I'm not 100% sure on this, and want to get some confirmation.
My desktop which used my windows 7 key is pretty much total crap with the motherboard issues it has, and I got a new laptop, but want to save that OS license for future use when I build up a desktop later on. Thing is, the free upgrade to windows 10 might not be around forever, so I set up a VM on one of my servers, to install windows 7, do all the updates, and then wait for the windows 10 upgrade prompt to upgrade it, and convert my license key to a windows 10 one so that I can use it later on.
Now, I just did a reinstall of windows 10 which included recovering the product key, and I used that key to install windows 10 again on the same machine, but I'm wondering if the license key will work as it used to, where I can basically just save the key, and then whenever I need it down the road I can pop in a windows disc (well, iso on a zalman drive), install it with said key and be off to the races, or if it is tied to the hardware that it was originally installed on.
My desktop which used my windows 7 key is pretty much total crap with the motherboard issues it has, and I got a new laptop, but want to save that OS license for future use when I build up a desktop later on. Thing is, the free upgrade to windows 10 might not be around forever, so I set up a VM on one of my servers, to install windows 7, do all the updates, and then wait for the windows 10 upgrade prompt to upgrade it, and convert my license key to a windows 10 one so that I can use it later on.
Now, I just did a reinstall of windows 10 which included recovering the product key, and I used that key to install windows 10 again on the same machine, but I'm wondering if the license key will work as it used to, where I can basically just save the key, and then whenever I need it down the road I can pop in a windows disc (well, iso on a zalman drive), install it with said key and be off to the races, or if it is tied to the hardware that it was originally installed on.