About to do open heart surgery on my new laptop. Could use some guidance.
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I got a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe to replace the smaller lesser performing 1TB NVMe that ships with my new laptop (arriving tomorrow) The laptop comes with Win11 home, which is fine for my purposes, since I intend to dual boot and home is just for gaming at my sister's. Work is linux. The laptop has a 2nd NVMe slot, so my plan is to populate it with the 1 TB drive that ships with the PC, pop the 2TB in the primary, and then format/repartition the secondary into 2 500GB partitions, one of which will be linux, and the other half will be for downloads and pictures and stuff. The primary drive is for win11 and any games I want to play. Here's the issue: The Windows license. I essentially want to transfer my license and Windows 11 copy from my 1TB to my 2TB. Here's how a little bird told me I could do it: Log onto my microsoft account to associate my Windows license with my account. Swap out the system drive, install win 11, choosing "I don't have a product key" - then, if it doesn't activate by UEFI I should be able to sign in to my MS account and activate it that way or something? Wasn't real clear on that last bit. This is supposed to be a new feature with Win11. Does anyone know anything about this, or otherwise know how I can accomplish the above?
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
honey the codewitch wrote:
Swap out the system drive, install win 11, choosing "I don't have a product key" - then, if it doesn't activate by UEFI I should be able to sign in to my MS account and activate it that way or something? Wasn't real clear on that last bit.
This has been like this since Win8 IIRC. I used to do a lot of swaps and reinstalls during my college years. If it's not an OEM license (some manufacturers ship with OEM license to save on costs), you'll be able to install without the product key and then login to your MS account. It should automatically verify the installation. Alternatively you could run the following command in the command prompt as admin to get the product key and keep it somewhere for reference.
wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey
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honey the codewitch wrote:
Swap out the system drive, install win 11, choosing "I don't have a product key" - then, if it doesn't activate by UEFI I should be able to sign in to my MS account and activate it that way or something? Wasn't real clear on that last bit.
This has been like this since Win8 IIRC. I used to do a lot of swaps and reinstalls during my college years. If it's not an OEM license (some manufacturers ship with OEM license to save on costs), you'll be able to install without the product key and then login to your MS account. It should automatically verify the installation. Alternatively you could run the following command in the command prompt as admin to get the product key and keep it somewhere for reference.
wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey
Thank you! Yeah, I'm not sure what the story with this license is. It's whatever Lenovos ship with.
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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I got a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe to replace the smaller lesser performing 1TB NVMe that ships with my new laptop (arriving tomorrow) The laptop comes with Win11 home, which is fine for my purposes, since I intend to dual boot and home is just for gaming at my sister's. Work is linux. The laptop has a 2nd NVMe slot, so my plan is to populate it with the 1 TB drive that ships with the PC, pop the 2TB in the primary, and then format/repartition the secondary into 2 500GB partitions, one of which will be linux, and the other half will be for downloads and pictures and stuff. The primary drive is for win11 and any games I want to play. Here's the issue: The Windows license. I essentially want to transfer my license and Windows 11 copy from my 1TB to my 2TB. Here's how a little bird told me I could do it: Log onto my microsoft account to associate my Windows license with my account. Swap out the system drive, install win 11, choosing "I don't have a product key" - then, if it doesn't activate by UEFI I should be able to sign in to my MS account and activate it that way or something? Wasn't real clear on that last bit. This is supposed to be a new feature with Win11. Does anyone know anything about this, or otherwise know how I can accomplish the above?
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
I'd grab AOMEI Backupper (there is a free version) and hit the "Clone" button. Then select "System Clone - Clone or migrate your system to SSD or other disk." and follow the instructions it will give. It's been a while since I did that, but last time (Win 10) it was extremely pain free. Changing your disk does not invalidate your registration, it should work right away. Then I'd use their Partition Assistant (again a free version is available) to faff with the disk sizes.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I'd grab AOMEI Backupper (there is a free version) and hit the "Clone" button. Then select "System Clone - Clone or migrate your system to SSD or other disk." and follow the instructions it will give. It's been a while since I did that, but last time (Win 10) it was extremely pain free. Changing your disk does not invalidate your registration, it should work right away. Then I'd use their Partition Assistant (again a free version is available) to faff with the disk sizes.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
Thanks. I'll maybe try that first.
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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I'd grab AOMEI Backupper (there is a free version) and hit the "Clone" button. Then select "System Clone - Clone or migrate your system to SSD or other disk." and follow the instructions it will give. It's been a while since I did that, but last time (Win 10) it was extremely pain free. Changing your disk does not invalidate your registration, it should work right away. Then I'd use their Partition Assistant (again a free version is available) to faff with the disk sizes.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I got a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe to replace the smaller lesser performing 1TB NVMe that ships with my new laptop (arriving tomorrow) The laptop comes with Win11 home, which is fine for my purposes, since I intend to dual boot and home is just for gaming at my sister's. Work is linux. The laptop has a 2nd NVMe slot, so my plan is to populate it with the 1 TB drive that ships with the PC, pop the 2TB in the primary, and then format/repartition the secondary into 2 500GB partitions, one of which will be linux, and the other half will be for downloads and pictures and stuff. The primary drive is for win11 and any games I want to play. Here's the issue: The Windows license. I essentially want to transfer my license and Windows 11 copy from my 1TB to my 2TB. Here's how a little bird told me I could do it: Log onto my microsoft account to associate my Windows license with my account. Swap out the system drive, install win 11, choosing "I don't have a product key" - then, if it doesn't activate by UEFI I should be able to sign in to my MS account and activate it that way or something? Wasn't real clear on that last bit. This is supposed to be a new feature with Win11. Does anyone know anything about this, or otherwise know how I can accomplish the above?
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
I would go with a restore image from the manufacturer... In there DB your computer must be registered and identified...
"If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization." ― Gerald Weinberg
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Thank you! Yeah, I'm not sure what the story with this license is. It's whatever Lenovos ship with.
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
I got curious and tried to write:
slmgr /dli
in cmd, which apparently lets you know if you have OEM, Retail, or Volume license.
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I'd grab AOMEI Backupper (there is a free version) and hit the "Clone" button. Then select "System Clone - Clone or migrate your system to SSD or other disk." and follow the instructions it will give. It's been a while since I did that, but last time (Win 10) it was extremely pain free. Changing your disk does not invalidate your registration, it should work right away. Then I'd use their Partition Assistant (again a free version is available) to faff with the disk sizes.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
The only time I got in trouble was when I had to exchange the motherboard as well. Then I had to call Microsoft in order to get a valid license. Cant remember what type of license that was tough.
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I got curious and tried to write:
slmgr /dli
in cmd, which apparently lets you know if you have OEM, Retail, or Volume license.
awesome, thanks!
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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I got a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe to replace the smaller lesser performing 1TB NVMe that ships with my new laptop (arriving tomorrow) The laptop comes with Win11 home, which is fine for my purposes, since I intend to dual boot and home is just for gaming at my sister's. Work is linux. The laptop has a 2nd NVMe slot, so my plan is to populate it with the 1 TB drive that ships with the PC, pop the 2TB in the primary, and then format/repartition the secondary into 2 500GB partitions, one of which will be linux, and the other half will be for downloads and pictures and stuff. The primary drive is for win11 and any games I want to play. Here's the issue: The Windows license. I essentially want to transfer my license and Windows 11 copy from my 1TB to my 2TB. Here's how a little bird told me I could do it: Log onto my microsoft account to associate my Windows license with my account. Swap out the system drive, install win 11, choosing "I don't have a product key" - then, if it doesn't activate by UEFI I should be able to sign in to my MS account and activate it that way or something? Wasn't real clear on that last bit. This is supposed to be a new feature with Win11. Does anyone know anything about this, or otherwise know how I can accomplish the above?
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
I found the following VBScript code (ARRGH!) for getting a product key. It seems to work, YMMV. It may help as a double check for some of the other ideas given in previous responses. My PC arrived with W10 and I immediately upgraded (?) to W11 as that had come out whilst the PC was in the post and it meant that I had nothing of my own on the PC to lose. I was fortunate as it was an in situ upgrade and it picked up the old key automatically, so didn't need the output from this code. To use, save as .vbs and just double click it.
' Get Windows Product Key
' From https://www.howtogeek.com/206329/how-to-find-your-lost-windows-or-office-product-keys/Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
MsgBox ConvertToKey(WshShell.RegRead("HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DigitalProductId"))Function ConvertToKey(Key)
Const KeyOffset = 52
i = 28
Chars = "BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789"
Do
Cur = 0
x = 14
Do
Cur = Cur * 256
Cur = Key(x + KeyOffset) + Cur
Key(x + KeyOffset) = (Cur \ 24) And 255
Cur = Cur Mod 24
x = x -1
Loop While x >= 0
i = i -1
KeyOutput = Mid(Chars, Cur + 1, 1) & KeyOutput
If (((29 - i) Mod 6) = 0) And (i <> -1) Then
i = i -1
KeyOutput = "-" & KeyOutput
End If
Loop While i >= 0
ConvertToKey = KeyOutput
End Function -
I found the following VBScript code (ARRGH!) for getting a product key. It seems to work, YMMV. It may help as a double check for some of the other ideas given in previous responses. My PC arrived with W10 and I immediately upgraded (?) to W11 as that had come out whilst the PC was in the post and it meant that I had nothing of my own on the PC to lose. I was fortunate as it was an in situ upgrade and it picked up the old key automatically, so didn't need the output from this code. To use, save as .vbs and just double click it.
' Get Windows Product Key
' From https://www.howtogeek.com/206329/how-to-find-your-lost-windows-or-office-product-keys/Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
MsgBox ConvertToKey(WshShell.RegRead("HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DigitalProductId"))Function ConvertToKey(Key)
Const KeyOffset = 52
i = 28
Chars = "BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789"
Do
Cur = 0
x = 14
Do
Cur = Cur * 256
Cur = Key(x + KeyOffset) + Cur
Key(x + KeyOffset) = (Cur \ 24) And 255
Cur = Cur Mod 24
x = x -1
Loop While x >= 0
i = i -1
KeyOutput = Mid(Chars, Cur + 1, 1) & KeyOutput
If (((29 - i) Mod 6) = 0) And (i <> -1) Then
i = i -1
KeyOutput = "-" & KeyOutput
End If
Loop While i >= 0
ConvertToKey = KeyOutput
End FunctionThanks. I use a tool to pull it out of the registry, but that works too. Nice to just use WSH. Hopefully though, the product key is on the case itself. It usually has been when I've received desktops. Edit: The last time I tried to install Win10 I had the product key (from the case of the machine) and it would not let me use it. I had to call support. They told me to choose "I don't have a product key" and that worked. It pulled it from UEFI.
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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I got a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe to replace the smaller lesser performing 1TB NVMe that ships with my new laptop (arriving tomorrow) The laptop comes with Win11 home, which is fine for my purposes, since I intend to dual boot and home is just for gaming at my sister's. Work is linux. The laptop has a 2nd NVMe slot, so my plan is to populate it with the 1 TB drive that ships with the PC, pop the 2TB in the primary, and then format/repartition the secondary into 2 500GB partitions, one of which will be linux, and the other half will be for downloads and pictures and stuff. The primary drive is for win11 and any games I want to play. Here's the issue: The Windows license. I essentially want to transfer my license and Windows 11 copy from my 1TB to my 2TB. Here's how a little bird told me I could do it: Log onto my microsoft account to associate my Windows license with my account. Swap out the system drive, install win 11, choosing "I don't have a product key" - then, if it doesn't activate by UEFI I should be able to sign in to my MS account and activate it that way or something? Wasn't real clear on that last bit. This is supposed to be a new feature with Win11. Does anyone know anything about this, or otherwise know how I can accomplish the above?
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
When the manufacturer installs a new legal version of Windows, the machine gets registered with Microsoft. (The machine - not the drive!) It does not matter how you change the drive, or how many times your do a clean install, or how many times you do a re-image of the systems drive, as long as you install the same version of Windows (11 home edition) the installation will be activated as soon as the machine connects to the Internet for the first time. I don't bother with cloning. I get rid of the bloated junk that ships with the machine by doing a clean install. Windows will be activated immediately. At least this has always worked on my Dell computers.
Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
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When the manufacturer installs a new legal version of Windows, the machine gets registered with Microsoft. (The machine - not the drive!) It does not matter how you change the drive, or how many times your do a clean install, or how many times you do a re-image of the systems drive, as long as you install the same version of Windows (11 home edition) the installation will be activated as soon as the machine connects to the Internet for the first time. I don't bother with cloning. I get rid of the bloated junk that ships with the machine by doing a clean install. Windows will be activated immediately. At least this has always worked on my Dell computers.
Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
Thank you for this!
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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Thank you for this!
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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I got a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe to replace the smaller lesser performing 1TB NVMe that ships with my new laptop (arriving tomorrow) The laptop comes with Win11 home, which is fine for my purposes, since I intend to dual boot and home is just for gaming at my sister's. Work is linux. The laptop has a 2nd NVMe slot, so my plan is to populate it with the 1 TB drive that ships with the PC, pop the 2TB in the primary, and then format/repartition the secondary into 2 500GB partitions, one of which will be linux, and the other half will be for downloads and pictures and stuff. The primary drive is for win11 and any games I want to play. Here's the issue: The Windows license. I essentially want to transfer my license and Windows 11 copy from my 1TB to my 2TB. Here's how a little bird told me I could do it: Log onto my microsoft account to associate my Windows license with my account. Swap out the system drive, install win 11, choosing "I don't have a product key" - then, if it doesn't activate by UEFI I should be able to sign in to my MS account and activate it that way or something? Wasn't real clear on that last bit. This is supposed to be a new feature with Win11. Does anyone know anything about this, or otherwise know how I can accomplish the above?
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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Yeah, I've been on top of that, and been lucky besides.
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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Thank you for this!
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
To be on the safe side: When you get the new machine, before you change anyting: Create an administrator account for yourself. It is probably better to tell Microsoft that you are now the owner of the new machine?
Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
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To be on the safe side: When you get the new machine, before you change anyting: Create an administrator account for yourself. It is probably better to tell Microsoft that you are now the owner of the new machine?
Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
I'm told logging into my microsoft account will connect it. But here on the forums I've also been told the license that ships with a PC is associated with *that PC* and presumably as long as you don't change too much hardware it will still function such that it can pull the license from the internet or something and reactivate windows with the new system drive. Adding, I will be logging into my MS account on that laptop as my first order of business.
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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I got a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe to replace the smaller lesser performing 1TB NVMe that ships with my new laptop (arriving tomorrow) The laptop comes with Win11 home, which is fine for my purposes, since I intend to dual boot and home is just for gaming at my sister's. Work is linux. The laptop has a 2nd NVMe slot, so my plan is to populate it with the 1 TB drive that ships with the PC, pop the 2TB in the primary, and then format/repartition the secondary into 2 500GB partitions, one of which will be linux, and the other half will be for downloads and pictures and stuff. The primary drive is for win11 and any games I want to play. Here's the issue: The Windows license. I essentially want to transfer my license and Windows 11 copy from my 1TB to my 2TB. Here's how a little bird told me I could do it: Log onto my microsoft account to associate my Windows license with my account. Swap out the system drive, install win 11, choosing "I don't have a product key" - then, if it doesn't activate by UEFI I should be able to sign in to my MS account and activate it that way or something? Wasn't real clear on that last bit. This is supposed to be a new feature with Win11. Does anyone know anything about this, or otherwise know how I can accomplish the above?
There's smoke in my iris But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids So I'm ready now (What you ready for?) I'm ready for life in this city And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
The easiest way to achieve this, is to fully setup the laptop as-is, and tie it to your main Microsoft account, confirming the device is listed online as one of your devices. After that, create a Windows recovery stick and swap the SSD. The license recovery only works if you have completed setup AND online activation of the system. You can tie (and implicitly upgrade to new T.O.S.) a license it to your main Microsoft account starting from Windows 10. Theoretically, one could even purchase a Windows 7 Pro key and install it to a VM on an OEM device with Linux, upgrade the image to Windows 8.1 while cloning the disk to the actual system before upgrading the key, and then upgrade that to Windows 10 Pro and tie it to your account. Due to the nitty-gritty details of the license agreements, it's technically not covered in the agreement. Again, completely theoretically, because you can't buy official Windows 7 Pro keys anymore, anywhere. *wink wink*
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I found the following VBScript code (ARRGH!) for getting a product key. It seems to work, YMMV. It may help as a double check for some of the other ideas given in previous responses. My PC arrived with W10 and I immediately upgraded (?) to W11 as that had come out whilst the PC was in the post and it meant that I had nothing of my own on the PC to lose. I was fortunate as it was an in situ upgrade and it picked up the old key automatically, so didn't need the output from this code. To use, save as .vbs and just double click it.
' Get Windows Product Key
' From https://www.howtogeek.com/206329/how-to-find-your-lost-windows-or-office-product-keys/Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
MsgBox ConvertToKey(WshShell.RegRead("HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DigitalProductId"))Function ConvertToKey(Key)
Const KeyOffset = 52
i = 28
Chars = "BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789"
Do
Cur = 0
x = 14
Do
Cur = Cur * 256
Cur = Key(x + KeyOffset) + Cur
Key(x + KeyOffset) = (Cur \ 24) And 255
Cur = Cur Mod 24
x = x -1
Loop While x >= 0
i = i -1
KeyOutput = Mid(Chars, Cur + 1, 1) & KeyOutput
If (((29 - i) Mod 6) = 0) And (i <> -1) Then
i = i -1
KeyOutput = "-" & KeyOutput
End If
Loop While i >= 0
ConvertToKey = KeyOutput
End FunctionThat script brings back nightmares. Makes me realize how easy hackers could spin up COM objects to do anything via a malicious website.
