It doubt it will tie to your MS account as that will cause some needless complications if you don't login with your old MS account you used or even sell the device the person who owns it reinstalls. It will definitly store your HWID but it's probalby simply stored on the activation service itself.
I don't know. They get away with that for Office 365 I believe it is? From what I understand that activates against your Microsoft account. Microsoft do also state in the requirements that a Microsoft account and internet connection are required for Windows 10. At this point it's anyones guess.
I think activation for an old pc and the pc who have install windows 10 technical preview they take a free windows 10 upgrade key like windows 8 media center and activated the windows 10 RTM and don't need insert no one serial key w7 or w8 MS dont care if we have original key MS i think want all we have w7 and w8 to upgrade to W10.
In win7OEM, you could upgrade to higher edition, but MS would first ask for COA, and in the win7->win8 upgrade offer, MS also ask for COA, people should realize the COA represents his machine's license. Maybe MS would have a way to help those guys with faded COA, I don't know, we need to wait for MS or Gabe to "shed more light". You need something consistent to represent your machine, usually it's the product key, the HWID could change, even if you format and re-install, the VolID changes, and so is the HWID, in win8.1 and before, MS stores your HWID along with your product key, if the HWID indicates a change of 4 or more devices out of 10, then the Windows with the same product key would determine that it's on a new device and would ask you to re-activate. Win10 would have a new activation mechanism, I don't know if they have also changed the above system. Anyone could have a number of devices with the same MS account, that's what MS's "cloud first" for win10 is trying to do, but more important, anyone could start a new MS account in about 15 seconds, that's why MS won't be giving away free licenses to Insiders, a "cottage fty" could hire people day and night to start MS accounts then register as Insider, they won't even need to do any pirating anymore!
Be careful of the cloud first as I can see w10 becoming another office 365 after the first year. That seems to be their long term intent anyway, subscription based everything..why I think they are so eager to "give it away" now.
There's really not much they can do for faded COA stickers and I doubt they'll help over a million people (that's how many people I expect to have faded stickers). It would create a lot of bad news stories online, which I doubt Microsoft want's to receive for their brand new OS. I've heard too many mixed things on the subject. A lot of people say that it'll create a key against the HWID, which I know can change so that seems doubtful. Instead I'd expect the HWID to be used to generate you a key that gets tied to a Microsoft account because you can easily activate a PC and manage your licences via that. They already do that with Office 365 and Visual Studio, so signing in to activate Windows seems like something that Microsoft could easily setup. They could look at the length of time you've been an insider, if you've contributed anything and how many versions of Windows 10 you've actually installed. That would stop people from getting it for free so easily. From your posts it seems as though you think that pirates won't receive Windows 10, but from what I've seen so far it looks like they might. As Yen said in another thread, how else are they going to get Windows 10 on a billion devices? Until it comes directly from someone at Microsoft then everythings just a rumor and so it should be taken with a grain of salt.
Yes there are inconsistencies at twitter, one is that VL licenses seemingly got the w10 upgrade reminder (GWX) as well although it is said that VL's aren't upgradeable. I am curious if all those who got the w10 upgrade nag screen are qualified for a free upgrade.
1. That's something we don't really know, so just have to wait for the "light" Gabe said will shed. 2. I couldn't see why MS would change a system that "they think" is working fine since XP, i.e. product key+HWID, but then I don't know what would be changed in the new win10 activation mechanism either. Office 365 is person based(i.e. based on your MS account) to manage a number of devices, Windows license, at least ATM, is attached to the device, not the user. 3. Nah, I don't believe MS would go that far, if it happens that "some guys get free licenses, but some guys don't", it would raise a hell lot of angry protests and other complications.