in a effort to understand how windows 10 handles activation I staged a experiment started with windows 8.1 running KMS activation 1. installed windows 10 preview attempted to activate using the windows 10 TP key. would't activate ofc 2. purged all activation data and keys with slmgr 3. installed windows 10 public. key with slmgr 4. did the phone activation [note the GUI was broken and missing some fields] so I used slmgr volia windows is activated all without a windows 8.1 key to speak of
Hmm ... this only proves that TP can be activated with the TP key ... congrats for reinventing the fire .
yes but it didn't activate with the 8.1 KMS key still present was the point neither the phone activation or the internet activation works if a valid windows /7/8/8.1 key is not installed once I purged the invalid 8.1 kms setup key the online activation still would not work but the phone activation did what does that tell us
Phone activation is more tolerant. KMS activated Windows reacts as expected and would need new gVLK to reactivate.
so the question remains come RTM what will happen to this machine will the activation be rendered invalid or will it be converted to RTM assuming what microsoft said about the insider keys being still vaild after RTM and they don't code any addional checks to check and see if it was indeed a upgrade install pretty much means YAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR pirate copys Ahoy and I really hope micosoft wasn't that stupid
so the question remains then if the account has never had a 8.1 installed tied to it and W10-insider 110*** was installed "clean" what then it should be rendered trial or UnActivated then that case Microsoft is being intentionally coy on this and its pretty darn amusing so tl;Dr does phone activation differ from automatic activation come time for RTM
most if not all activation will change come RTM. They are already changing some KMS settings and will change protocols before RTM.
I just upgraded to 113** from 1122* no change in activation status but the activation ID and product key did change
Because the activation will be linked to the IID/COA/BIOS key or what ever else they decide to use instead of an MSA Because they will have their own key in the BIOS just like Windows 8.x Again if bought new it will have its own key, If its from the free upgrade, it will be already linked to the PC or your MSA.
I Am sure there will be some kind of nagscreen for what I am going to DUB "NPGC"'S (Non Purchased Genuine copys) and I am sure somebody will write a patch to make it go away so the game continues so I am left wondering what the hell is the point of all this then on the upside the price of windows 8 is bound to tank driving upgrades to windows 10 I just wish Microsoft would be made to understand that asking 100.00$ for a OS that you can only install on one machine is not acceptable if they would make it 59.99 it would sell like hot-cakes especially with them moving to a subscription model
Okay so it is linked to hardware. So what happens to someone like me that changes there mother board or CPU every six months. Like just last month I changed my CPU to the latest Intel Extreme i7-5960x CPU that came out. I only had the last one for about 7 months and I am now looking at the new ASUS X99-Deluxe mother board. Does that mean I would have to buy a new key or install media each time I change something major. Now that is BS way of doing it MS
Change the motherboard you lose activation if this is free upgrade. If you buy retail version then you can upgrade hardware all you like, same way it has always been.
What's interesting as well this time round is that, once activated you can change the key to any valid (even generated) one and remain activated - in fact slmgr -ato works offline as well. I think Yen may have mentioned that a generic may be used, which seems more and more likely - what I did notice after changing the key was the InstallID changed as expected but the activationID remained the same. Thus they may just use the ActID of the base Win7/Win8 systems and push that to Win10 activation servers on upgrading...rather than inject each d/l with a different Win 10 key.
Someone building or using a custom built PC (and by that I mean a 'One Off') should be using a 'Retail' SKU for this very reason. OEM's, ODM's and System Builders all make PC's that aren't meant to be constantly changed, which is way they use OEM SKU's And remember the 'Free Upgrade' of Windows 10 upgrades your license so 'Retail' will remain 'Retail' after the upgrade, meaning you can still change your CPU/MoBo/ at will.
Not if you change the MB to the same brand, an different model will be accepted! According to MS Thailand!
who the hell cares somebody is gonna write a patch or something anyway thats my point why bother with playing the "games" at all here I think Microsoft has lost it .... good for us ..
Hardware ID (the old UUID + MAC Address, hence I remember reading somewhere that Windows 8 onwards requires at least one network card) is the likely way. This is the only way I think of which explain why Gabe Aul says the in-place upgrade is required and ongoing clean installs won't require keys. During the in-place upgrade it registers your hardware ID to the MS activation servers, then "for the lifetime of that device (motherboard) it is supported", future clean installs it activates with this registration.