Solved My PC is activated with my ms account, but it has disappeared from the list on line management of devices

sdowney717 · Feb 5, 2024

how do i get it back, it used to show up last time I looked I had 5 devices, fast-forwarded a year and only 4 show up.
I show 4 win11 devices and no win10 devices at my online account
Is there a way to add it back? Why is it no longer showing up?

idgat · Feb 5, 2024

What was the source of the product key ? If you bought it online from Amazon for a bargain $7.39c .....

sdowney717 · Feb 5, 2024

Do I have to do what this guy does? Sign in with local account then switch to a different online account?

sdowney717 · Feb 5, 2024

idgat said:
What was the source of the product key ? If you bought it online from Amazon for a bargain $7.39c .....

Ridiculous assumption. This was a win7 pro pc upgraded by me years ago to win10 pro

I do see it is using my wife's email account as she is the administrator, but when I click manage my Microsoft account it takes me to my online ms account page.

sdowney717 · Feb 5, 2024

How To Add Another Device To Microsoft Account

Learn how to easily add another device to your Microsoft account and enjoy seamless access to all your files and settings.

www.process.st

Maybe try this?

I dont see this on win10 pc yet

To add a device: Go to ‘Settings’ on the new gadget. Select ‘Accounts’ then ‘Add an Account’. Log in with your Microsoft credentials. Done!

Add Account does not exist likely cause it thinks it already has been added

I will keep looking

I think it has to be done like the video, delete the online account to sign in with local account, then add an online account.

antspants · Feb 5, 2024

sdowney717 said:
Ridiculous assumption.

Not at all rediculous. A fair question. People that buy cheap keys run into situations similar to yours all the time. Mostly legitimate but with caveats.

idgat · Feb 5, 2024

sdowney717 said:
Ridiculous assumption. This was a win7 pro pc upgraded by me years ago to win10 pro

Not really, too many of them around for it to be that ridiculous

However, in your case, it looks like you might be one of the unfortunate ones to get caught in the MS blunder. Since MS stopped allowing upgrades (to Win 10 or 11) using old key (from Win 7 or Win 8.x) there has been an increasing number of users who have done this process legitimately, before MS stopped it, who are now finding their installation de-activated, for no apparent and/or justifiable reason

Contact Microsoft (but I'm afeared there is also an increasing number of users who get the response : Meh! Nothing to do here, buy a new key)

antspants · Feb 5, 2024

So it states it is activated via a digital licence. Therefore it is activated still? The fact that it isn’t showing on your MS account shouldn’t have any bearing, although I understand you wanting peice of mind. I don’t have any understanding of the advantage unless you have joint subscriptions maybe, like MS 365?
You didn’t change an email on the PC in question recently? Or a login?

sdowney717 · Feb 5, 2024

Not ever going to buy a key, ridiculous as it is activated to my online account.
The pc is activated.
Like I said I will try the video suggestion idea.

sdowney717 · Feb 5, 2024

antspants said:
So it states it is activated via a digital licence. Therefore it is activated still? The fact that it isn’t showing on your MS account shouldn’t have any bearing, although I understand you wanting peice of mind. I don’t have any understanding of the advantage unless you have joint subscriptions maybe, like MS 365?
You didn’t change an email on the PC in question recently? Or a login?

No, I almost never do anything with it as my wife uses it.

Only reason I noticed is I bought another laptop and will set it up next week with win11 pro, so was looking at my MS account online and noticed it was no longer showing up

antspants · Feb 5, 2024

sdowney717 said:
No, I almost never do anything with it as my wife uses it.

Only reason I noticed is I bought another laptop and will set it up next week with win11 pro, so was looking at my MS account online and noticed it was no longer showing up

It is odd. The fact that it shows in your image that it is activated via a digital license and associated with your MS account, should really mean it should show in your online account.

I’d be caureful going forward. Is it a recent thing, like as of today? Could be a glitch on their server? Maybe wait a couple of days?

sdowney717 · Feb 5, 2024

antspants said:
It is odd. The fact that it shows in your image that it is activated via a digital license and associated with your MS account, should really mean it should show in your online account.

I’d be caureful going forward. Is it a recent thing, like as of today? Could be a glitch on their server? Maybe wait a couple of days?

I see on the page under the 4 current win11 devices showing, there is a button to click saying 'remove device'

What exactly happens if I click it? I would think it will remove it from being associated with my online account but still remain an activated device.
Then how do you reassociate with your online account?

snip showing 2 of my devices

sdowney717 · Feb 5, 2024

here are my 4 listed devices all are win11 pro and only one missing is the win 10 pc
Hey maybe if I upgrade it to win11 it will then again show up in the list!

I just never bothered as it is an older PC and runs fine on win10 pro and It takes a lot of time and effort to make changes, and also some stress.

Edwin · Feb 5, 2024

I would venture to say, unless you bought the device directly from MS and it's under warranty, or, you have an active service or subscription of some sort linked to the device, than there's no significant reason to have it listed..., unless there are other reasons I'm not aware of.

Bree · Feb 5, 2024

sdowney717 said:
it used to show up last time I looked I had 5 devices, fast-forwarded a year and only 4 show up..... Why is it no longer showing up?

sdowney717 said:
I do see it is using my wife's email account as she is the administrator, but when I click manage my Microsoft account it takes me to my online ms account page.

As I understand it, a device will only be linked to one MS account at a time, even if you have more than one MS account that can sign in to that PC. It seems that for this PC that linked account is your wife's.

As far as activation is concerned it doesn't really matter if a device is linked to your MS account or not. Activation is by means of a digital licence, stored on the MS activation servers and linked to the unique hardware ID of the PC. Linking this digital licence to an MS account is an optional extra. It takes place when you first sign in with an MS account. Adding more users with MS accounts does not add it to their devices, only the first MS account can manage this PC.

Linking to an MS account has just a few extra advantages, mainly that the account it is linked to can reactivate after a major hardware change, or can lock the PC if it is lost or stolen. If you use Bitlocker, only the linked MS account will hold the key.

I have some 15 devices linked to my MS account now, some of them are VMs.

glasskuter · Feb 5, 2024

antspants said:
I’d be caureful going forward

As would I. If it were me, I would leave well enough alone rather than dickering with it as you could lose activation altogether.

sdowney717 · Feb 5, 2024

Bree said:
As I understand it, a device will only be linked to one MS account at a time, even if you have more than one MS account that can sign in to that PC. It seems that for this PC that linked account is your wife's.

As far as activation is concerned it doesn't really matter if a device is linked to your MS account or not. Activation is by means of a digital licence, stored on the MS activation servers and linked to the unique hardware ID of the PC. Linking this digital licence to an MS account is an optional extra. It takes place when you first sign in with an MS account. Adding more users with MS accounts does not add it to their devices, only the first MS account can manage this PC.

Linking to an MS account has just a few extra advantages, mainly that the account it is linked to can reactivate after a major hardware change, or can lock the PC if it is lost or stolen. If you use Bitlocker, only the linked MS account will hold the key.

I have some 15 devices linked to my MS account now, some of them are VMs.

View attachment 86152

Bree, you are right. I just logged out of my ms account and into hers, used the default password stored in EDGE, and it shows up under her email MS account @hotmail.com. It's been so long I don't even recall changing over to a different account that PC, who knows what happened.

I think though if I switched the PC to a local account and then signed it into my online account it would show up in my list again. Now I have to find the password, it is stored in Wallet in Edge? And write it down

Winuser · Feb 5, 2024

sdowney717 said:
I see on the page under the 4 current win11 devices showing, there is a button to click saying 'remove device'

What exactly happens if I click it? I would think it will remove it from being associated with my online account but still remain an activated device.

It only removes the device from the list. It doesn't deactivate the devices. I have had to remove devices from my list so I could get under the maximum device limit so I could install MS Store apps on my new devices. I have also removed devices that I no longer owned.

sdowney717 · Feb 5, 2024

Bree, you're a genius and have the wisdom to understand these things, I really appreciate it and everyone else who contributed also. Thanks

Bree · Feb 5, 2024

sdowney717 said:
I just never bothered as it is an older PC and runs fine on win10 pro and It takes a lot of time and effort to make changes, and also some stress.

Tell me about it! I have just twice needed to reactivate after a hardware change and needed to make use of my MS account to do so.

The first was in 2021 when I tried to move all of my activated VMs from my old host machine to a new one. All bar one of them remained activated, but for one, a W11 Home VM with TPM enabled, it would not activate on the new 'virtual' hardware.

Bree said:
I signed in to the activated VM on the old host, then switched it from a local account to a Microsoft account. Then I shut it down and signed in to the unactivated clone VM on the new Host. Running the Activation Troubleshooter and selecting 'I have changed hardware' enabled me to transfer activation to this new clone VM.

Inadvertently created a Hyper-V Shielded VM - Windows 10 Help Forums - post#14

The second time was to transfer a digital licence for Pro from an old laptop with a failing screen to another one I'd bought as a replacement. I swapped the old machine's HDD into the new one, then swapped over the digital licence using the Activation Troubleshooter, telling it that I had recently changed the hardware on this device.

can-reactivate-windows-servers-available-png.83912

Lost Activation win11 pro - posts #92 & #93

Solved My PC is activated with my ms account, but it has disappeared from the list on line management of devices

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