After major hardware change can I reinstall win 7 on blank drive,upgrade to 10, get "license": then put my win 10 ssd back in?

[jb0nez]

Had an old OEM win 7 install that'd long since been cloned (successfully) to ssd and new mobo, gou, drives, etc. Think it was an h57 chipset originally. Went to z77, then upgraded to win 10. Mobo died, RMA'd, 10 bored activated fine. Now that mobo failed and warranty out.

Yes I've tried to Google to see if this technique would work, over learned the new upgrade to win 10 should work fine since we're still in "free" upgrade mode, but can find nothing about what appens when I remove the temp upgrade Win 10 ssd and replace with my newer but legacy win 10 1tb ssd in.

Seems to be like clever workaround, if work but WAY less than trying trying to reconstruct after a clean install.

.(yes I know a clean reinstall would work since it'd be an upgrade install with the HWID out there on MS's license server, and I KNOW the reconversion is to to a clean reinstall, but I want to avoid that).

Anyone tried that approach? Thoughts on how it'd work?
.. Thanks!!!!

 

[Lutfij]

Almost anyone and everyone will tell you that that's not a good way to work around things that are Windows 10 related. The license/activation key is bound to your hardware and your motherboard on the UEFI so any minor hardware level changes for those who have upgraded from their prior OS will need to reinstall their previous OS with their new hardware on it and then upgrade to Windows 10 in order for the hardware to register on Microsoft's servers in order to generate a licence key. This key is bound to your hardware again. For those who have purchased their copy of Windows 10 will not need to do the aforementioned method.

 

[jb0nez]

Oddly enough, I've changed EVERY component in this system except CPU and Wind 10 Pro didn't blink. And I mean every, either due to RMA or upgrades. This was all last year. Then my mobo died again this year, I bought the IDENTICAL make and model, and Win 10 started complaining. I opened up a chat with MS to ask them to activate it since it was not an upgrade but a repair, they instead offered to sell me a Win 10 Pro full license key for $40. I went for it, nice to have a real key so, now that my mobo dies AGAIN, I can hopefully find another Z77 somewhere (MSI has none, still in 3 year warranty and is offering me $38 instead....)