Windows performed an unusual action.
Windows performed an unusual action.
I needed to reinstall Windows because it was running slowly and had too many installed programs. I completely reformatted my drive, created new partitions, and installed Windows. I skipped using the product key since I planned to activate it later after installation. The setup went smoothly with no errors. After finishing drivers and Steam, when I reached the activation screen it confirmed it was already active. I ran various tools to check the product key and found it matched the one from my previous Windows 7 home premium OEM key. Since I reformatted all drives to keep that key, I’m not sure if it’s a UEFI license or something else. I used the media creation tool with the “use recommended settings for this pc” option, but I’m still confused.
The UEFI motherboard has the ability to save Windows product keys. That’s the reason behind it.
It seems to be in the UEFI, not on the hard drive. I thought it was there before, but after moving things around, it still works. Yeah, that’s probably correct.
Certainly, I understand what you're aiming for. This setup is meant to help with the eaxct situation you mentioned, where you just need a fresh start. In future attempts, consider a simple Windows refresh—it clears everything and restarts exactly like a new installation, avoiding the need for a full reinstall now.
Yeah, I hear ya... and sometimes I do a fresh install too, but usually only when I have a hardware change that requires it like mobo change. There's nothing wrong with a fresh install at all... just easier if non hardware change to either do a refresh, or restore from image... <- this is my favourite, I make an image of the hard drive after a fresh install and commonly used programs and system edits... then if cluttered sometime I can just re-image the hard drive to make it like that again, no more long driver installs and installing programs and system edits until next hardware refresh