411
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
411 points (96.8% liked)
Technology
59674 readers
2945 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
If I'm not mistaken your key is linked to your motherboard as well as your Microsoft account. So I think you should be fine. I just formatted my drive yesterday and it didn't even ask me to type it in, I skipped that step and it verified once I logged in.
OEM keys are linked to motherboards I believe. Mine is a retail key and I've used it across many different builds over the years.
Retail keys can also be linked to the hardware or Microsoft account
That on laptop or desktop? I had a laptop and always did like you said. For the first time I have a desktop and don't know how things go now
Super late reply to your question, but when you add Windows and punch in the key it links to the motherboard of the PC (laptop or desktop, doesn't matter). Once you sign in to your Microsoft account, the key and mobo serial gets stored there. If you bought a new PC and with it a new motherboard you can find your key in your account or use the one on the back of your old laptop and delink it from your old device so that you can reuse it on your new one. It moves with your account.
Of you do a standard format, you shouldn't have to worry, but if you ever upgrade your mobo, just make sure you get a screenshot of your serial in the windows settings and make sure you are logged in to your windows account (maybe check the account settings on a browser and see if you can find your devices, not sure of this is a necessary step.. but just to make sure it's linked I guess).. then once you format, you can punch in the old serial and log in, if it pops up a warning, it may ask you to migrate the serial and delete the old device or you may have a step or two on the Microsoft website to do this, I'm a bit hazy on the details as I did this a good 4 years ago, bit it wasn't much of a headache.