Windows 10 OEM license transfer

[pats478]

Hey all,

I apologize in advance if this thread already exists:

I have a custom built PC that I personally put together a couple years ago. When I assembled it, at the time, I installed Windows 7 Home Edition OEM, and then upgraded to Windows 10 thanks to the free offer from MS. I also fully reformatted it after so that just Windows 10 was running on it.

Now fast forward to today, I'm planning on selling off my tower, however I don't want to include my OS with it, for security reasons mainly.

My question is, can I transfer that license from my tower? As of now, whenever I reformat my PC, I always skip entering in a CD key because as soon as it connects to the internet my copy of windows 10 becomes validated.

Which, and correct me if I'm wrong, even if I sell my PC with my hard drives deleted and no OS present, as soon as someone goes to install windows 10, it'll simply reactivate my original license, right?

Sorry again if this sounds confusing, it's late where I am now

 

[atomicWAR]

No it makes sense. Unfortunately even if you format your HDDs/SSDs if someone where to install windows 10 and choose the activate later function, in theory your key could get used again automatically as you fear. You can not transfer it to another tower being OEM as it is tied to your motherboard, part of the problem here. You may be able to call microsoft and have them invalidate the key entirely if you tell them it is for security reasons. I hope this helps.

 

[little_me]

If you have linked the OS to your microsoft account, you can move it to another computer, as far as I have read and heard. (not really another computer, it's there for hardware change reasons but...)
You should be able to unlink the license from microsoft's site.
Problem is that on reinstall, whoever does it first, gets dibs on license.
https://account.microsoft.com/account

This has list of computers linked to it, you can remove computer linking from here:
https://account.microsoft.com/devices

problems with that is, if you have multiple microsoft accounts in use on the computer, said computer is listed on ALL of them and you don't really know which is the main one.
On reinstall, it (activation) fails due to different hardware, which allows you to then unlink old one and relink new one.
If you have not linked to microsoft account, things might get more tricky, I have not personally tried this.

 

[madmatt30]

No such thing as oem when it comes to win 10 now

You can take that activation over to a completely new build before you sell the old pc .
Its a pita process though in all honesty.

I would sell it with a working activated win 10, there is no security issue there if it's a fresh install , the PC components are logged on ms servers - nothing else is though.

 

[pats478]

Hmm alright, that was my biggest concern, is what's logged to MS if I sell the PC with my key. I just don't want the new owner to have access to any of my personal information.

I'd reformat it from the BIOS though so absolutely nothing exists on it

 

[Colif]

There are different forms of OEM. If the PC is made by a big OEM (like Dell) and had win 10 pre installed then you cannot move that to a new PC.
For most OEM though you can still link it to a MSA and move it/unlink it from a PC.

If you remove win 10 from PC and tell new buyer that they need to buy Win 10, hopefully you will have unlinked it or reinstalled it on new PC and they won't think to click "I don't have a key" when installing it again. If its linked to an email address, I am not sure if it would auto activate if they used another email address to login.

Many computer repair stores don't know you can skip the licence screen yet so I doubt a new buyer would