Windows 10 activated on image on different spec PC?

I hope the activation experts here can shed some light on something I inadvertantly experienced over the weekend.

I have two systems; a Win 10 Pro laptop (which I believe has the product key embedded into the UEFI bios - confirmed by Powershell command?) and a standard desktop PC (Powershell returns error).

The two systems are in no way identical - laptop having SSD and desktop haing mechanical HDD for example; not to mention motherboards and NIC.

After imaging the laptop and restoring the image to the PC for testing, I would not usually install the network card driver, but for some reason I did on this ocassion. Unbeknownst to me, I had the cable plugged in whilst booting up from the restored image on the desktop PC (not something I would usually do anyway), but to my surprise, Windows activated!

This is an image with a currently in-use product key (on the laptop) but on completely different hardware - why would it activate? Is it because of the image?

Usually, when I restore an image to a completely different system, it says 'connect to internet to get activated' (or similar) as it detects a significant hardware change (that's my understanding).

Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have affected the validity of the license on the laptop!

I could connect the desktop PC (with a fresh image) to see if it would actiavate again, but as you can appreciate, I don't want to jeopardise the original license.

Probably because the desktop had previously qualified for a Win10 Pro digital licence in its own right, either through the free upgrade or installing 10 with a valid key.

The restored image of your laptop could have checked with the activation servers, found a digital licence tied to the desktop's hardware and activated using that. If the desktop had a digital licence for Home rather than Pro the laptop's Pro image shouldn't have activated.

Thanks Bree

That reminds me - I forgot to say that the desktop hardware was indeed Win 10 activated but using HOME. I don't recall installing Pro on that configuration.

Also, the last 5 characters of the license matches that on the laptop and not one I recognise as one previously installed.

Odd - let's hope others more versed in 'activation lore' will provide an answer...

Thanks Superfly

Will this identify hardware used?

Also, I have overwritten the disk on which the image surprisingly activated on. If I restore another image, it will say connect to internet to get activated. I believe this toll will not work as intended?