Or for people that upgrade their machine for any reason. I recently switched some hardware after my GPU died. My updated copy of Windows 10 (from 8.1) then needed to be activated again. When I tried the automated phone activation it didn't work and I was connected to some support guy that told me to either reinstall 8.1 and then do the free upgrade again or just buy Windows 10. That's a bit annoying as I didn't expect that. Oh well...
I did. According to their support page at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/activation-err... "If you've made significant hardware changes to your device (such as replacing the hard drive or motherboard), contact customer support to activate Windows". I tried that and got the same response again. So it's either reinstall/upgrade or a new license.
When I built a small batch of OEM machines I asked about cycling the hardware in later upgrades. I was told once the motherboard is changed MS consider that a different computer.
Maybe if you replaced the motherboard it might have gotten activated but upgrading it I could understand.
I wish the licencing wasn't such dark arts to work out. Go ask a different company I bet you'll get a different answer.
