Question How can I permanently remove the "Activate Windows" watermark from Win 10? (Replaced motherboard) Concerned about burn-in on OLED monitors

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euphoria4949

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Aug 26, 2012
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Hi to the forum moderators, I want to make it clear that I'm not discussing piracy. I have multiple legitimate copies of Windows 10 on different systems in the house but I had to replace my motherboard after some magic blue smoke escaped.
I bought a cheap replacement board just to get me by for a few months until the new AMD 9000 X3D chips are released. However, it seems my key was attached to my BIOS so it's now showing as not activated.

My main concern is I use OLED monitors so I constantly have this watermark in the same place 16 hours a day. It might only be for a few months until I upgrade the system but I do not want to risk it burning in.
And I'm trying to avoid calling Microsoft support and sitting on hold for an hour just to swap the key to a new motherboard that is going to be swapped out again in a couple of months.

I read that there were a couple of ways to remove the watermark, one of them was creating an Activation.bat file with Notepad that you run and then restart, that does work but after an hour the watermark reappears.
And I read another way of changing a registry file to tell the computer I think to skip the activation check, which also worked but it reappeared quickly. Even with Windows updates disabled.

Is there any other way to get around it or am I going to have to spend a couple of hours on the phone with Microsoft getting the key swapped to the temporary motherboard, and then again when I upgrade the system around Christmas?
 

euphoria4949

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Aug 26, 2012
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After two weeks of trying different methods, Including trying to use the legitimate keys I have but it can't resulting in an error.

However, I found a post mentioning you can go through Windows troubleshooting to disassociate the key from a piece of hardware and then use it again on the new hardware.

This worked in just a few seconds and Windows is now activated again
 
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