Clean Install On Laptop Went Well

I did a clean install of Windows 11 yesterday. It went really smooth. I had gotten the iso from the MS site. I was never asked for a key, though. I guess when I logged in to my Outlook account it's using that? My Dell is an Inspiron 5755 model, 12gb ram, it passed all the checks except for my processor, which is an AMD A8-7410 APU with AMD Radeon R5 Graphicss @ 2.20 GHz. I'm adding my progs back and looking around the new setup. Version s 21H2 22000.526 and seems to be stable and working fine.

The license key is linked to your MS account, if you upgraded from W10 it will use that existing license

CornishRattler said:

The license key is linked to your MS account, if you upgraded from W10 it will use the existing license

Click to expand...

I didn't upgrade, did a clean install.

snerd said:

I didn't upgrade, did a clean install.

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Yeah I kinda guessed that after I read you had an unsupported processor

snerd said:

I did a clean install of Windows 11 yesterday. It went really smooth. I had gotten the iso from the MS site. I was never asked for a key, though.

Click to expand...

Starting with Windows 8, all PCs supplied with Windows pre-installed by the OEM have a key embedded in the bios firmware. This replaced the CoA sticker used with Windows 7 or earlier.

On a clean install of Windows 10 or 11 Setup will read this key and use it to choose the edition to install (Home or Pro) and to activate it.

You can read your embedded key with ShowKeyPlus.

snerd said:

I did a clean install of Windows 11 yesterday. It went really smooth. I had gotten the iso from the MS site. I was never asked for a key, though. I guess when I logged in to my Outlook account it's using that? My Dell is an Inspiron 5755 model, 12gb ram, it passed all the checks except for my processor, which is an AMD A8-7410 APU with AMD Radeon R5 Graphicss @ 2.20 GHz. I'm adding my progs back and looking around the new setup. Version s 21H2 22000.526 and seems to be stable and working fine.

Click to expand...

It's on the Motherboard. Windows automatically recognizes you have a valid key, and activates automatically.

Glad it went well :)

If you have a Windows 8 core (home) or newer key in BIOS, Windows Setup detects the Home key and installs Windows 11 Home. If you have activated Windows 8 Pro or newer before on the same PC, you can then change the Windows key to the default Windows 10/11 Pro key: VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T This will upgrade Windows 11 Home to Windows 11 Pro and then activate automatically by digital license stored on MS servers. If the same PC has been activated with Pro license before, you don't need to use your Microsoft Account. It will activate automatically.

CornishRattler said:

The license key is linked to your MS account, if you upgraded from W10 it will use that existing license

Click to expand...

That is incorrect. The license is linked to the motherboard that it was last installed on and the digital license is stored on Microsoft Activation Servers based upon the unique hardware ID of the motherboard and the version of Windows 10/11 that was previously licensed. The Microsoft Account has nothing to do with it. When you log into a computer that has a digital license for Windows 10/11, a link is generated in the device list of our Microsoft Account that points to the digital license that is stored on Microsoft Activation servers.

NavyLCDR said:

That is incorrect. The license is linked to the motherboard that it was last installed on and the digital license is stored on Microsoft Activation Servers based upon the unique hardware ID of the motherboard and the version of Windows 10/11 that was previously licensed. The Microsoft Account has nothing to do with it. When you log into a computer that has a digital license for Windows 10/11, a link is generated in the device list of our Microsoft Account that points to the digital license that is stored on Microsoft Activation servers.

Click to expand...

Ah right, so no linking at all then