How many times will Windows Activation Server going to accepting to activated the same machine with the same hardware if doing clean install on the HDD or SSD? I bet the activation server will REJECTED it if it have been activated for more than five times on the same hardware ID. Or will it accepting UNLIMITED activated?
My mate who work for pcworld say all laptop/pc desktop will come preloaded with windows 10 home (not pro) and it will be reserved recovery on the same HDD because there will be no longer provided DVD (Recovery Factory Image) or product key anymore. He say windows 10 will be activated offline in reserved recovery on the HDD. (I was wondering how will we do this?)
You don't need the recovery just do a clean install from ISO and Win10 should be activated fine (online) (of course if you first do a correct update or if you buy with orig win10 and safe a prod key)
some of us are waiting to buy a win10 machine and rip the HDD out before it gets turned on for the first time after it is on a shelf at a store. Hope to find more info, but if not will be interesting to see this reserved section and what it actually has going on. If its anything at all.
What happen if it went to 1001 times? I am sure one day someone have the special skill to make windows activated without going online!
It will take a while to get to 1001. If you do the math....180 days each activation x 1000 - 180,000 days / 365 = 493 years. By then you will probably need to update your computer anyway.
Nope, there is a limit. I remember a guy here lately who was deactivated after 50 successfull activations, with Retail Version. The Rearm count was introduced to better support Audit/Sysprep, since this uses up a rearm every time.
It has always been my practice with a new machine: Rip out the drive. Put it in an enclosure. Use Acronis True Image to image it. Restore the image to a 'bare metal' drive and then boot that drive in the new computer. The "virgin" stays on a shelf, untouched by human hands. (A few months ago, I stumbled upon the "virgin" from my Lenovo T400 which has long since been sold. I'll probably toss it. 320GB HDD - all my storage hdd today are 1TB and up and all my OS boot drives are SSD)