Activation and hardware upgrade

The board change will be an immediate dismissal of the present activation status. You should plan on treating the new board as if you were moving the SSD into another system in that regard. To see 10 reactivated if you should decided to follow the advice given in another thread I can point you to where the discussion was on moving the OS drive into an entirely new build with the same copy of 10 on the SysPrep tool is utilized to prepare Windows by stripping things down to the basics as well as seeing all board drivers for that make and model board removed first in preparation for the new board. The thread is located at: Solved Moving HDD with Windows 10 into Complete new PC. - Windows 10 Forums

You can try to follow the steps in the guide mentioned on the thread there or plan on seeing full clean install of 10 which if only the board is changed and not the same with any expansion cards and other devices could only require a fast call into MS to see the existing copy of 10 reactivated. Remember you are still seeing a major hardware change and the call could easily prevent the need to buy a new product key for 10 if you had originally gone with the free upgrade offer.

If you had already replaced the upgrade install with a clean install or followed the Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First guide board drivers being removed and later replaced along with calling into MS is the quick way. For insuring the absolute best results with the new board in however many would opt to start over fresh with the clean install bonding with the new board.

If you are still working with an upgrade install however the clean install would simplify things except for the reactivation part. The reactivation route you take however will be your choice there as to whether or not to call into MS or simply go out and buy a new key to see 10 properly activated to the new MB.

MS allows for hardware changes after so long as part of the anticipated upgrades typically seen on average. In contrast when going to swap out just the 8gb of memory on the present build when first new i had to call into MS. Recently however when going to swap out the 4gb of Mushkn Enhanced(pair of 2gb dimms on second system) for 8gb of Kingston Hyper X "Fury"(pair of 4gb dimms to max out micro atx board) for the 3yr. old 7 Pro case not a problem!

A board however is still seen as a major hardware change on the other hand and will require reactivation either by calling MS or buying a new key. The hardware profile ID is based more so on the make and model board which tends to include the serial number on the board that gets recorded on the MS activation servers. Since MS is now seeing a looser restriction on things however to get more people not only running 10 but away from "questionable" Windows installations for previous versions the call in should go quickly since 10 was already activated at your location in fact. MS wants people running "Genuine" 10 installs and is making things easier.

When calling into MS the operator has your open up a command line and type in a command that brings up a new window where you read off the 8 groups of 5 digits each and then has you type in a new group in order to see the Windows installation you have activated. Once activated if you should need to reinstall Windows the MS server generally remembers and the fresh copy should activate again on it's own at some later date.

canuck257 said:

From what you say here it would seem that my best option is to clean install (I have the ISO) and then re-activate. I have no experience with MS and re/activation, are they accommodating in such circumstances? Should I have a record of the old activation key (if such a thing exists after a free upgrade) before I call them?

Living on a pension, I really don't want the expense of buying a new key.

Well you are planning to spend on a new board, cpu, memory, etc. which will be a major hardware upgrade which also invalidates any present Windows installations regardless of what version you have on. That's how product activation works not only for Windows but many 3rd party wares too.

The product key for the previous version would have to be transferred over to the new set of hardwares first meaning a fresh copy of the previous version going back on again to call MS to see that activated followed by the new either fresh 10 upgrade or creating the new GenuineTicket.xml outlined in the guide for bypassing the need to see the upgrade take place first I pointed to earlier. That would allow you to use the previous version's key having that transferred over to the new hardwares and avoid the need to buy a 10 key.

The preferred option to save on cost of course would be simply buying a new OEM key for 10 at the lower price tag where you select which edition you want to go on rather then seeing a second upgrade from Home to Home when wanting Pro? Plus that new key is what you use if you ever need to see 10 reinstalled at some point. Prices depending on download or media will vary while still beating the $199.99 for Pro at Newegg's OEM tag of $140 I picked up for $20 off or another site's $125 for electronic download purchase. Home is $99- at Newegg and only $85 for the download at the other vendor being looked over.

Here I ended up simply buying 10 outright since I had no plans to dump 7 entirely at this time. Despite being a 6yr. old version the time and money spent back in 2009 was worth it and still continues to be worth it for the Ultimate edition presently running some programs I wouldn't be buying again and will be lost if 7 gets that fresh clean install it's now overdue for!

canuck257 said:

Could you clarify what you mean by "typed in a different product key". Where did you get that key?

It wasn't an actual key but the operator needing you to read off the 8 groups of 5 digits and then typing in a brand new set to see an existing Windows install activated. I called a few times years back when either changing over to a brand new custom build or with 7 having swapped one brand of memory out when the dimms pressed upwards against the large aluminum heat sink placed on top of the cpu. For some reason one brand's performance memory was made to stand up way too high for most 3rd party coolers!