Windows reset can screw your drives ID...

[Re8et]

Windows 10 is ongoing with digital shift program.
For those of you that does not know S*** about it, there are two windows licences available: OEM, and Physical key. At least before the digital shift.
Now if you get a physical retail copy of windows, or you have an old Win XP retail with key, or Win 7, with Key and do not upgrade it to win 10, you can
still keep your old OS. If you upgraded the retail key for win 10, that has become digital entitlement and your old DVD is useless.

Under digital entitlement you can not change hardware of your PC. Windows now has everything online. Drives. CPu. Motherboard.
It takes automatically ownerships of all of your HD, as SYSTEM.

Now, in the contract you signed with windows, you are allowed to transfer your licence, only IF you linked the Installation of that PC, to your Microsoft account.
Only once. If you are under OEM, and want to upgrade the HD, you are screwed. Windows will not authorize.

I had to Reset my laptop for a virus, and did not change hardware but... the window version I installed, CHANGED THE ID of my HARD DISK.
So it gave it a new name and description. And When I had to re-authorize Reason, I was screwed. Fortunately Reason allowed me to re-install.

Now the same thing happened on my workstation. But I had only online Reason installed so it was not a problem. However I had also Reaktor and Waves, and I still need to check them.
Put back all secondary drives I had to manually take back Admin control of every single drives as the Sysytem was now the owner.

I performed the standard Reset recover procedure as windows was still somehow working. Remove everything. On start up, it was Windows Enterprise!!???

Windows pushed this different version of windows on my PC. It did not want to authorize. Blue screen of death.
I had to use my original Win 7 Pro retail disk bit now the Key was gone. It would not authorize anymore.

I managed to have a Reset back up done with MAcrium, and a Usb key for this reson, but ownership of the drive would not allow me to use it.
I had another windows installation key, created at the time of the switch from win 7.
That worked. But. On my Microsoft account, the PC now had a new name. It had authorized succesfully, but some ID's changed.

This is very worrysome. Automatic ownerships of drives means you they are also write protected, and if you need to move the Drive to a friend studio, you'll have to perform the ownership s***. If I had not that key.... I'd been completely screwed.
with the risk of damaging the drive... usb drives has not this problem. Neither Linux. Under MAC OS, there are workaronds. In windows there's group policy, but after each upgrade, most stuff will revert to defaul. You do not choose. Yo don't have an option to prevent that.

So I was thinking how to protect myself in case this would happen again, with the risk to lose Reason offline again.
I think Reason should upgrade the authorization process in some way, because there is no way to prevent windows 10 to screw things up every now and then.

[Boombastix]

I'm planning to buy a new Mobo and CPU. Can I just move my existing Win 10 SSD to the new Mobo? It was originally upgraded from Win 7.

I'm getting conflicting info online.

[jam-s]

I'm planning to buy a new Mobo and CPU. Can I just move my existing Win 10 SSD to the new Mobo? It was originally upgraded from Win 7.

I'm getting conflicting info online.

Windows does not like to move from one Mobo to another unless it is actively prepared to do this. Also make sure to de-authorize any plug-in that may be bound to your PC hardware before making the swap.

[Boombastix]

Windows does not like to move from one Mobo to another unless it is actively prepared to do this. Also make sure to de-authorize any plug-in that may be bound to your PC hardware before making the swap.

"actively prepared" - any idea how that is done, or a resource that I can read?
"plug-in that may be bound to your PC hardware" - is there a way to know? I know iLok, Waves and Reason are, so maybe the installer manager programs? But not those with just serial?

Thanks!

[Re8et]

Windows does not like to move from one Mobo to another unless it is actively prepared to do this. Also make sure to de-authorize any plug-in that may be bound to your PC hardware before making the swap.

"actively prepared" - any idea how that is done, or a resource that I can read?
"plug-in that may be bound to your PC hardware" - is there a way to know? I know iLok, Waves and Reason are, so maybe the installer manager programs? But not those with just serial?

Thanks!

I read - not on windows official source, that if you connect the Authorized version of the window you want to move, with the Microsoft account. that become Activated through digital entitlement, different from - this version of windows is authorized. You must login into Microsoft to check that.
then de-authorize that licence on that Mobo, theoretically then you are allowed to re-authoirize it on a new Mobo -
As you can see this page mentions win version 1511. We are now in 1909.

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i.e. changing hardware . Thers' a lot of confusing stuff. Only support is calling a USA support team, not India or other useless pal. No mentions how many time you are allowed to move your licence.

AND, to add confusion to confusion there's Virtual Volume licencing purchase method.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensi ... aprimaryr3

https://www.microsoft.com/Licensing/ser ... fault.aspx

Windows forums and assistance is a garbled mess, the only source one could trust are the legal papers, that continually get updated, do make sure it's the newest possible.
This example is from July 2019 and does not mention how many times you are allowed to move retail licence
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/hel ... are-change

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-tran ... hard-drive

I got to investigate myself further but this is the impression I got reading unofficial forums.
OEM is then different from retail. I don' know how this would apply to an OEM pc in case Mobo would get corrupted.

The Volume licencing program, is poorly covered in forums.
Enterprise version could work, Home not a chance. Pro? No idea. I need to find out wether the Microsoft account standard licencing and the Volume Licencing follows a similar legal procedure...

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... 19b6f32d4c

Absolutely make a Usb key with creation media that reflect your windows version, do not trust the reset procedure. I contacted support and they told me to powershell and run slui.exe 4, which was competely useless as I did not even changed my hardware. Just to make an example. The Slui procedure alone doesn't help you if you have not activately prepared to move your installation. So it is best to contact them before proceeding to ask again, and record the call, just as a precaution measure. PURCHASE A PREMIUM SUPPORT PLAN IS ALSO AN OPTION IF YOU REALLY WANT A PREPARED TECHNICIAN TO ASSIST YOU, that may give you some legal assistance otherwise of difficult acces. Pretend a copy of your digital entitlements rights in that case, for which is not automatically assumed they will give you purposedly, or point in the right direction. Read it carefully.

I have not yet found the legal paper myself that assure me the shift is legal and your licence move bullet proof.

Second alternative, Clozilla the whole HD where the system is installed, althought that probably doesn't change anything, now the digital shift is in full effect, it could be a last resource to try get it back up in case something goes bad and restart from scratch. There's a hack caveat that I can't discuss it here.

I didi it myself and helped me save my a** couple of times. LInux obviously.

Also scooping/finding for the product key with the digital shift is no more a thing.
I tried. It did not work. And it was the same hardware.

[jam-s]

"actively prepared" - any idea how that is done, or a resource that I can read?
"plug-in that may be bound to your PC hardware" - is there a way to know? I know iLok, Waves and Reason are, so maybe the installer manager programs? But not those with just serial?
Thanks!

I was thinking of something along these lines:
https://www.wintips.org/how-to-replace- ... g-windows/

As for the plugins: Anything that will give you the option to activate a license on a specific computer and that also gives you the option to de-activate the license (in the plugin itself or in its management app) should be deactivate to be sure you don't burn an activation and might then have to contact support to get another activation.