2 identical (Windows) computers - swap disks

grumpycrab

What happens to Windows licenses?  Do they just revert to the license "linked" to the hardware?

neilmcl

What version of Windows?

grumpycrab

Windows 10 (1909 at least).

Neil_Jones

Windows 10 is digital licences so if the two computers are exactly identical hardware wise and set up the same, they'll boot and in theory should remain activated if they've had Windows 10 on them beforehand.  So you should be able to swap the disks.

In theory.  Reality is probably an entirely different thing.

debitcardmayhem

Yeah they are identical except Serial #s (various), UUID(system) mac addresses etc, but I would hazard a wild guess that they should activate anyhow because it is effectively a new Disk for each nothing else changed. I do wonder why though?

grumpycrab

debitcardmayhem said: I do wonder why though?

Family member (with same laptop as one of my spares) has claimed theirs is dead.  Done as much debugging as I can over the phone, easiest fix (if it really is a dead laptop) is to swap disks...

Neil_Jones

debitcardmayhem said:

Yeah they are identical except Serial #s (various), UUID(system) mac addresses etc, but I would hazard a wild guess that they should activate anyhow because it is effectively a new Disk for each nothing else changed. I do wonder why though?

Back in the day the Windows XP activation system did use the serial number of the hard drive as part of the system for activation, and the bulk of it was tied to the motherboard components, including the MAC address, the hard drive serial number and the hard device itself.  The key used to be if XP was running on substantially different hardware now than it was at the last boot.  If it isn't (but it was "similar" enough to allow it to boot in the first place!) then you'd have to reactivate.

Of course over the life of XP Microsoft kept changing this behaviour and by the time we got to Vista it was perfectly possible to use the operating system without a need to activate the thing at all if you can put up with some whinging (in the case of Vista if you knew what you were doing it was possible to extend the "grace" period by 120 days).  This behaviour carried on through 7, 8 and 10 and was added to XP through the Windows Genuine Validation program.  By the time of Windows 10 the only real consequences of not activating the software was an inability to choose wallpaper or colours, and a "Windows is not activated" notice at the bottom of the settings panel.

MinuteNoodles

They're not identical even if they've got the same of everything. The CPU, the hard drive, the network adapter etc etc will all have unique serial numbers which the OS uses to create a hardware ID when it is activated. Once more than a certain number of those are changed, even like for like, then that hardware ID becomes invalid and the OS becomes unactivated. The only exception to this are retail and volume licences. 

TheRightOne

grumpycrab said:

What happens to Windows licenses?  Do they just revert to the license "linked" to the hardware?

Worst case scenario, £6 via eBay.

bengalknights

If the drive is a image, then windows will recognise the original licence from the hardware ID's if its from a different device image then it may ask for a new activation key.

ron99999

I built a desktop computer and took the drive from my old computer (Windows 10) and installed it in my new computer.
It activated OK then I cloned it to an SSD and hey presto a new computer with i7 intel processor, 16GB of memory and 500 GB SSD.