Hello all, I have a question about my Win 8 retail license usage 1. is there a way to find out how many PC's have been activated with this license 2. Is there a way to de-authorize a license in the PC as well as if the PC is offline (crashed)? Many thanks in advance
Make sure it's explicitly mentioned. If it isn't, you may want to get in touch with M$ if you feel you've been ripped off. If it is, then try to have a look at the M$ VAMT. It's a little tool that you can easily find and use to manage MAK activations. Something still tells me retail keys only have one activation, which can be transferred from one system to another but not used on two systems in parallel. I could be wrong of course.
Yes, just post it publicly, wait for thousands of people to use it and it will be deauthorised OK, seriously now. What do you mean by deauthorise? You mean remove the key from a system where it's installed?
The correct, legit and legal way: right click computer->properties->view license, and read about "transferirng software", and follow it to the letter. The commonly done way: just install on new machine and activate with your key.
I did this on a machine with Windows 8 Pro, retail key and WMC (the give away key). I wish I had saved the link, but deauthorizing involved an elevated command prompt and the original machine's UUID. On the new box I simply did phone activation, twice, once for Win 8 Pro and once for WMC. When asked how many machines the key was being used on, always say "one".
Where do you guys keep finding this retarded information? One key=One computer unless you have a MAK key period.
@OldMX It is possible due to the hardware changing tolerance limit embedded in Windows licensing system.
Thanks Tito, but op stated his key is retail, dunno about your key, but FaiKee's key is Dreamspark, any difference between dreamspark and retail to allow several computers activated at once?
There is a difference between what your license allows, and what Microsoft's activation servers permit in practice. Standard Windows 8 retail licence allows you to install your product only on computer. The licence does allow you to transfer the product to a different computer, if you remove it from the previous one. DreamSpark Windows 8 licence allows you to install your product on two computers. The licence does allow you to transfer the product to different computers, as long as you don't have it installed on more than two at a time. From a technological point, and the point of the activation servers, there is no difference between retail and DreamSpark product keys. In practice, the activation servers will allow you to activate a retail (or DreamSpark) product key on quite a number of computers (the exact limit is unclear, and Microsoft doesn't tell). There are two reasons for this tolerance. First is to allow some amount of drastic hardware changes. The second is to allow you to peruse your licensed right to move the product between computers. In any case, too many activations on different computers, and the activation servers will start blocking the key. In such a case you will have to resort to phone activation. Finally, there is no way to "deactivate" or "deauthorize" a computer such that the activation servers forget about it. Any tricks you may have seen suggesting so at best involve removing the product key from the computer, but that doesn't affect what the activation servers know. Note that WMC upgrade product keys are special. Although they are retail keys, they can only be activated on exactly one computer. A drastic hardware change, or using the key on a different computer, is blocked by the activation servers. In such a case, you have to resort to phone activation.