Is Windows license generally tied to the MOBO?

mike the car guy

Distinguished
Dec 19, 2009
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When recently working on my wife's ~4 year old Dell, I was surprised the windows license was on the MOBO. I installed a new HD, a SSD actually, installed off a generic Microsoft disk and it all went well, no activation required. Looking to the future as I need a new one myself, and many have tiny, slow HDs and I might want to upgrade to either a SSD or just larger spinning HD, am I likely to need a license or can I expect it to be on the motherboard? I'm talking the usual laptop players, Dell, Asus, Lenovo etc. I understand no guarantees, but typically.

A related but kind of out there question, since I have an almost visceral hate Win 10, what would happen if I loaded Win 7 on a machine that came with a Win 10 license? Would it work? Anyway to find these things out beforehand?
 

delaro

Judicious
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OEM is tied to the motherboard not any of the other versions, Windows 7 OEM was the same. You also can install and use Windows 10 without a key and it will work fine except for nags to register. Windows 7 on a Windows 10 system? It's a hit and miss with driver support and getting generic drivers to function right, with Lappy's it's a huge problem for Wifi, USB, and Touch support.