Easiest way to keep my current Win 10 install and dual boot an upgraded ver of my current install with Win 11?

galileo · Aug 22, 2021

Brink said:
One or both may eventually get deactivated since it's a violation of the EULA to have both installations activated with the same license.

Question: When a new installation of Windows is activated on a device that has a digital license, is any/the previous Windows installation on that machine automatically deactivated? Or rather, is it supposed to be automatically deactivated upon activation of this new installation?

If so, then is the triggering of deactivation essentially tied to the activation of a new as yet unactivated installation? Thus, the booting an already activated installation which uses the same license as another also currently activated installation would or could be the trigger for detecting the violation of the license...???

galileo · Aug 22, 2021

Brink said:
If you only have one installed, you legally could as long as you're not flipping back and forth often. This could cause you to reach the activation limit for the license.

What is the activation limit (i.e. numerically speaking versus time)?

Brink · Aug 22, 2021

galileo said:
What is the activation limit (i.e. numerically speaking versus time)?

That's unknown.

galileo · Aug 22, 2021

Brink said:
That's unknown.

That's disappointing.

So, at least from my perspective and for the sake of being certain regarding compliance with an unknown activation frequency, it would be advisable to use a separately purchased license in order to employ a dual booting arrangement on a single device.

Not to be trite, but Microsoft is behaving much like the IRS with respect to "not entirely defining" certain rules such that everyone must err - sometimes excessively - on the side of the certainty of being in compliance rather than with the knowledge of being correct...nice.

Brink · Aug 22, 2021

galileo said:
Question: When a new installation of Windows is activated on a device that has a digital license, is any/the previous Windows installation on that machine automatically deactivated? Or rather, is it supposed to be automatically deactivated upon activation of this new instqallation?

If so, then is the triggering of deactivation essentially tied to the activation of a new as yet unactivated installation? Thus, the booting an already activated installation which uses the same license as another also currently activated installation would or could be the trigger for detecting the violation of the license...???

All device (installation) activations with a digital license are saved on the Microsoft activation servers.

An activation could automatically get deactivated if the digital license is flagged by Microsoft activation servers as currently being activated on more than one device (installation). Part of this would be from devices checking in with Microsoft, and tripping the flag when more then one device with the same license checks in.

The exact details of how and when are unknown because Microsoft doesn't want the public to know for obvious reasons of people trying to bypass the EULA.

Wynona · Aug 22, 2021

Brink said:
Hello bobsage, :)

You could use the image to restore for a dual boot, but you would need to have another product key or digital license to activate with since you can't have both W10 and W11 installed and activated with the same product key or digital license without one or both eventually getting deactived.

Thank you, Shawn! So, it's OK (if there's a license for both) to restore a backup image on the second partition (or HD/SSD) and then proceed to installing (through the Insider Program) Windows 11 for either Beta or DEV.

Just confirming future dual boots for myself. I'd never thought of it until Bob's question. Logic told me it should work, though.

Sometimes I stumble and fall, then get up and everything's much better than it was.

For myself, I have adequate keys for whatever I need to do for dual booting. I hope Bob does too.

galileo · Aug 22, 2021

Wynona said:
Thank you, Shawn! So, it's OK (if there's a license for both) to restore a backup image on the second partition (or HD/SSD) and then proceed to installing (through the Insider Program) Windows 11 for either Beta or DEV.

Just confirming future dual boots for myself. I'd never thought of it until Bob's question. Logic told me it should work, though.

Sometimes I stumble and fall, then get up and everything's much better than it was. For myself, I have adequate keys for whatever I need to do for dual booting. I hope Bob does too.

I also have adequate licenses for the dual booting purpose. The procedure of restoring a W10 image for dual booting and then upgrading it to W11 would additionally require that one also execute a change of the license key in order to assure license compliance.

galileo · Aug 22, 2021

galileo said:
I also have adequate licenses for the dual booting purpose. The procedure of restoring a W10 image for dual booting and then upgrading it to W11 would additionally require that one also execute a change of the license key in order to assure license compliance.

Thanks to Shawn for replying several times. This has helped clarify and identify what is a proper dual booting arrangement.

Wynona · Aug 22, 2021

galileo said:
I also have adequate licenses for the dual booting purpose. The procedure of restoring a W10 image for dual booting and then upgrading it to W11 would additionally require that one also execute a change of the license key in order to assure license compliance.

Exactly, as I understand it. There's a way to change the license key from within Settings-->Update & Security.

Wynona · Aug 22, 2021

galileo said:
Thanks to Shawn for replying several times. This has helped clarify and identify what is a proper dual booting arrangement.

Yup! Sometimes it takes a village . . . That's why I used the @ to ask for his help.

galileo · Aug 22, 2021

Wynona said:
Exactly, as I understand it. There's a way to change the license key from within Settings-->Update & Security.

Yes, that is also exactly what I was intending to use.

Wynona · Aug 22, 2021

This from over at TenForums by @AndreTen:

He can do this. This is how I made my setup. When restoring new partitions (that to be promoted to Insider), don't include any other partition but OS. Then, when in Macrium environment after restore partition, run fix boot problems (in Macrium) and let Macrium detect new OS.

Brink · Aug 22, 2021

Wynona said:
Thank you, Shawn! So, it's OK (if there's a license for both) to restore a backup image on the second partition (or HD/SSD) and then proceed to installing (through the Insider Program) Windows 11 for either Beta or DEV.

Just confirming future dual boots for myself. I'd never thought of it until Bob's question. Logic told me it should work, though.

Sometimes I stumble and fall, then get up and everything's much better than it was. For myself, I have adequate keys for whatever I need to do for dual booting. I hope Bob does too.

Correct. You can legally do that so long as only one is installed at the end.

Gramps · Aug 26, 2021

Ok, an update on licensing info. My original Win 10 was an OEM license that I had upgraded to Pro (retail). I appears that when I installed Win 11 it activated using the original OEM key. Here's a cmd you can run from the cmd prompt that provides lots of details about licenses.

slmgr /dlv

NavyLCDR · Aug 27, 2021

Gramps said:
Ok, an update on licensing info. My original Win 10 was an OEM license that I had upgraded to Pro (retail). I appears that when I installed Win 11 it activated using the original OEM key. Here's a cmd you can run from the cmd prompt that provides lots of details about licenses.

slmgr /dlv

Change the product key in Windows 11 to:
VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T

It will upgrade to Pro.

cereberus · Aug 28, 2021

Brink said:
A product key (aka: digital license) is only good to activate one current installation. It can't be used to activate more than one current installation.

It doesn't matter if the installations are dual boot, virtual machine, or physical machine. Each is considered a separate installation with each requiring a separate digital license to activate.

According to EULA this is supposedly the case. However in reality, the pc activates automatically and only accepts a new key if changing version. So you cannot comply with the EULA if you try.

The key is not the digital licence. It is an enabler to allow your pc to be assigned a digital licence.

cereberus · Aug 28, 2021

Brink said:
All device (installation) activations with a digital license are saved on the Microsoft activation servers.

An activation could automatically get deactivated if the digital license is flagged by Microsoft activation servers as currently being activated on more than one device (installation). Part of this would be from devices checking in with Microsoft, and tripping the flag when more then one device with the same license checks in.

The exact details of how and when are unknown because Microsoft doesn't want the public to know for obvious reasons of people trying to bypass the EULA.

Also, the flag is if a key has been used multiple times. Digital licences are unique to the hardware id of a pc. They can be transferred but it is often fails for unknown reasons.

NavyLCDR · Aug 29, 2021

Brink said:
All device (installation) activations with a digital license are saved on the Microsoft activation servers.

An activation could automatically get deactivated if the digital license is flagged by Microsoft activation servers as currently being activated on more than one device (installation). Part of this would be from devices checking in with Microsoft, and tripping the flag when more then one device with the same license checks in.

The exact details of how and when are unknown because Microsoft doesn't want the public to know for obvious reasons of people trying to bypass the EULA.

In theory that could happen, but there is no evidence, yet, that Microsoft is tracking the source of a digital license once it has been granted. There is evidence that Microsoft tracks how often a specific product key is used, but there has been no evidence to suggest that Microsoft records on their servers which product key a digital license came from. An example of this is using an OEM product key to get a digital license. Initially, slmgr /dlv will return OEM channel activation when the OEM product key is used. But change the product key to the generic product key that matches that version of Windows and slmgr /dlv will return Retail channel activation. There have also been reports, including myself, of the successful transfer of a digital license obtained with an OEM product key to another computer via the Microsoft Account.