Stolen Laptop and Win 10 activation

[F1demon]

I recently had a retail laptop with Win 10 pre-installed on it that, was stolen. I then purchased a second-hand one with Win10 already on it. While doing a clean re-installation of Win10 on it using the media creation tool and signing into my Microsoft account it said, my account was already associated with a previous version of Windows 10 and that would launch those profiles. The various options in the 'learn more' section stated things like - upgrades from a retail machine with Win 8.1 to Win 10 to retail ver of Win 10 pre-installed on a previous machine etc.

So, my question is if I purchase a laptop with an inactive installation of Win 10 can I then activate it once, I sign into my Microsoft account??

Thanks and much appreciated!

 

[USAFRet]

I recently had a retail laptop with Win 10 pre-installed on it that, was stolen. I then purchased a second-hand one with Win10 already on it. While doing a clean re-installation of Win10 on it using the media creation tool and signing into my Microsoft account it said, my account was already associated with a previous version of Windows 10 and that would launch those profiles. The various options in the 'learn more' section stated things like - upgrades from a retail machine with Win 8.1 to Win 10 to retail ver of Win 10 pre-installed on a previous machine etc.

So, my question is if I purchase a laptop with an inactive installation of Win 10 can I then activate it once, I sign into my Microsoft account??

Thanks and much appreciated!

Probably.
You might have to call MS and explain your situation.