Windows 10 activation on motherboard replacement

Discussion in 'Windows 10' started by Fire Ant, Nov 18, 2017.

  1. Fire Ant

    Fire Ant MDL Novice

    Aug 26, 2017
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    I have a 1 year old HP Laptop that came with Windows 10 Home installed as OEM (no product key anywhere on the unit). I have to replace the motherboard and would like to minimize the pain of re-activating Windows when I do that. I plan on installing an identical but used motherboard (I haven't bought that yet).

    Will Windows activate automatically in this scenario, or do I need to try and extract the existing key somehow?

    The Laptop is completely dead, so there is no way to start/run Windows in any way. I have imaged the SSD using linux tools on a different computer (using dd & partimage).

    thanks
     
  2. Enthousiast

    Enthousiast MDL Tester

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    #2 Enthousiast, Nov 18, 2017
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2017
    If the system came with windows 10 OEM pre-installed, it will have a MSDM key for windows 10, that's what activates windows.

    When replaced with a non OEM official replacement there will be no MSDM on it and no activation either.

    in that scenario you can still establish a free HWID for windows 10, by the known options.
     
  3. s1ave77

    s1ave77 Has left at his own request

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    Would assume the Default OEM keys in cooperation with the activation troubleshooter are meant for exactly such a case :thinking:.
     
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  4. Enthousiast

    Enthousiast MDL Tester

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    please explain?
     
  5. s1ave77

    s1ave77 Has left at his own request

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  6. Fire Ant

    Fire Ant MDL Novice

    Aug 26, 2017
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    I assume the MSDM key is stored in the bios? If the replacement board also had the same Win 10 installed (they only sold it with Win 10 x64 home), then will it activate with my system and hard drive?
    thanks for the responses ... I'm pretty green in this area as I do 99% of my work with Linux.

    s1ave77 .... I did think that I might have to use a system recovery disk and use some kind of activation troubleshooter ... What are "Default OEM Keys"? I don't currently have any keys
     
  7. pisthai

    pisthai Imperfect Human

    Jul 29, 2009
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    If the new MB is the same Brand, and activation could simply work for the same 'old' architecture and version of Windows 10 (here HOME)!

    If not work directly (after installation of Windows 10 without use of a (generic?) product key, go into Setting--> Activation -->Hardware change and follow the screen advice. Tha normally will just work!
     
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  8. s1ave77

    s1ave77 Has left at his own request

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    Check the link in my last post. There is a description above the linked post and the keys are in the spoiler of the linked one.
     
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  9. Joe C

    Joe C MDL Guru

    Jan 12, 2012
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    If this is a laptop, and the replacement board already had 10 on it, then you should be able to pop the replacement board in and either use your existing drive or do a clean install of 10 because their is a very high likelihood the your going to have the same identical hardware as your old board. Laptops are very specific to their model/serial numbers as to the parts used. An HP 123-abc-xxx laptop will have the same identical parts as another HP 123-abc-xxx laptop most of the time
     
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  10. Fire Ant

    Fire Ant MDL Novice

    Aug 26, 2017
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    thanks for the link as I may be needing those keys. Hopefully it will just work since the replacment board should be identical.

    That's what I would expect. It's not clear if the license information stored in bios is different for individual boards. My other thought was to do a HP bios restore on the new board before I started Windows. In this case, I would be using the original SSD which has the necessary .bin & .sig files on the EFI partition. This would at least put my hp service number back in the bios, and if the SLIC information is unique for each board, then that should restore the original SLIC tables.
     
  11. s1ave77

    s1ave77 Has left at his own request

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    There are no identic boards :D. For OEM_DM activation the MSDM table in BIOS would be missing and even the default HWID activation would fail due to different MAC of the LAN/WLAN chips.
     
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  12. pisthai

    pisthai Imperfect Human

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    The Mac's from LAN/WLAN are accepted, but the MD ID isn't changed as well and that comes to 3 different major changes, which will refuse to auto-activate. The user has to go the way via Control Panel -->Settings -->Update ... -->Activation and check the sentence which talks about major Hardware changes! That normally works if just some parts still the old one and not changed! If ALL was changed, have to go the 'tricky' way!!
     
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  13. Fire Ant

    Fire Ant MDL Novice

    Aug 26, 2017
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    As stated in my last post ... I was thinking of doing an HP bios recovery on the new board using the .bin & .sig files from the original board before I attempted to start Windows. This should restore the Bios Region ... my thinking was that this would restore the "MSDM table for OEM_DM activation" (and/or the SLIC tables). I'll be using the same WLAN module so the MAC should be the same. The CPU's may have different ID information (they are soldered to the board). When Windows boots for the first time, it should not see many changes from the original motherboard.

    Thanks for that ... I wasn't sure about the procedure as I have never done any of this (It's my niece's laptop ... this kind of nonsense is why I switched over to Linux after XP).
     
  14. Joe C

    Joe C MDL Guru

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    #14 Joe C, Nov 19, 2017
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2017
    Would or might need a clean install, but there should be a clean install anyway. This is a laptop board that already has a Windows 10 HWID. The board already has it's own WAN/LAN chips (as well as it's own MAC address) . It would have to be an HP board for an HP laptop. You can't take any board and pop it in a laptop because of all the different variations of I/O locations. The board has to be an exact HP replacement with the same part number as the old board. There's no reason that your can't replace the board with the same identical HP board and authenticate
     
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