Untie digital license from a motherboard

I cannot see the purpose in posting regarding pedantics
In essence if the digital licence that was registered for the computer of which the motherboard and cpu has been sold
has now been allocated to another device - by that person notifying a hardware change, then in simple terms, it is not available to the thread starter

The fact that some users may have reported it has been done by as you say

Other users have reported that there is a limit of 5 times that a digital license can be copied to new computers by transferring it through a Microsoft account.

I would ask
Is it the same digital licence on MORE than one device
OR one particular digital activation moved five times.

IMHO discussing what may happen is very different from what the facts state in Microsoft Licensing condtions.
All that matters is what are the facts according to Microsoft Licensing conditions and those are as I mentioned.
Digital activation - one device at ONE Time.
OR for different editions

One PC or virtual machine can have different digital licenses, one for each edition installed on that machine. Any edition can be clean reinstalled on any machine without a product key, Windows will be automatically activated based on the digital license for whichever edition was installed, subject to said edition having been activated earlier on that machine.

With respect I cannot see the benefit of you analysing my post to pick out

Macboatmaster said:
If as I said the seller had used the digital licence relating to that motherboard on another of their computers, by notifying a hardware change, then the digital licence will not be available to "10problem"

and then post that it is wrong, offering only what may happen.
I just cannot see the point in your post

If someone posts advice that is most definitely wrong or incorrect, such as if I HAD said that the digital entitlement was
recorded in the motherboards firmware or even the registry etc, then I can see why it would be corrected

NavyLCDR said:

While that is certainly a grandiloquent reply it doesn't change the facts of what happens in real life. Joe has activated Windows 10 or 11 on a motherboard. He transfers the digital license for Windows to a new motherboard using his Microsoft account. Joe sells his old motherboard to Sam. Sam installs the same edition of Windows that was previously activated on the old motherboard and skips entering a product key. It will activate from the previous digital license and there is nothing that either Sam or Joe can do to change that.

OK, so after Joe installs Windows on his new motherboard, what happens? This is the part that has me stumped.

NavyLCDR said:

Well, the new motherboard activates with a digital license, and nothing happens to the old motherboard.

I guess I didn't ask the question clearly. What if you use the old motherboard in a different system where Win 10 is already installed?

x509 said:

I guess I didn't ask the question clearly. What if you use the old motherboard in a different system where Win 10 is already installed?

It is not actually possible to unlink the digital licence, so if a mobo was put into a pc with an unactivated version of same edition of windows installed, it would activate.

So suppose you had a retail licence, you can move the licence to a new mobo for sure, and according to EULA, you are obliged to remove windows from old device,,which with a mobo change would happen of course.

So here is the absurdity, you end up with both mobos with a digital licence no matter what you do uninstalling keys etc.

So, you can do everything by the EULA book, and be a totally honest citizen, but you cannot do anything about the digital licence. So in the end, not your problem.

There are subtle legal points I guess. If you told new owner of old mobo, that they did not need to buy a key, then technically you are condoning piracy. If you say nothing, then the new owner will get a pleasant surprise if they happened to install it unactivated, and it activated automatically.

I am not sure what would happen if a user entered a new key on a clean installation - would old mobo end up with two digital licences, or would new one overwrite old one, or even just do nothing as one is in force already?

We have no way of knowing.

So in simple terms, don't tell new owner that mobo has a digital licence. If asked, you say you are transferring your retail licence to new mobo, and it is up to new user to licence it accordingly. That way, you have complied with the EULA.

NavyLCDR said:

Windows will detect the motherboard and it will contact Microsoft Activation Servers when connected to the internet. If it is the same edition of Windows that was activated before on that motherboard, it will retrieve the digital license from Microsoft and activate automatically.

I'm the last person to condone piracy. However, this scenario is something I'm about to deal with when I put in the "old motherboard" into an "older system" to upgrade it. All my systems are properly licensed. However, if I do end up selling the "older system motherboard" someone might get a free copy of Win 10.

This situation seems to be a flaw in MS's licensing scheme, but I suspect that they considered the issue and decided it wasn't important enough to bother with.

x509 said:

I'm the last person to condone piracy. However, this scenario is something I'm about to deal with when I put in the "old motherboard" into an "older system" to upgrade it. All my systems are properly licensed. However, if I do end up selling the "older system motherboard" someone might get a free copy of Win 10.

This situation seems to be a flaw in MS's licensing scheme, but I suspect that they considered the issue and decided it wasn't important enough to bother with.

In the end, MS do not really care - the cost of policing what is basically an honour system would far outweigh the lost revenue.

cereberus said:

In the end, MS do not really care - the cost of policing what is basically an honour system would far outweigh the lost revenue.

Upon further thought, it would be cheaper to just buy another Win 10 licence than to buy a motherboard/CPU/RAM just to get a free activation.