Reinstalled Win 10, wont let me activate

[Skipping-Bear]

i had to reinstall win 10 and now i cant activate it. i upgraded free from 8.1 to 10 i thought that my activation would be tied to my windows account

 

[Paul NZ]

What does it say ? Whats the error. It is online right?

 

[USAFRet]

i had to reinstall win 10 and now i cant activate it. i upgraded free from 8.1 to 10 i thought that my activation would be tied to my windows account

You reinstalled on the same hardware?

 

[photonboy]

It IS tied to your account. It's technically called "Digital Entitlement".

For all intents and purposes you are still tied to the same hardware, so if you are trying to login with a different machine (i.e. new build) that's not going to work.

Microsoft has various rules on when and how you can transfer your DE to another piece of hardware, but in general if you build a new machine or try to put W10 on an existing machine you'll need to buy a new W10 license.

 

[USAFRet]

It is linked to your MS account if you go through the proper steps.
Like this:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20530/windows-10-reactivating-after-hardware-change
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3164428/windows-build-1607-activation.html

Given that action, you can link that digital entitlement to different hardware.
But you actually have to do it correctly.

 

[Skipping-Bear]

thanks i figured it out.

 

[ddufford]

thanks i figured it out.

Glad you figured it out. I have the same issue. What did you do to solve the issue? Thanks