Setup: Fresh hard drive, identical laptop, matching license
Setup: Fresh hard drive, identical laptop, matching license
Yep, even when windows won't interfere (Was there a restart every hour before?), they function just like before. These are essentially the same thing. The original manufacturer is the firm that made your laptop (like Dell, Acer, etc.).
yeah but working as a Comp Sys Engineer, the sight of that activation watermark chills me to the bone. I've heard loads of stories about windows doing shitty things when you dont activate it, locking the refresh rate to 30Hz, not allowing wallpapers or screensavers, not allowing video output, disabling sound devices haha. Not sure how many are true but ive never ran unactivated windows for more than 30 seconds before the watermark got to me, id rather run Debian without a GUI lol
Of course! The product key is actually stored in the UEFI chip of your laptop. Simply use Microsoft Media Creation Tool on another PC with a USB Flash drive or blank disk to get Windows 10, and prepare it your disk or USB flash drive with it. Then simply insert the disk or USB flash drive on your laptop, boot form it, and install Windows 10. During the setup, Windows 10 Setup might ask you for a product key. Simply pick "I don't have one" blue link, if it asks, and Windows 10 setup will resume. Once WIndows 10 is installed it should be activated by then, or will be shortly after. You can check for updates in the mean time. Usually that wakes the activation process.