The tech support guys is obviously not sure of what's going on.

I don't think it works like that. On my own experience, I did the free upgrade last week to my HDD when it came out. I also created a USB drive to do a clean install, during the weekend I replaced the HDD with an SSD and put a new RAM stick in it. Windows 10 was installed from the USB stick and was properly activated with those hardware changes without having to input any type of product Key.

So yeah, bad on the tech support guy, but I don't think this will be an issue for gamers who constantly change RAM, video cards and hard drives.

The activation algorithm is more complex than just being tied to a specific configuration. It's weighted, meaning it's tolerant to one or two peripheral components being swapped out (non-boot hdd, ram, gfx, sound) but typically not the motherboard. Why? Because to Windows, this looks like someone cloned the HDD and put it into another machine. It can't tell either way.

This is how it was for Windows 7. I think it was introduced in 2003 R2 or Vista.

This is a non-story, it's the same behavior Windows has had for almost a decade. People are only getting excited about it because Windows 10 is trending.

I've installed my Windows 7 license on three separate motherboards over the years (one system upgrade and one faulty board) and I never had a problem activating with my license key.

And as far as what I heard before, they even periodically "flush" hardware revision history from their server, so more components can be replaced over time.

I heard that the Windows 10 upgrade is tied to the motherboard. Having it be tied to external hardware like a graphics card or RAM flat-out doesn't make sense.

Thinking this is a Hanlon's Razor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor ) on Support's end.

> I heard that the Windows 10 upgrade is tied to the motherboard.

That still sounds absurd. IMHO, it's the best way for MS to motivate users to move to other operating systems.

"other operating systems"

like windows 2000? thats been the default windows behavior for more than a decade

Seriously? So, don't you lose a fortune having to re-purchase a licence every time you change your motherboard (either upgrade or failure/warranty)?

I'm not sure if the imgur people are just expressing their opinions that this is stupid and just assuming that no one can be that stupid or if a few are more informed than a Microsoft tech (awful but not surprising) but the comments there seem to lean toward this support person being incorrect.

Obviously a single tech support agent being wrong about Microsoft's policy is not news.

From what Microsoft has said, it sounds like a new motherboard will require a new copy of Windows 10, but other hardware upgrades will not.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-...

Man, if this is true I am going to be very very disappointed. I am very happy with Windows 10 so far. My main computer is my gaming machine which I have Windows 10 installed on. I find it very hard to believe that they would require a new install for new hardware. I mean just think, so when you need more ram or you want to add a second GPU, you need to buy windows again?!?!

From what I have read it is only tied to the motherboard as others have pointed out.

But to be clear the support conversation appears to be related to the free upgrade process. Sounds like the guy completed the free upgrade, swapped hardware out, and now he can't reinstall Windows 10. Right or wrong, I can actually see Microsoft doing this. The free upgrade is just that, an upgrade. It is intended to install only as an upgrade on a system currently running an earlier version of Windows. If a hard drive was replaced and you needed to install Windows 10, you would have to either (a) install the full version - which would require a purchase; or (b) install an earlier version and go through the upgrade process again. The problem there is that Microsoft may only allow one upgrade per license key, in which case your previous upgrade voided that license key for future upgrades.

It would be similar to having Windows XP running on your system and wanting to upgrade to Windows 7. You go out purchase the upgrade license (cheaper) so you can perform the upgrade. A few months later your hard drive crashes, you try to install from the upgrade license and are out of luck. You need to go through the upgrade process again or have a full version available.

Well this seems silly. Surely at least one person who works at microsoft reads hacker news, can any of you confirm or deny this ridiculousness?

Not working for Microsoft, but generally big companies have a don't say anything policy except redirect the person querying something to public relations. A normal employee is not authorized to speak for the company.

So you won't see anyone actually working at Microsoft declaring they work at the company confirming, denying or correcting this issue. People want to keep their jobs.

They might talk about it anonymously, not mentioning they work for the company.

That's not how it works. I replaced my SSD and RAM over the weekend and did a clean install. Win10 was activated without asking me for a key.