[SOLVED] Windows 10 Activating by itself

[jonathani05]

I work with maintaining computers and i often have to reinstall windows. My job is to erase the previous OS and install Windows 10 Pro inactivated and after that the user buys license and activates it himself. But the last 2 times while reinstalling a brand new copy of Windows 10 Pro freshly downloaded from Microsoft.com windows seems to activate by himself. There is no watermark or everything. Please do notice that i'm not connecting to the internet while setup to prevent windows from downloading updates on slow connection. But i connect it when i'm installing the drivers.

Thanks.

 

[Dugimodo]

If windows has been activated on that hardware previously it will automatically reactivate, as long as the same version is installed (home, pro, etc)
It also works when changing from windows 7 or 8 to 10 still despite the free upgrade officially being finished.

Seems like something you would know in your line of work.

 

[kerberos_20]

well the only way windows would autoactivate is when u log in with microsoft account and that account was activated before with same hardware

offline account shouldnt autoactivate, but not sure
u could try to use registry to disable autoactivation
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT \CurrentVersion\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\Activation
change Manual to 1

 

[USAFRet]

I work with maintaining computers and i often have to reinstall windows. My job is to erase the previous OS and install Windows 10 Pro inactivated and after that the user buys license and activates it himself. But the last 2 times while reinstalling a brand new copy of Windows 10 Pro freshly downloaded from Microsoft.com windows seems to activate by himself. There is no watermark or everything. Please do notice that i'm not connecting to the internet while setup to prevent windows from downloading updates on slow connection. But i connect it when i'm installing the drivers.

Thanks.

Reinstall on that same previously activated hardware is no problem.

It may even show as fully activated right away, then do an actual verification later on.

Or, it is actually Unactivated and you just didn't notice. The watermark does not necessarily appear right away. And then it activates itself later.

 

[jonathani05]

I know that if a computer previosly had windows it will reactivate automatically. But isnt a little wierd that the laptops had windows 7/8/10 pro?? Some of them were pretty cheap! That is what confused me.

 

[CountMike]

Unofficially MS is still allowing upgrades from W7 and 8/8.1 even if clean installed on systems already activated with earlier versions.
Just one thing, Activated with digital license doesn't necessarily mean same as legal.