You Can’t Move a Free Windows 10 License to Another PC This automatic process only works if your PC has the same hardware it had when you upgraded to Windows 10. To clean-install Windows 10 on a machine activated in this way, you have to continually skip all the product key prompts while installing it. This isn’t actually made clear in the installation process itself. Microsoft will confirm that the PC with that specific hardware configuration is allowed to use Windows 10, and it’ll automatically be activated.
In the future, whenever you install Windows 10 on that same PC, it will automatically report to Microsoft’s activation servers.
Instead, when you perform an upgrade from within Windows 7 Service Pack 1 or Windows 8.1, the upgrade process registers a unique ID associated with your PC’s hardware on Microsoft’s Windows activation servers.
Microsoft won’t issue you a Windows 10 product key. The free Windows 10 license Microsoft is providing to upgraders works differently. There’s no way to find your Windows 10 product key if you’ve upgraded for free–you just don’t have one.
But Microsoft hasn’t been handing out Windows 10 product keys to upgraders. In this case, the product key would always serve to activate Windows. If you buy a new copy of Windows 10–for example, to install it on a PC you’re building yourself–you’ll also have a product key. Even modern Windows 8 and 8.1 PCs–and new PCs that come with Windows 10– have a Windows product key embedded in their UEFI firmware. The free Windows 10 license works very differently from previous Windows licensing systems. RELATED: How Does Windows Activation Work? Why You Can’t Just Use a Simple Product Key Microsoft’s documentation now explains exactly how this works. You’ll be able to tell Windows that you “changed hardware on this device recently” and select your PC from a list of devices associated with your Microsoft account. Click that option and sign in with the Microsoft account you associated your license with.
Head to Settings > Update & Security > Activation and you’ll see a “Troubleshoot” option if activation failed. If you’ve just changed a few peripherals, Windows 10 may just automatically activate itself after you clean-install it. But, if you’ve changed the motherboard or just a lot of other components, Windows 10 may see your computer as a new PC and may not automatically activate itself. Just replacing your hard drive or upgrading your graphics card shouldn’t cause a problem. You can also update your Microsoft Office toolkit manually.Microsoft has never actually wanted to explain exactly how the hardware-based Windows activation process works. Set up Windows 10 to receive notifications about updates for Microsoft Office, then check for those updates. Run the Office Activation Troubleshooter to detect and solve problems This tool can help identify and solve problems automatically.Īfter completing the steps, restart the Windows 10 PC and check to see if the problem is fixed. If the user encounters error code 0xC004C060 while trying to activate the Windows 10 key, run the Office Activation Troubleshooter.
To fix error code 0xC004C060, follow these suggestions:ġ. Make sure you have signed in to your Microsoft account so that the license can be easily associated with your account. In case you encounter this error code 0xC004C060, the article recommends that you try the following suggestions. You may see an error message with the content: We're sorry, something went wrong and we can't do this for you right now. Microsoft states that if you see error code 0xC004C060 when trying to activate Office, your product key is no longer valid. In recent days, several users have reported encountering error code 0xC004C060 when trying to activate Microsoft Office.