procedure to move retail license to new hardware using digital licen

I have never done this yet.
Retail copy and linked to digital license online account.
What do you do ?

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Use Activation Troubleshooter in Windows 10

ok, I found out from Brink's tutorial here
It looks good because you dont have to have your activation key then, which I had been thinking you did not need, but seems lots of searches kept saying have to remove product key from dead PC and put it into new PC or have to call Microsoft, and then what if your old PC burned out dead...so it seems not to painful

Ghot said:

In the tutorials, search for ShowKeyPlus. That will give you your product key.

Find Product Key in Windows 10

yes, but i dont think you need it and it does not give you the key you activated with originally. I think...

Ghot said:

It gives you A product key. Which key it gives you depends on how you activated it the last time.
In my case I used a Retail Win 7 key, so it gave me a different Retail Win 10 key.

Point is...it will give you a key that will work, and that will be the same (retail or OEM) as you used last time.

just ran it and it gets a default generic key whic you dont need. When you install windows just skip the key, say i dont have product key, then do the Brink tutorial. And think like this, your PC died, and you cant run showkey then...

Ghot said:

Well, mine gives me a retail key. Different than the Win 7 key I used, but a retail key.

When you run showkeyplus, it gives you Installed Key. Write that down then click on check edition and type in that key you wrote down.

Works for everyone else. ^^

i just installed win 10 pro on this laptop, and used a retail win 7 ultimate key.
showkey puts asterisk next to key and it says default key, requires digital license for activation

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i have run showkey in the past and it never shows the key i used to activate windows, not ever, all my pc are win10 pro retail and activated, in fact this key looks very familiar, i have seen it before. 3v66t are the last set of chars

Ghot said:

In post #4, I explained that.

Here... you copy the key shown in Installed Key.
Then click Check Edition
Then type the key you just copied into the Product Key box.
Then click Check.









As you can see, mine is a Retail key.


When you install Win 10 with Win 7 key, it CHANGES the key to a Win 10 key.

Even if put that key showkey shows, it wont activate windows. I still have to follow the Brink procedure. So this extra step is not worth the effort. Win10 runs fine without activation, except for personalization. Whenever I have reinstalled windows, I just skip the key, then log in with my MS account. Only time I have ever used a key is for a first time 10 install, on hardware which has never seen win10. After that if you have a digital license inked to your account you can throw the key away, which is the way it should be, everything done online controlled by your account of activated pc's.

keys and discs and pieces of paper get lost and destroyed or stolen, so it is not very reliable, what has been proven robust so far is online accounts.

I even bought an old MB with CPU from ebay seller, prior owner had win10 pro running on it. All I did was install win10 pro, skip the key, login with my online account and it was activated with digital license to my account.

Well, I was reading, if you use the generic key which almost everyone has on the PC if it was activated with a digital license online account at MS, it will activate without needing to sign in on the internet to your account at Microsoft.
But may only be useful if your giving the PC to some one else, so it keeps your Name off of it.

That DEFAULT generic installed key is VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T, and it wont do you any good if the PC was never activated.

If you skip key, login to your account, you can activate it without typing in any keys, I have done it several times, even for hardware which was activated under some one else's account online with MS.

Did that with a bare ASUS AMD motherboard I bought off eBay seller, I just happened to install win10 pro, it booted, I logged in with my online MS account, and it was activated with a digital license linked to my account, no keys needed. So a prior owner had an activated win10 pro on the motherboard.

If the Motherboard was activated in the past, it will activate again without needing a key if you do online activation to your MS account.

I bought Asus laptop off Ebay, had windows 10 home OEM. Seller was a pawn shop, they reset the PC.
I booted it up, and it said to login with my online MS account, I did and it was activated with a digital license to my account, no key typing in needed, it was extremely easy.