New Motherboard and Reactivation

bobkn said:

Let me add: MAC address.

Every NIC is supposed to have a unique one. Regardless of what is in the motherboard's BIOS, swapping boards will present a new NIC. (You could use a discrete NIC and move that over, but who does that?)

The integrated NIC MAC address is stored on the BIOS EEPROM, though (very rarely, typically on very old motherboards) it can be stored on a separate NIC EEPROM.


Doing a full BIOS dump then flash will clone the MAC as well.

WhyMe said:

Yeah I realise that. Every board is unique and can be identified a number of ways. But I don't understand the point you are making. Please explain. Thanks

The point isn't major.

You could buy a nominally identical motherboard, from the same production run, and the MS activation servers wouldn't recognize the new board as the same.

Whether there's a way to hack the new board to make it a clone of the original, that's beyond my knowledge. It might be as easy as swapping the BIOS chips.

You changed the mobo, you have to call them I guess. Good luck trying to clone it! Crucial infos (related to activation and to prevent piracy) are written in the BIOS EEPROM by the manufacturer and there ain't there no more. The MAC address is among them and it's not the same. I won't discuss the original Hardware Hash not there any more.
Good luck,

Just for reference, I did an OEM win 7 upgrade to 10. Then my msi z77a-g46 mobo failed. RMA, installed, booted just fine.

And then THAT mobo failed, of course it can't be bought for a reasonable price anymore, so I get to be creative -- I hear that you can talk them into activating if it was to replace a broken mobo. They want everyone on Win 10 so bad.

As an aside, have also cloned my 10 install to a new ssd AND pulled 2 x2tb hdd for 1 4tb and windows never blinked.

Edit: also changed gpu AND replaced RAM, again no problem booting right up. In fact, the cpu is the ONLY original component from upgrade. (Ok, case, psu, and monitors too).

jb0nez said:

Just for reference, I did an OEM win 7 upgrade to 10. Then my msi z77a-g46 mobo failed. RMA, installed, booted just fine.

And then THAT mobo failed, of course it can't be bought for a reasonable price anymore, so I get to be creative -- I hear that you can talk them into activating if it was to replace a broken mobo. They want everyone on Win 10 so bad.

As an aside, have also cloned my 10 install to a new ssd AND pulled 2 x2tb hdd for 1 4tb and windows never blinked.

Edit: also changed gpu AND replaced RAM, again no problem booting right up. In fact, the cpu is the ONLY original component from upgrade. (Ok, case, psu, and monitors too).

The other components don't matter, just the mobo because that is where the digital entitlement is stored.

The activation agents are under no obligation to reactivate a repair-replacement mobo if the copy of Windows was a free upgrade and not an OEM or retail copy. You may get lucky but don't count on it. The problem is that the digital entitlement is not available in the new mobo's firmware and if there is no COA to fall back on then there is no way to verify entitlement for the upgrade.

Gabe Aul did say that the free copy of Windows 10 was only good for the life of the computer, and that means the specific mobo installed on unless the upgraded copy of Windows had a stand-alone license. If it did, then the free upgrade was transferrable with it. Otherwise it dies with the mobo.

Cbarnhorst said:

The other components don't matter, just the mobo because that is where the digital entitlement is stored.

The problem is that the digital entitlement is not available in the new mobo's firmware and if there is no COA to fall back on then there is no way to verify entitlement for the upgrade.

Once again.... the digital entitlement is NOT stored on the motherboard! It never has been, it isn't presently, and there are no plans for it to be in the future. Computer manufacturers and computer manufacturers only (legally) will burn product keys to bios starting with Windows 8 and later. Windows does not. Nor does Windows store activation information on motherboard firmware. Windows can read the product key in bios and use it to generate a digital entitlement.

The digital entitlement is saved on Microsoft activation servers via the internet along with a matching hardware ID that Windows generates from the hardware configuration. Every time Windows boots it reads the hardware configuration of the computer and generates the hardware ID. If the newly generated hardware ID matches the previous hardware ID stored in the registry, then it simply remains activated. If the newly generated hardware ID does not match what is stored in the registry, Windows will deactivate and then if connected to the internet send the new hardware ID to Microsoft activation servers. If a match is found, and the Windows version is the same then Windows will activate based upon that return from Microsoft activation servers.

My neighbor just had to replace his motherboard. He replaced it with a totally different model and brand because the broken one is no longer available. Windows loaded properly, without activation of course. He used the activation screen to open a chat with Microsoft. They first asked for his old activation key (a Windows 8 key) and his Microsoft account. They them took remote control of the PC and checked a number of things, including the full hardware configuration of the PC, presumably to see the motherboard information. They also asked to see proof of purchase of the new motherboard, so we opened up my neighbor's Amazon.com account and showed the invoice. Once that was done the agent ran a command prompt program of some sort, entered the old key, and Windows activated properly. It was easy and took about five minutes. The remote session was slick.

PJLLB said:

My neighbor just had to replace his motherboard. He replaced it with a totally different model and brand because the broken one is no longer available. Windows loaded properly, without activation of course. He used the activation screen to open a chat with Microsoft. They first asked for his old activation key (a Windows 8 key) and his Microsoft account. They them took remote control of the PC and checked a number of things, including the full hardware configuration of the PC, presumably to see the motherboard information. They also asked to see proof of purchase of the new motherboard, so we opened up my neighbor's Amazon.com account and showed the invoice. Once that was done the agent ran a command prompt program of some sort, entered the old key, and Windows activated properly. It was easy and took about five minutes. The remote session was slick.

They asked me why I changed motherboards. The correct answer is that it was broken; an incorrect answer would be: "I wanted to upgrade."

PJLLB said:

My neighbor just had to replace his motherboard. He replaced it with a totally different model and brand because the broken one is no longer available. Windows loaded properly, without activation of course. He used the activation screen to open a chat with Microsoft. They first asked for his old activation key (a Windows 8 key) and his Microsoft account. They them took remote control of the PC and checked a number of things, including the full hardware configuration of the PC, presumably to see the motherboard information. They also asked to see proof of purchase of the new motherboard, so we opened up my neighbor's Amazon.com account and showed the invoice. Once that was done the agent ran a command prompt program of some sort, entered the old key, and Windows activated properly. It was easy and took about five minutes. The remote session was slick.

Sure would have saved a lot of time just to type in the Windows 8 key yourself.