I recently upgraded my system which involved a new motherboard. I brought over the old hard drive from my previous machine to the new one. I booted it. Bang! And just like that Microsoft deactivated my account. I called them. They said they have no record of it based on the email addresses that I’ve provided.
I told them that I’ve upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 a few years back. Microsoft proceeded to tell me that I needed to provide them my Windows 7 product key. Now, I have to look for it. I have no idea where it is. If I can’t find it. I won’t be able to activate it. I’m sure I’m not the only who got screwed for upgrading their hardware.
Essentially, I’m back to using Linux again, which by the way don’t have draconian methods for simple things like hardware changes.