I cloned a hard drive and put it in another PC and it works? I thought I had to purchase a new Windows license?

Question

My mothers HARD Drive died, so she gave me the pc its old anyway from 2016, and I cloned my hard drive not thinking it would work and put it in my moms old PC and it works I can use windows and everything else. I was told I needed a license for each PC? I don't know the product key for the old PC but my cloned hard drive works on it. Is this only temporary? eventually Microsoft will block it?

garry · Answer

yes with what version of windows , it doesnt work with windows 10 , try getting you free internet update ..lol

The Devil · Answer

You won't be allowed any updates from M$ when you're running a copied OS. They will tell you it isn't genuine, but they will offer you to buy a license for it so it can be fully supported by M$- security patches and updates .

megaris · Answer

Go to Settings, Update & Security, Activation.

If it says you are activated, then you are fine.

Microsoft has switched to a different kind of licensing in Windows 10, where it looks at the specifics of the computer to determine if it's an active license or not.  Many makers, like Dell imbed the Microsoft license in the BIOS, so regardless of what OS you install it might already be licensed.  Microsoft accepts any Windows 7 or 8 license for Win 10 as well, because they really, really want you to run Win 10.

Gordon B · Answer

Windows takes the overall hardware into account.  If you only change one pierce of hardware its fine. If you had changed multiple drives, motherboards, cpu etc it would eventually see it as a new PC, on windows 10 you can generally log in to microsoft account and specify its a new PC and deactivate the old hardware and get things working.

Starrysky · Answer

A boot drive connected to a different motherboard with a copy of Windows that has not been activated with a valid product key will work for a while.
For a  situation where your original computer had a full retail copy of Windows, not a  preinstalled one from the pc maker,  there is a method for migrating that copy of Windows to "mom's old" computer.  Look on Internet how.  But the installation of Windows to run at the same time on you original computer is not allowed now.
Preinstalled versions (not full retail price ones) can only run on the factory motherboard.  If that fails, an identical model motherboard may be substituted.
People who install Win10 on older Win7 computers with a special product key are doing that to sell used machines.  But the operating system can go no further than that machine, and a newer or better version of Windows cannot be piled on top of that Win10 version.  A whole new retail version of Win10 or better must be installed.

Chief BaggageSmasher · Answer

If the old hard drive is never used again, then there will not be a problem. If the license is not used for multiple callbacks for updates. then it will work. If there are several calls, then Microsoft will discover that there are multiple users

I cloned a hard drive and put it in another PC and it works? I thought I had to purchase a new Windows license?

6 Answers