Windows 10 wouldn't reactivate on the same hardware.

[trents]

[Solved] Windows 10 wouldn't reactivate on the same hardware.

First time I have run into this. Not sure what is responsible but the thought crossed my mind that sense Windows 7 support is now officially a legacy product $MS may have tightened the reigns on Windows 10 activation.

The story line is I built a new box for a customer using the Macrium reflect image from the old hardware so as not to forfeit all her apps. It was a hardware upgrade from an old core 2 duo machine to a Skylake Pentium G. I didn't think it would work but thought it worth trying as opposed to a clean install from scratch. Well the new machine booted fine into Windows 10 and the OS found all the appropriate drivers for the new hardware, or so it seemed initially. I purchased a new Windows 10 activation key from URCDKey and activated the new build with the "change the product key" feature found in the activation wizard.

A few days later the customer's wifi connection started dropping out repeatedly and to make a long story short it wasn't the USB wifi adapter that was the problem or the router but a more general USB issue. External hard drives were not being recognized at all but flash drives were so I backed up her data onto a flash drive. I just figured there was some driver issue that had developed over the few days since the build, given the patch over way I installed the new system.

So last night I did a clean install of Windows (same version) on the same hardware but to my surprise it wasn't activated when I checked. Historically, you can reinstall Windows 10 on the same hardware and it would automatically activate. To cut the story short again (after trying various things) I had to purchase another product key off ebay, I did a new clean install adding in the key at the front end of the install and it activated fine.

The only change I made in the first attempt at a clean build was changing the partition scheme from MBR to GPT. Do you think that could have fouled up the activation?

Anyway, I'm sharing this to see if anyone else is running into Windows 10 activation issues recently that were not happening historically.

 

[Johan45]

It was likely an OEM initially and the clone was already activated. I think you just got lucky the first time when switching to new HW. Win10 will complain with new HW like that, have had it happen to me but a few minutes in chat and they reactivated my old OEM copy on the new HW. I just told then I had a HW failure and needed to swap out parts.

 

[trents]

When switching to the new hardware after the clone I had to buy a new activation key. The activation was not carried over. After activating Windows on the new hardware with the new activation key it would not automatically reactivate after doing a clean install on the same hardware. I was not offered the option of chat or phone I don't think so I was at a loss as to how to contact MS about this. MS seems to have eliminated a lot of the phone support options they used to offer.

 

[Sayfield]

I was not offered the option of chat or phone I don't think so I was at a loss as to how to contact MS about this. MS seems to have eliminated a lot of the phone support options they used to offer.

I sent 6 Emails to MS but go no response.

 

[Crow846]

I always have issues with Activation and use the Automated Phone call to activate the copy.
*You just call Microsoft phone line and them a bot asks you to enter numbers and then it will ask you enter numbers on your PC*
Same goes for Office 2016 Home and so on.

 

[trents]

I always have issues with Activation and use the Automated Phone call to activate the copy.
*You just call Microsoft phone line and them a bot asks you to enter numbers and then it will ask you enter numbers on your PC*
Same goes for Office 2016 Home and so on.

But that is the problem. I didn't get that popup windows offering automated phone activation with the bot. Yes, if you get that it's not a problem. All I got was a message saying this software cannot be activated.

 

[Crow846]

"If you encounter any issues during activation, please follow these steps:
Open Start menu, type SLUI 04 and press enter,
Select your country, and call the toll-free number. Follow the instructions provided by the automated activation system to receive a confirmation ID and activate your OS." ~Kinguin

There are other option to force Windows phone activation.
BTW during working hours Microsoft has a Chat who can also help you.

 

[trents]

SLUI 04 was tried but it didn't produce the robo phone activation window like it has in the past. Have you tried it lately? I think Microsoft caught up to the trick.

 

[Janus67]

What if you disconnect it from the network?

 

[trents]

This thread is old. This was for a customer job from several months ago. I wound up getting a gray market key from Ebay to solve the problem.

 

[Crow846]

It is not working from the first try.
I used this method a month ago, when I installed a windows on a friends PC
Everything worked fine.

 

[trents]

Runnng SLUI 04 does not do anything for me. I have tried it on more than one computer. It used to work but doesn't for me anymore. When I google the problem, I find many are having this issue. For instance: https://www.tenforums.com/windows-u...oesnt-display-menu-change-product-key-2.html?

And yes, I have run dism.exe and sfc /scannow to rebuild the image and check for broken system files.

 

[Crow846]

Are you still trying to activate that CD key or just looking for solutions?
Cause in my case, I had first to enter the CD key and get an error that the CD key is not valid and only then I could run SLUI 04
and get the window asking me to call a phone number.
Other wise it wouldn't work for me.
You can also chat with Microsoft and ask them to validate your CD key.
It is a matter of a few minutes. Don't know why you didn't do it in the first place or the second.

 

[trents]

Thanks for the tip, Crow846. I'll try it next time I run into this situation. It's been so long ago I was working on that rig that I don't remember if I tried what you suggested or not.