R
RyanJBach
So, this is a bit of a weird situation....
I bought 8.1 Student edition, with a product key based license, back in 2015. I'm PRETTY sure I eventually did the free Win10 upgrade thing on that install, but not positive.
I also just realized through searching for emails about when I did that upgrade that, while I didn't find any email about that, I DID remember that I wound up buying a retail license straight from Microsoft's brick and mortar stores back in 2018. IIRC my boot disk failed completely, I was without a smartphone at the time (long story) so I decided to just buy a retail copy of 10 preloaded on USB so I could easily install to my replacement drive without having to borrow someone else's computer to set up the install media... Also I had long since lost my key for 8,1 and didn't realize I could easily find it on my MS account purchase history. Bad use of $120 but whatever I was in a panic and this was my second time ever paying for Windows (I was an Apple diehard for a loooooong time) so I didn't know how that stuff worked, I just wanted to go to a couple stores immediately and have a working OS on a new drive as quickly as possible.
ANYWAY - I've heard that free upgraded copies of Win10 will show up as "digital licenses linked to your account," which my current system does - but that they are actually more restrictive with reactivations especially when it comes to motherboard upgrades.
Long story short - is there any way I can tell which license is actually attached to my account, the definitely full featured retail one or the free upgrade from 8.1 Student one that might have limited reactivations? I was messing around with the Win10 installer in December and even though I didn't actually let it get so far as to reinstall the OS, it still reset the date in my settings.
If I had the free upgrade license attached to my account previously, but then signed into my account on a system with a full retail Win10 license, is there any chance it would hold onto the "inferior" license? Is there any way to tell, short of having to deal with *shudders* phone support? Is there some way I can remove the license from my MS account temporarily, then put it back by signing back in from this machine? Because I'm quite sure THIS install is full retail win10 and not an upgrade, since the only reason I bought the retail copy was that that old license was, as far as I knew, lost and irreplaceable.
TL;DR: I'm probably overthinking this but I've had both an 8.1->10 Upgrade system and a system that installed a fresh Win10 retail copy logged into this account and I want to make sure the latter license is attached. Any way to tell the difference based on what the front end of the account website will show me or do I have to *shudder* call MS support and hope they even understand **** I'm asking? Is there an easy way to just remove the license linked to my account currently, and link again from this system which I know is the fresh retail Win10?
Continue reading...
I bought 8.1 Student edition, with a product key based license, back in 2015. I'm PRETTY sure I eventually did the free Win10 upgrade thing on that install, but not positive.
I also just realized through searching for emails about when I did that upgrade that, while I didn't find any email about that, I DID remember that I wound up buying a retail license straight from Microsoft's brick and mortar stores back in 2018. IIRC my boot disk failed completely, I was without a smartphone at the time (long story) so I decided to just buy a retail copy of 10 preloaded on USB so I could easily install to my replacement drive without having to borrow someone else's computer to set up the install media... Also I had long since lost my key for 8,1 and didn't realize I could easily find it on my MS account purchase history. Bad use of $120 but whatever I was in a panic and this was my second time ever paying for Windows (I was an Apple diehard for a loooooong time) so I didn't know how that stuff worked, I just wanted to go to a couple stores immediately and have a working OS on a new drive as quickly as possible.
ANYWAY - I've heard that free upgraded copies of Win10 will show up as "digital licenses linked to your account," which my current system does - but that they are actually more restrictive with reactivations especially when it comes to motherboard upgrades.
Long story short - is there any way I can tell which license is actually attached to my account, the definitely full featured retail one or the free upgrade from 8.1 Student one that might have limited reactivations? I was messing around with the Win10 installer in December and even though I didn't actually let it get so far as to reinstall the OS, it still reset the date in my settings.
If I had the free upgrade license attached to my account previously, but then signed into my account on a system with a full retail Win10 license, is there any chance it would hold onto the "inferior" license? Is there any way to tell, short of having to deal with *shudders* phone support? Is there some way I can remove the license from my MS account temporarily, then put it back by signing back in from this machine? Because I'm quite sure THIS install is full retail win10 and not an upgrade, since the only reason I bought the retail copy was that that old license was, as far as I knew, lost and irreplaceable.
TL;DR: I'm probably overthinking this but I've had both an 8.1->10 Upgrade system and a system that installed a fresh Win10 retail copy logged into this account and I want to make sure the latter license is attached. Any way to tell the difference based on what the front end of the account website will show me or do I have to *shudder* call MS support and hope they even understand **** I'm asking? Is there an easy way to just remove the license linked to my account currently, and link again from this system which I know is the fresh retail Win10?
Continue reading...