Solved Transfer windows 11 Pro licence

I've built a new pc and I want to transfer the licence from my old pc to the new one. I've seen lots of posts about how to do it but I don't know what the current situation is. I have a retail product key and my Microsoft account says the old pc is activated with a digital licence linked to my Microsoft account. Any up to date help would be greatly appreciated. Searching the forum and tutorials did not produce anything recent.

Haven't tested it on Win11 yet but earlier versions had the possibility of transferring the Retail version to a Replacement computer but not both at the same time. The OEM and probably System Builder versions are tied to the computer they were first installed on.

If it's a retail license, you can open an administrative command prompt on the old system, and use the command


to uninstall the product key. Then you can use the same key on the new system.

@pseymour Bookmarked your reply. Thanks!

@pseymour The OP did not say what version of windows his retail license is for. Just wondering if that would work IF his retail license happened to be for an old Winows 7 that was upgraded to 10 then to 11. I wouldn't think so since MS doesn't accept windows 7 keys to upgrade to 11 any more. What do you think?

@glasskuter Yes, that's correct. It would have to be a key that the new OS accepts, and the edition SKU has to match (Pro, Home, etc.).

glasskuter said:

Just wondering if that would work IF his retail license happened to be for an old Windows 7 that was upgraded to 10 then to 11. I wouldn't think so since MS doesn't accept windows 7 keys to upgrade to 11 any more. What do you think?

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A digital licence is a digital licence. It makes no difference where it came from, a brand new retail key or an OEM W7>W10 free upgrade. They are all equal, and can all be transferred when the hardware has been changed, using the Activation Troubleshooter.

Four months after MS stopped accepting w7/w8 keys I did just that. I transferred a W10 Pro digital licence that originated from an OEM Win7 Pro, upgraded to Win 10 back when MS were still giving free activation.
Lost Activation win11 pro - posts #92 & #93

Right, that process worked until the loophole was closed in 2023. Before that, if you activated a Windows 7 key, you got a Windows 10 digital license, even if it was after the alleged 2016 cutoff. In 2023, that came to an end. I should say supposedly, because I haven't tried it in ages.

pseymour said:

Right, that process worked until the loophole was closed in 2023. Before that, if you activated a Windows 7 key, you got a Windows 10 digital license, even if it was after the alleged 2016 cutoff. In 2023, that came to an end. I should say supposedly, because I haven't tried it in ages.

Click to expand...

Yes, I had a 'never been upgraded' Win7 machine that I had kept to one side, just to test this scenario. At the end of September 2023 an in-place W7>W10 upgrade failed to gain activation and a digital licence, neither would using gatherosstate.exe to generate the GenuineTicket.xml for clean install, or trying the upgrade/install with an earlier version of Win10.

Bree said:

sadly, it's all true....

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Free Activation from Windows 7/8 key or upgrade to Windows 10/11 Ends - post #3

The last remaining loophole, activating by changing the installed key to a W7/W8 one, had been closed by 12th October 2023.
Free Activation from Windows 7/8 key or upgrade to Windows 10/11 Ends - post #30

But the closure of all activation routes for new digital licences from W7/W8 keys has had no bearing on the validity of those licences previously gained by that route. The example I gave above was a digital licence from a W7>W10 upgrade being successfully transferred to new hardware in 2024.

That's a lot of words to say what I already said.