Forum Discussion
Reuse Win 10 Pro license from an ineligible old hardware
I have an old laptop which is running Win 10 Pro and is activated by the digital license. I also have another brand new PC running Win 11 Home with advanced hardware capabilities.
My old laptop is ineligible to receive Win 11 Pro upgrade automatically due to its inferior hardware. What I wish to do is:
Use my Win 10 Pro license from the old laptop to the new laptop so that I can upgrade it from Win 11 Home to Win 11 Pro and retire my old outdated laptop.
What are my options please?
3 Replies
Windows licenses tied to hardware are usually activated via digital licenses. These licenses are specific to the device they were originally activated on.To transfer the license, you typically need to deactivate it on the old device and reactivate it on the new one.
This is a digital license. If I de-activate in the old device; then try to activate in another new device: how do I get the product key? Is there a way to export the digital license from old device before de-activating and then import into new device? The new device is already running Win 11 Pro and old device is running Win 10 Pro.
A window will pop up. Look for the text next to "Description". It will say either RETAIL channel (Good news! You can transfer it) or OEM channel (Microsoft's licensing rules do not allow this transfer).
