Ask a new question

How to know if you can transfer your Windows 10 license to a new computer.

This information was written originally as a response to a post elsewhere in this forum.  Since it may be of more general applicability, I have re-posted the pertinent part of the original post here for additional discussion.

Fortunately it is easy to tell if your new  license is transferrable by typing Winver in the Start/Search box.  Read the bottom of the license that appears.

If the license is granted to the user, it is transferable.  If the license is granted to a manufacturer, it is not.

Compare these two images of licenses from two computers.  (Note that the original edition determines the edition of Windows 10 licensed).

The above is a Windows 10 upgrade of a full retail copy of Windows 7 Ultimate (purchased from the Microsoft Store online).

The following is an upgrade of an OEM Windows 7 Home license on my wife's HP All-in-One purchased from HP.com.  

In the first case the orignial license was granted to the user so the Windows 10 upgrader determined it is transferrable.  In the second the original license was granted to HP, so the rights were not transferred to the user when Windows 10 upgraded the software.  That is the legal reason the user cannot transfer it.

So there is no need to guess about transferrability.  Simply use winver and read.

And just to answer another question often fumbled by helpful posters, this is the license generated by a Windows 10 upgrade to retail Windows 7 running in a VMWare virtual machine.

As you can see, it is transferrable since I own the email address.  In fact my online identity is my email addy for many purposes.

So, just use the Windows 10 license generated by the Windows 10 upgrader to tell you if your license is transferrable.  

62 people found this helpful

Was this discussion helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this discussion?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this discussion?

Thanks for your feedback.

Hi

If I buy 10 pc's from Dell, or HP for example, and want 5 spares. Does that mean that I must pay for 15 licences, even though I am only going to use 10 at any given time. If the licences are transferable, what would be the procedure to transfer them?

17 people found this reply helpful

·

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Each installation of Windows needs its own license.  Concurrent usage doesn't matter.  It is all about installations.  That's why dual booting requires two licenses even though you would provably only use one at a time.

If in your example you have 15 machines, it doesn't matter that only 10 are in use at any one time.  You need 15 licenses if Windows is also installed on the spares.  Its kind of moot since the spares would have an OS the same as the 10 in use because of how you bought them.  You don't buy a computer without an operating system from Dell or HP, at least not from the consumer side of the house.

Transferring an OS is easy.  You can do it in a myriad of ways from imaging the original with something like Acronis True Image Home to using enterprise level P2P software (cloning physical to physical).  

But in your example you mention buying 10pcs from major manufacturers.  In that case none of the licenses would be tranferrable since you don't own them.  The manufacturer owns the licenses.

A better example would be if you had a retail Windows installed on a machine you built yourself and wanted another machine you built to have the exact same setup.  You would buy another copy of the same edition of Windows, clone the original hard drive to the new machine's and then use the new product key to change the new machine's pk and activate.  

Colin Barnhorst

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Ok many thanks.

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

 
 

Discussion Info

Last updated January 8, 2024 Views 9,475 Applies to: