Can you have 1 PC dual booting win 11 pro OEM and win 11 pro RETAIL and they both remain activated when looking at activation page in settings?

Reason I ask is I am getting a replacement laptop which has win 11 pro OEM on it.
I plan to use my win 11 PRO retail license from a broken laptop on the new laptop, swap in the NVME drive.

I was planning to sign into the OEM OS and link it to my online account first and it will activate.

Then put the NVME drive from the busted laptop with retail copy and transfer the license over and activate using the trouble shooter method.

Can MS recognize and maintain 2 hardware ID's with dual boot and oem and retail versions for the same exact machine? Or am I going to lose access to say the OEM license 11 pro?

Or is it going to be an explosive disaster and the whole system will get so confused nothing will activate.

The pc will have a digital licence.

The digital licence does not differentiate between an oem or retail licence. It will activate automatically. You will not even need to use your new key.

Strictly the EULA states you need a licence per installation as in W7/8 days but due to nature of digital licences the second installation will automatically activate.

That clause was written before digital licences and is basically uneforceable. So absurdly, you cannot comply with the EULA if you tried.

In the end, you can only run one instance of Windows at a time anyway.

So basically, all will be fine.

Both installs of the Windows 11 Pro will activate on the same computer with the same digital license. You don't need to fiddle with any product keys.

BUT, what happens if later on, I pull out the NVME drive to use it in a different laptop, I was thinking I will buy another laptop in a year or sooner. Will the original OEM 11 pro remain activated and I can still move the NVME drive with retail 11 and it will also activate?

The whole point of NVME over SATA, is NVME is super fast and I do want to use it in my primary laptop. I dont want to end up with only one activating license when I really have 2.

sdowney717 said:

BUT, what happens if later on, I pull out the NVME drive to use it in a different laptop, I was thinking I will buy another laptop in a year or sooner. Will the original OEM 11 pro remain activated and I can still move the NVME drive with retail 11 and it will also activate?

The whole point of NVME over SATA, is NVME is super fast and I do want to use it in my primary laptop. I dont want to end up with only one license when I really have 2.

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If the new laptop does not have an existing digital license for Windows 11 you will need to activate it with a product key or use a linked Microsoft Account to copy the digital license from the old computer to the new computer using the activation troubleshooting wizard. I recommend you change the product key on both current Windows 11 Pro installs to VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T and this should free up the Windows 11 Pro Retail product key so that it can be used on the new computer to obtain the digital license. Changing the product key to the generic Retail product key will also set the Windows 11 digital license to the retail channel and help ensure that you can copy the digital license using a Microsoft Account in the future.

NavyLCDR said:

If the new laptop does not have an existing digital license for Windows 11 you will need to activate it with a product key or use a linked Microsoft Account to copy the digital license from the old computer to the new computer using the activation troubleshooting wizard. I recommend you change the product key on both current Windows 11 Pro installs to VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T and this should free up the Windows 11 Pro Retail product key so that it can be used on the new computer to obtain the digital license. Changing the product key to the generic Retail product key will also set the Windows 11 digital license to the retail channel and help ensure that you can copy the digital license using a Microsoft Account in the future.

Click to expand...

I dont' have any keys, or maybe I do as I stored it in my email, the ASUS laptop which died was a win 10 home OEM originally, I installed 10 PRO and used a window 7 ultimate key to activate it years ago. then upgraded from 10 to 11

So I was dual booting win10 OEM and win 11 PRO on that ASUS laptop which broke the screen. And both were activated.

The replacement laptop is 10 PRO OEM, Dell latitude 5580 with a I7 CPU, 7820HQ CPU, 1080p screen and 16gb ram. And is a refurbished laptop which I got a good deal on, seller said it was activated with a digital license. It is being FedExed to me and will get it next week. My plan is to log it into my MS online account then upgrade it to 11 PRO.

Then swap in the NVME with 11 pro retail. I really don't want to go bothering with that key as I heard win11 no longer lets you use win7 keys, maybe....That was the whole point of digital activation linked to you MS account.

Issue also is this, I dont really want to wipe the NVME and start over with it, as then I could leave the busted ASUS laptop in my online MS account for some future use. Lots of installing things, but if I have to do that to keep 2 working activations for the future, I guess I have to do it. This coming latitude 5580 has an m.2 SATA drive which is not as good as NVME.

I also don't know how I can get any files off the NVME easily except to buy an external m.2 drive caddy for usb. That way I could pull any files off it before formatting it. I think if I put it into the latitude it might activate, I don't know if that is a good idea.. I just do not want to lose an activation, why give it up. I want to be able in the future to keep both activations. Or maybe it would be ok if I did that before attaching the latitude to my online MS account

I think it is like this. Say you buy 10 copies of win 11 PRO retail, and install all 10 on to the PC in their own locations, and multiboot the PC. the PC is linked to your digital account online by way of a single hardware ID code.

Then you destroy all records of the install keys that came with those 10 retail 11 pro purchases.

Now you have no way to separate the installs onto 9 other PC's, so you wasted the money buying 9 copies of win 11 PRO as none of them can be used any longer as there is only one PC activated by a single hardware ID

I realized I am way overthinking this. I had been thinking I needed to transfer over the ASUS activation to the latitude, BUT if the latitude is digitally activated already, all I should need to do is put in the NVME drive from the ASUS and not have to go thru the I just changed this hardware activation troubleshooter, as the latitude is a different hardware ID compared to the ASUS. Then that leaves the ASUS as is in my online MS account!

I hope so cause that is easy.

Well, latitude 5580 is fine. It was already activated. I also linked it to my MS account and installed 11.
THEN, I found out the seller misrepresented the laptop... It is not 1920 by 1080 and it does not have backlit keyboard.
So I plan to send it back
Maddening

Since I upgraded OS to 11 pro, should I revert it somehow to 10 pro ?

And I have to reset the PC too.

Do you reset first then roll back or rollback then reset?
I think will roll back then reset

Just a note, the difference between OEM and Retail has been in the EULA/licensing, the OEM version is for the computer it came with and the Retail version can be moved to a Replacement computer [but not both at the same time].