Question How to deactivate Windows 7 license from an old laptop and use it in the new PC?

modeonoff

Honorable
Jul 16, 2017
1,356
11
11,285
Hi, I bought Windows 7 Professional 64-bit about 10 years ago and installed it to a MacBook Pro as a bootcamp partition. I am retiring the old laptop but I would like to install Windows 7 on a new machine perhaps natively or as a virtual machine. I want to reuse the license. How do I deactivate and disconnect the license from the old machine so that I can use it in the new machine? About 20 years ago, I just called Microsoft and they just issued me a new key. Don't know about now.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
If that is a Retail Win 7 license that you purchased, you just need to install that to something else, apply the license key, and cease using the other system.

If it balks at activation, this is when you call MS annd have them figure it out.

There is no specific "deactivation" that phones home and tells the activation server farm that the license in question is no longer being used.