windows activation after CPU upgrade?

[Supernautilus]

I just upgraded my CPU and now my PC is telling me I need to activate windows. Isn’t that only if you upgrade your motherboard? A little confused right now.

Even worse, I’m trying to follow the prompts for activation and I keep getting a message saying it can’t activate because the servers aren’t available and to try later. But it’s been saying that since yesterday. Could the Microsoft activation servers actually be down for a whole day? Sounds fishy to me. Hmm…

[Bing Chilling]

according to google, you have to use the windows activation troubleshooter that is built into windows

win 11 Select the Start button, then select Settings > System > Activation
win 10 Select the Start button, then select Settings > Update & Security > Activation

check out this page https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/reactivating-windows-after-a-hardware-change-2c0e962a-f04c-145b-6ead-fb3fc72b6665#ID0EBD=Windows_10

if this doesn't work, you can try to get in touch with windows support, though they are usually unhelpful


all else fails you are SOL, and will ether need to buy another, deal with the watermark or find another way to activate it, if you know what i mean.

[Illusion of Progress]

There's a lot of things that contribute to what makes a system the same system, and yes, it usually boils down to "different motherboard equals different system", but a CPU change, along with other minor changes or not, might sometimes be enough. As long as you're not using that instance (product key) on too many PCs, tripping it up once shouldn't be an issue.

As for why it's not reaching the servers to activate, no idea. I think I ran into this when changing my motherboard and the steps in the above post sound like what I ended up doing, which resolved it.

[Supernautilus]

Yeah I tried contacting support yesterday. You leave a number and then they call you back. I finally got a call from a guy who kept me on hold for like 25 minutes so I hung up. I tried again today. Still waiting for a call.

This sucks. :(

[PopinFRESH]

What it is actually doing is using DMI info from multiple points of the system; e.g. MAC addresses of your NICs, motherboard serialized data, CPUID, and memory IDs for the installed DIMMs to generate a system "fingerprint". This is essentially a computed hash of all of those data points. When you change those components a new hash is generated and compared to the original hash. If the delta between the two hashs is over a certain threshold it triggers reactivation.

EDIT: @OP, what type of product key are you using and how was it procured? The reason I ask is for example if you purchased it from an unauthorized 3rd party reseller they will often resell VLKs that require activation via a Key Management Server (KMS) and if either Microsoft or the unauthorized 3rd party reseller shutdown their KSM server you'll not be able to re-activate the VLK.

[Supernautilus]

İlk olarak PopinFRESH tarafından gönderildi:

What it is actually doing is using DMI info from multiple points of the system; e.g. MAC addresses of your NICs, motherboard serialized data, CPUID, and memory IDs for the installed DIMMs to generate a system "fingerprint". This is essentially a computed hash of all of those data points. When you change those components a new hash is generated and compared to the original hash. If the delta between the two hashs is over a certain threshold it triggers reactivation.

EDIT: @OP, what type of product key are you using and how was it procured? The reason I ask is for example if you purchased it from an unauthorized 3rd party reseller they will often resell VLKs that require activation via a Key Management Server (KMS) and if either Microsoft or the unauthorized 3rd party reseller shutdown their KSM server you'll not be able to re-activate the VLK.

I've been using this windows install for over 10 years. It was Win 7 when I originally got it. Then I upgraded to 10. I've changed multiple motherboards and other components over all this time and I've never had a problem with reactivation. I have no idea what is going on now. The troubleshooter keeps telling me it can't activate and to try later or contact support. And support won't call me back. This is BS. :(

[Supernautilus]

Ok the troubleshooter is now asking me to select my device to activate it. But it doesn't match the device name in my windows settings. Why would the device name be different?

This is so frustrating. ;-;

[Xuild]

theres this thing linus tech tips talked about in one of his recent ish videos that microsoft support does, and if they are too lazy to help you then do their job for them, forgot what it was called but it doesn't require any downloads or sketchy anything really, just a powershell prompt and it does the rest

[Supernautilus]

İlk olarak Xuild tarafından gönderildi:

theres this thing linus tech tips talked about in one of his recent ish videos that microsoft support does, and if they are too lazy to help you then do their job for them, forgot what it was called but it doesn't require any downloads or sketchy anything really, just a powershell prompt and it does the rest

Link?

[Xuild]

İlk olarak Supernautilus tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Xuild tarafından gönderildi:

theres this thing linus tech tips talked about in one of his recent ish videos that microsoft support does, and if they are too lazy to help you then do their job for them, forgot what it was called but it doesn't require any downloads or sketchy anything really, just a powershell prompt and it does the rest

Link?

https://youtu.be/yJkRd9py5mA

[Xuild]

İlk olarak Supernautilus tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Xuild tarafından gönderildi:

theres this thing linus tech tips talked about in one of his recent ish videos that microsoft support does, and if they are too lazy to help you then do their job for them, forgot what it was called but it doesn't require any downloads or sketchy anything really, just a powershell prompt and it does the rest

Link?

also incase your audio screws up and you bluescreen (which is highly unlikely) you can run /sfc scannow in command prompt to fix it which is an issue that i've had happen

[Supernautilus]

İlk olarak Xuild tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Supernautilus tarafından gönderildi:

Link?

https://youtu.be/yJkRd9py5mA

Oh man I'm so tempted to use this. I wish Microsoft would just fix my sh*t already lol. How much trouble can I get into by using this?

[Xuild]

İlk olarak Supernautilus tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Xuild tarafından gönderildi:

https://youtu.be/yJkRd9py5mA

Oh man I'm so tempted to use this. I wish Microsoft would just fix my sh*t already lol. How much trouble can I get into by using this?

not really any trouble since you already legally upgraded it and no one can really stop you

[r.linder]

Microsoft doesn't really care if people "pirate" Windows 10 or 11, if they really cared about people not activating Windows to save money then they would've removed that feature by now.

They don't need to keep it to help businesses from being locked out of their machines, they have the Enterprise versions anyway, it's designed this way because Bill Gates didn't care if people pirated Windows, he just wanted everyone to use Windows

[Supernautilus]

OK, I did it. Damn, that was easy lol.

I was playing BF2042 and the "activate windows" popped up in the lower corner and I had enough. I got tired of waiting so I just did the script. Took like 30 seconds. Sorry Micro$oft, but maybe if your sh*t worked right I would have done it the right way. *shrug*

[r.linder]

It's as designed, Windows will deactivate if you change too much of the hardware

But you can reuse your Windows key if it's a retail version, OEM versions can only be used once but become bound to the motherboard BIOS so either way you can reactivate