Restore Windows 10 from dead PC to new PC then do freash install

Tanyac

Reputable
My son had a retail Windows 8 PC. He got the free Windows 10 upgrade.
Recently he fried his motherboard. Learned his lesson and now has a decent power board.
He was making monthly images with Macrium Free.

So we can restore his latest backup to the rebuilt PC, and I'm told we will have to argue the activation over the phone with Microsoft.

But the question is, he says the PC was slow and unresponsive and there are old apps lying around he no longer uses and is just generally not happy with the way his Windows 10 install was working.

So he really wants to do a clean fresh install.

Now, please correct me if I'm wrong - You can't do a clean install onto a new PC and expect the activation to follow? M$ Will want him to spend another $249 AUD on a pro license?

So - can he restore his old image onto the rebuilt PC. Argue the "Fried motherboard" case with M$ and once successfully activated, then do a clean install?

thanks
 
Solution
Correct. Once activated, it's tied to your machine (or if you use a MS Account to log in and it's post Anniversary Edition, it's tied to that account).

-Wolf sends

Wolfshadw

Titan
Moderator
The problem that he appears to be running into is that you're trying to put an old image of your OS (pointing at old hardware) onto a rebuilt system (with new hardware) and the OS just isn't handling it as well as it should.

In a situation like this, you would always want to perform a clean install of Windows. Depending on the version of Windows (post anniversary edition) and whether or not it's attached to a Microsoft account, a clean install may activate itself without issue. Aside from that, a failed motherboard is a pretty good reason for a failed, automatic re-activation. In my one experience (many moons ago) MS did not have an issue with my failed motherboard and reactivated my license with a minimal fuss.

-Wolf sends
 

Tanyac

Reputable
Thanks for your replies.
We haven't yet tried the restore. In either case, the motherboard brands are the same (MSI --> MSI). I don't expect any problems with the drivers, except that they'll need updating. The LAN drivers are different model, and except for an uninstall/reinstall I also do not expect any problems. I've done this plenty of times with Windows 7 and earlier. I just hate Windows 10 so I've not actually experienced it yet.

Likewise, I don't expect a problem with M$ refusing to allow activation, as there are many documented cases of M$ accepting a fried motherboard as "Not a new system".

The question really is, that once they allow the activation, then I would expect the license is then tied to this "new PC". Given that I would be able to do a fresh install whenever I wanted.

Right?