Hello my fellow Gurus I recently acquired a second-hand Asus ROG x570 i motherboard for an SFF build and was told that it has Windows 10 pro already on the board or connected to it somehow. I already have my own working full version of Windows 10 pro on my existing system. If I mount my SSD with a full working version of Windows 10 pro on the second-hand motherboard I bought, what could happen when I put it on? Will there be a conflict? Is there a solution to this?
The win10 pro is only tied to previous owner under his/her account with microsoft. There won't be any conflict.
it is tied to motherboard IF no MS account use but highly doubt it tied to mac address on board, I think it tied to something in bios? if anything its the serial embedded on to board or so read I think more just combinations of what hardware was and id was handed out for, and then checked upon reinstall so long anothing major changed like the cpu it just reactivates https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...ard-bios/5cb48c90-0cc2-4c69-bf28-68f7c74f9618 2nd post might be best explanation i seen how true i dont know, but not tied to mac address
Its a points based system centered around hardware changes. There's a tolerance for amount of changes allowable that resets on an unknown period of time.
sound right to me, it same as to what i read. it definitely not tied to the mac address of motherboard, that much i knew
I don't as well, but that would mean the Windows license would be bound to a NIC and you could get a license by changing the MAC to some other for which a license exists. It does not work that way, otherwise I am sure you would find A LOT of used NICs with Pro or ProWS licenses on ebay or lists with MAC <> license relations on some underground forums. @OP you could easily use the hardware license by entering no key during setup. Then it will use the hardware key, otherwise enter your own key. A transferred harddisk / SSD will not work because the HWUID will be different (as @Astyanax already pointed out). But if you own a key you may activate again with it (afaik). Are drivers for base components the same? Otherwise I would recommend a reinstall from scratch.
i've had mixed results with the transfer, a recent x58 > x79 survived the update, and months later moving the OS install to a larger SSD. I did read a microsoft employee's description of the HWUID deduction system and what the weighting of each component is, but i can't find it now.
Right now I only can find this: https://www.quora.com/What-hardware-changes-exactly-trigger-the-reactivation-of-Windows-10