Installing on new machine

telboy84

Honorable
Aug 10, 2013
3
0
10,510
Hi all,

Short bit about myself first. I buy working/broken custom built systems, break them up and sell the parts separately for profit. So here's my problem

My most recent buy included a windows 8 pro upgrade copy with product key. The system had a damaged motherboard and graphics card, both of which would not post. Im pretty sure the previous windows used was not an OEM copy as it was not a manufacturer build pc.

My question is can this windows key be used again on another system to upgrade to windows 8?

Thanks for your time

Terry
 
Solution
It's been my experience that if the motherboard is the part that fails in a computer system, a call to Microsoft Activation and an explanation will usually result in an activation key reset and you will be able to use the OEM key again. If this is a retail copy of Microsoft Windows, there should not be any problem at all.

-Wolf sends

Wolfshadw

Titan
Moderator
It's been my experience that if the motherboard is the part that fails in a computer system, a call to Microsoft Activation and an explanation will usually result in an activation key reset and you will be able to use the OEM key again. If this is a retail copy of Microsoft Windows, there should not be any problem at all.

-Wolf sends
 
Solution

baesy

Honorable
Aug 7, 2013
54
0
10,660
Hi, there's no way of really knowing unless its in the dvd case, my guess its a single use code which means it can be reinstalled on the same system as many times as you want but when installing it on a new computer/motherboard it wont work.
Hope this helped
 

telboy84

Honorable
Aug 10, 2013
3
0
10,510
Thanks for your replys guys.

The key is on a little card inside the windows 8 case. Problem is ive already sold this to a customer and it is on-route to them as i type this :sarcastic: A friend brought this to my attention when i told him of the sale. I was under the impression as long as it wasnt OEM it would be fine to install on another system so long as its not currently being used on another

Im pretty sure the pre-upgrade version of windows was retail and not OEM unless the previous owner bought a OEM copy of windows for his custom build.

Guess ill have to wait and see if i get a complaint

Thanks
Terry