Possible to transfer Pre-installed Win8.1 OEM license to another PC?

[bartNL]

Hi,

I know this question has been asked before, but I find different answers so I'm a bit confused.
I've got a laptop which came with Win8 pre-installed(OEM), and I upgraded to 8.1. Now I'm putting together a new gaming-rig, and I was wondering if I could transfer the laptop's OEM license to my new pc.(I will install Linux Mint 17 on this laptop after.)Here they say it can be done, but here and here they say it cannot be done.(as I understand it) I searched for the answer on this specific question, so those links describe the answer for the OEM version, not Retail. Microsoft itself isn't very clear on this either. At least, not to me. Can someone confirm whether this can be done or not? I don't want to risk losing my license. If the right answer is in one of those posts, please correct me, but as I understand it, they contradict each other.
Thanks for the help

 

[bartNL]

I think it's rather unfair from MS to keep you from using your license on another product. You pay for a product but you can't freely use, stingy misers at ms..

It is less expensive for a reason. If you want a freely transferable license, you can just buy a Retail license.
Install on whatever new hardware you want. Only one PC at a time, of course.

It's not any harder from them to design a windows which is freely movable across systems I suppose. So they just make use of, willingness to pay, consumer surplus, they skim it off. (or how do you say that in english) I can't blame the for using that marketing technique, but i still think it's stingy. But that's just my opinion.

 

[LucoTF]

This was all so much easier with vista / 7

as far as slic goes, windows couldn't tell the difference between vista HB and w7 ulti...

 

[USAFRet]

I think it's rather unfair from MS to keep you from using your license on another product. You pay for a product but you can't freely use, stingy misers at ms..

It is less expensive for a reason. If you want a freely transferable license, you can just buy a Retail license.
Install on whatever new hardware you want. Only one PC at a time, of course.

It's not any harder from them to design a windows which is freely movable across systems I suppose. So they just make use of, willingness to pay, consumer surplus, they skim it off. (or how do you say that in english) I can't blame the for using that marketing technique, but i still think it's stingy. But that's just my opinion.

No it isn't any harder. Hence the Retail license for Win 8/8.1, which is freely reusable across systems.
But to get the price down, they work with manufacturers. With a preinstalled system, you are getting that license from the manufacturer, not directly from MS.

If the ~$90 Windows 8 license were a direct cost on top of the laptop/desktop....people would bitch at the overall price.
They give it to the manufacturer for cheap, and that is just included in the price of the whole thing.

We can buy a brand new laptop or desktop for $275. Obviously, the Windows license, as a separate line item, is not 40% of that.

 

[r00tb33r]

I think it's rather unfair from MS to keep you from using your license on another product. You pay for a product but you can't freely use, stingy misers at ms..

It is less expensive for a reason. If you want a freely transferable license, you can just buy a Retail license.
Install on whatever new hardware you want. Only one PC at a time, of course.

It's not any harder from them to design a windows which is freely movable across systems I suppose. So they just make use of, willingness to pay, consumer surplus, they skim it off. (or how do you say that in english) I can't blame the for using that marketing technique, but i still think it's stingy. But that's just my opinion.

No it isn't any harder. Hence the Retail license for Win 8/8.1, which is freely reusable across systems.
But to get the price down, they work with manufacturers. With a preinstalled system, you are getting that license from the manufacturer, not directly from MS.

If the ~$90 Windows 8 license were a direct cost on top of the laptop/desktop....people would bitch at the overall price.
They give it to the manufacturer for cheap, and that is just included in the price of the whole thing.

We can buy a brand new laptop or desktop for $275. Obviously, the Windows license, as a separate line item, is not 40% of that.

The $90 retail price is a poor indicator. What is a good indicator is the average sale price of the software. Count up all the volume licenses, all the OEM keys, all the upgrade keys, and the average is much much lower than the retail figure. If you choose to pay above average for the same software many others get cheaper, that's your personal choice. Telling everyone they are supposed to pay retail accomplishes little on a technical forum.

There is more than one price for a legal copy of Windows. That's the point I am making.

 

[r00tb33r]

Yeah, but that's the critical part. Whether it takes place at the factory or the first time you use it. It makes all the difference.

And according to M$ laptop to desktop motherboard replacement is quite "viable".

Factory.
And who, specifically, at MS says that is a 'viable' replacement?

Okay, my new machine arrived today. To my pleasure the OEM Windows 8.1 was not activated at the factory on this laptop. It's asking me to activate online or by phone. Phone activation presents me with a 9x7 installation ID.

I'm going to recover the key from this machine and perform installation on another machine. I'm assuming that if it lets me go to phone activation on the other machine it means that it accepts the OEM key in a type-in form, and not necessarily from the BIOS.

 

[r00tb33r]

I was able to install Windows 8.1 onto a desktop PC using the key I retrieved from the MSDM ACPI table on the new laptop. The installer accepted my key and I performed the installation offline. I got as far as the phone activation screen where I am presented with the 9x7 installation ID. If I had called the activation line and entered the installation ID, is there a chance I would not have been able to activate? Does installation ID tell Microsoft whether I typed in the key or it came from the BIOS? Or if Windows 8.1 checks for OEM key in the BIOS I was supposed to fail earlier than this? This is as far as I can go right now as I have no plans to activate this key on any machine yet until I decide if I'm getting Windows 10 upgrades or not.

Notes:

• 
  ■ The key used was never previously activated by me on any machine
  ■ Windows 8.1 installation media came from here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-reset-refresh-media
  ■ Windows 8.0 installation media rejected the key (as expected)

 

[rgd1101]

it is an OEM key from the laptop? Microsoft would know if it OEM key or not.

 

[r00tb33r]

it is an OEM key from the laptop? Microsoft would know if it OEM key or not.

Yes, it's an OEM key from a laptop. Yes, I think so too, Microsoft would know what kind of key they made.
If I got as far as phone activation on a non-OEM desktop machine using this OEM key, would I fail to activate over the phone using the generated installation ID?

 

[rgd1101]

There more then just activation, even if they let you activation now, they could reject it later when you connect to the internet.
That how they usually deal with pirated key.

 

[r00tb33r]

There more then just activation, even if they let you activation now, they could reject it later when you connect to the internet.
That how they usually deal with pirated key.

That would be a concern. Not a pirated key however. I never activated this key on the original machine and I am removing Windows 8.1 from the original machine to use Windows 7 anyway. So one machine per key.

 

[rgd1101]

But OEM from a prebuild is different, it is just for that laptop and nothing else. That why they(manufacturer) can get it cheaper.

 

[r00tb33r]

But OEM from a prebuild is different, it is just for that laptop and nothing else. That why they(manufacturer) can get it cheaper.

True, but we work with what we've got. This time I have an OEM key.