OS Roulette: A Bug Appears to Deactivate Windows 10 Pro

Math Geek

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very true. i know from past experience that it can take a year or more for MS to catch up to leaked in house keys, volume license overuse and many other types of bad keys out there.

most hactivation type stuff gets patched pretty quick but those leaked keys can linger for a long time.

could be a legit issue or could be a hacktivation method finally got patched or some early bad keys finally got shut down. never really know cause not like folks gonna tell complete truth on the truth magnet that is the internet.
 
i wish i seen this article before wasting an hour on the phone getting through to MS. they said they had several cases today about it and told me it is a current issue. that what i figured since its telling me my longtime pro key is now a home edition key
 

Brian28

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Jan 28, 2016
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Or MS has gotten overzealous in detecting pirated keys, and is impacting innocent users. If somebody had a pirated key, do you think they would be broadcasting their license woes on a public forum?
 

patchez711

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Jan 30, 2016
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Just had this pop up for me... I had 7 Enterprise, upgraded to 10 pro during the free period. Mine says my code is for home now.
 

Khaydin1

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May 26, 2017
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This happened to me as well this morning. I built the computer several months ago and applied a Windows 10 Pro OEM key - has been activated for several months. Was activated yesterday when i left work, come in this morning and no longer activated.
 

poopflinger

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Sep 18, 2017
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Had this happen to me last night. It told me I had Windows 10 Pro installed and that I had a Windows 10 Pro key... but for some reason it couldn't be validated. The solution for me for was going through the troubleshooting steps and "upgrading" to pro. This restarted my computer with the threat that setting up Windows 10 Pro could take a very long time. All my PC did was restart with Windows activated this time. This is a very strange bug.
 

welshac

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Jul 15, 2012
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Happened to me this morning, I was 15 in line for their online support, but only waited for about five minutes before someone walked through the process only to state later their authentication servers were down.

Originally a Win 7 Pro license, upgraded to 8, then downgraded back to 7, before moving to 10 Pro. Continuing with the version lottery, my system thinks I have 10 Home installed.

It could be more stringent key examination, as the representative did ask for my original key, but I haven't had a hardware update in almost three years (replacing a bad mobo for my 6770K).
 
So when i clicked on troubleshoot before it would say win 10 pro installed but have a win 10 home key. I literally rebooted my laptop, clicked on troubleshoot and it activated my laptop with windows 10 pro again.

Guess ill wait and see how long that lasts.
 
Nov 8, 2018
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Had this happen on 3 brand new out of the box Lenovo desktops this morning I ran windows update on them then they all activated properly after running the troubleshooter twice which failed both times but after the second fail it just showed activated and did not loose it on reboot.
 

TJ Hooker

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Luckily there isn't really any downside to being non-activated other than the little mark, so I'm not too fussed about just waiting this out until MS gets its ducks in a row.

Edit: Did a restart and then ran the activation troubleshooter, everything seems to be in order now.
 

Gillerer

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Sep 23, 2013
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I got this too. It's originally a Windows 7 Pro OEM licence that's gone thru Win 8.1 to Win 10. (And before someone suggests otherwise - it's still on the original installed computer that serves as my current media rig - an i5-750 from 2010.)

"Sketchy players" probably wouldn't go around shouting about their Windows getting un-activated - unless they're oblivious types who bought a stolen or fraudulently acquired key from a grey-market site.

EDIT: Using automatic troubleshooter seems to have fixed it - at least for now.
 

Terrax

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My co-worker got that today. He had Win8 on an HP EliteBook 840 G2 that he upgraded to Win10 a couple years ago. He didn't do anything to the system and suddenly, he was deactivated.

He was searching for a fix and someone had mentioined updating the BIOS worked for them. He updated to the latest BIOS from HP and the issue went away.
 


looks like the actvation troubleshooter worked for me this time too. now if only i can clear that error message when i tried to re-enter my windows 7 key again

 

WhatTheWhat95

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Oct 24, 2016
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According to MS, this is because of a server issue. So here is the real question: why is my previously activated computer talking to MS servers again? That shouldn't be happening once it's activated.
 


because a lot of keys do expire. ex. educational and volume keys
 
Nov 8, 2018
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Pretty sure it has little to do with sketchy keys. I purchased and upgraded to Windows 10 Pro a month ago and this morning my computer no longer recognizes my license. From what technical support told me is that it has to do with an issue they are having with their servers.