Restore Win10 to new PC

[JohnGG]

Gday all, i tried the free version of backup and restore and it was incredibly fast compared to the windows version but im guessing because i had a upgraded version of Windows 10 pro and now i restored the backup to a whole new PC that i cant activate the copy of windows?
Am i right in thinking that the Windows 10 free upgrade last year is entirely tied to the PC hardware?
Entering product key doesnt work, the last thing i could try is fire the old pc back up and sign in with the microsoft account and then do the same with the new pc.

Just edited to say, thanks for this awesome bit of free software.
I have been using Veeam backup & replication for 7 years now and this just further strengthens my trust and appreciation in Veeam.

Cheers

[Technogod]

Yes, free upgrade is tied to the hardware.

[Mike Resseler]

I can confirm what Technogod said. This is the downsides of the free upgrade I'm afraid.
But it is not only with the free upgrade. OEM licenses on the hardware are also not transferrable

[JohnGG]

Ok no worries fellas and thanks for the reply.
I did read that if you signed in with the MS account and registered it as a digital license and then use the same amount on new hardware it should work?

[Mike Resseler]

John,

This is actually the first I hear about it. From what I can see it still says this:

OEM :
OEM versions of Windows are identical to Full License Retail versions except for the following:
- OEM versions do not offer any free Microsoft direct support from Microsoft support personnel
- OEM licenses are tied to the very first computer you install and activate it on
- OEM versions allow all hardware upgrades except for an upgrade to a different model motherboard
- OEM versions cannot be used to directly upgrade from an older Windows operating system

From: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ins ... f4b7ed2fb9