong paperwork that you already used on another one of your win10 pc's. IT can quickly fall apart, you wont remember which key should go where unless the case is marked and you keep a detailed record of what you did.

Showkeyplus just reveals generic keys which you can find anywhere. I dont see it being very useful.

- - - Updated - - -

Anyhow, if you want to see if your retail, oem, or volume, run this command. Mine is retail win 10 pro, which means if this ASUS died or it got too beat up, in theory, os should be movable to a new machine. And never lose your COA retail Key as you can never get it out of the machine. I am glad I looked into this.

Kyhi · 13 Nov 2019

Or you just create a Genuine Ticket to activate Windows 10

NavyLCDR · 13 Nov 2019

OEM Windows activates via the retail channel. The check to determine the activation channel will not tell you if the Windows is OEM or FRP (Full Retail Product).