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Hello again
Interesting, in Germany, they have some privileges we dont? transferring OEM licenses?Im from Czech Republic, we are in EU too, but for us…
OEM license cannot be transfered to another computer.
Retail licenses can be transfered.I think that formulation in German EULA means, its dependent on laws in specific region of Germany. You know that germany consists of more smaller “federal republics”, which have their laws? I think, that parts like Baden-Wurttemberg, Bremen, Bavaria,.. have its own laws.
This does not necessarilly mean, that you can transfer OEM license. You can always sell two things together – PC and OS, in which case you put the right of using Windows to another person – with valid contract.you know lot about this and I appreciate your posts, but I think you get this “EU thing” wrong.
Hi Doriel, thanks for outlining your usecase for LTSC, so in your case the usage is correct. Excuse that I assumed a wrong use, as I did not ask for this. Mostly I read things like we’re going LTSC route because we do not have to upgrade every 18 to 30 months.
About the EU license and transferable OEM license, it is in fact possible and Microsoft does this. Even the Microsoft activation hotline in Germany is sometimes picky, but calling the US guys (5 pm CET or later) the are always helping you in case the activation limit has exceeded or you want to transfer the OEM license to a different device.
At the moment I cannot find a better source but this transfer paragraph should apply to all EU countries, have you checked the link?
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That is true Steevie. When I buy “keys” I always check them with the following tools:
VAMT 3.1, Microsoft, part of ADK 1903 or later.PID Key Checker (3rd Party, uses MS servers)
to be sure what they are.I read from trusted source it is legit to sale keys from a volume license contract (except, EDU, Dreamspark, Government, Healthcare or other rebated per use license models) that is per fact overlicensed. Only the seller can know.
But this means the seller has to keep an eye on the total activation “forever” and does risk his key getting overlicensed / overactivated.
Yet, there are a lot of dealers that sell depleted VLSC keys or even Dreamspark or MDSN keys (forbidden).
If I face this I return them and claim my money back which was mostly not a problem. If one of these sellers is giving troubles, or act like they “don’t know what you’re speaking about” giving them a hint to this link proves a to be working method:
https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/howtotell/cfr/report.aspxThey know their business.
This tool is hard to get. Another public method is using VAMT to check the key and activation limit left.
The issue with VLSC keys and sorta is that you never know exactly, if it can be trusted. Means if a company is getting closed or transferred, this might also affect the licenses to vanish with this company.
Hope this helps all readers to check if their keys are “legit” or not. Buying used keys including licenses is possible. But it is challenging at times at has many caveats.
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only outside EU
I dont know why think so, its valid in EU too.
OEM key is for specific computer and only this one. Its somehow dependent on hardware. If you reinstall such PC from scratch (even if you wipe all disk partitions), it can be ractivated just by connecting to internet.
Hi Doriel please check Windows 10 Terms of Use.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/useterms
They do vary based on how you obtained a license and your country.
For Germany it is this:
Windows = Windows 10
4. Übertragung
“Jede Übertragung der Software und des Nutzungsrechts richten sich nach dem anwendbaren Recht.”
source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/UseTerms/Retail/Windows/10/UseTerms_Retail_Windows_10_GermanGermany.htmMeans based on the applicable laws it is okay to transfer a license. For DE /EU this laws applies locally.
In opposite Windows 10 Terms of use, outside EU:
4. Transfer. The provisions of this section do not apply if you acquired the software in Germany or in any of the countries listed on this site (aka.ms/transfer), in which case any transfer of the software to a third party, and the right to use it, must comply with applicable law.
source:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Useterms/Retail/Windows/10/UseTerms_Retail_Windows_10_English.htm1 user thanked author for this post.
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” I began to purchase LSTC license – solid product for 10 years of support”
That is a bad decision for several practical reasons:
- It is not supported for Office workers
- OEMs and vendors regularly stop supporting LTSC way earlier with drivers and firmware (Dell etc.), some even decline support at all.
- LTSC except 1809 is far from being useful. 1507, 1607 have a lot of issues that #wontfix, by design, as LTSC does not encourage any bugfixes as long not being “critical” whatever that means for Microsoft so in the first place only security update.
If an update is not compatible with your drivers or you cannot print anymore > bad luck. See Patching speed in Server 2016 / Windows 10 LTSC.We had all of this before. 1507 had a known issue with loading printers in control panel eternally, it had not yet printers in settings feature complete > result users cannot control their (default) printers.
Microsoft to us as Microsoft partners:
ticket closed, it is a bug but nothing they will fix as
even though we brought a lot of evidence from other customers on the net this is not a local issue. Reason, see #1. - LTSC only supports the hardware that is out for the time of release. If you have a hardware cycle you end up you cannot install the LTSC on newer CPUs.
- The 10 year support is a pity thing, support is no root cause analysis and no guarantee to a fix. See #3
- no backports, ever. MS has improved a lot of things, esp. update handling over time. Some of the changes have been successfully backported till 1703 (supported or not).
This also applies to things like MSIX, Winget (in future), etc. - Many drivers are now DCH drivers means they faciliate a modern driver model + fetching apps via Microsoft store (finally something to manage via Intune etc),
The drivers include security related fixes, too. LTSC has no support for Microsoft Store, so you will have issues. Some Lenovo drivers do not work correctly when the Store app is not installed. The only way is to use outdated and more insecure drivers.
Examples: Intel, Nvidia, Dell, Lenovo
LTSC is designed for things like: shopping display, computers with long term software like machines, non office use (medical, ATMs, power plants etc).
I can only advocate to not use LTSC for other things as declarated by Microsoft Docs.
It is not a joke. for me LTSC is just hindering. It does also apply to Server LTSC, but there we have no other chance, as SAC again is not recommended for most purposes I would install Server Core naturally.reference:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/ltsc/
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-IT-Pro-Blog/LTSC-What-is-it-and-when-should-it-be-used/ba-p/2931811 user thanked author for this post.
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here is the source for all this mess:
Windows 7 EULA:refer
14. UPGRADES. To use upgrade software, you must first be licensed for the software that is eligible
for the upgrade.
(remark: the new version you upgrade to)Upon upgrade, this agreement takes the place of the agreement for the software you
upgraded from. After you upgrade, you may no longer use the software you upgraded from.16. PROOF OF LICENSE.
b. Windows Anytime Upgrade License. If you upgrade the software using Windows Anytime
Upgrade, your proof of license is identified by
· the genuine Microsoft Certificate of Authenticity label for the software you upgraded from, and
· the genuine Microsoft proof of purchase label from the Windows Anytime Upgrade Kitso for laymans and users: now that the free offer for upgrading from 7/8.x has expired (no matter how Microsoft will really technically distinguish this or if they will ever pursue home users done otherwise) you need to buy a Windows 10 license (which usually includes a key).
This license can be used to upgrade from 7/8.x to 10. Or can be used for a fresh install.
(no matter that Microsoft has not locked their activation process to still accept older keys for being converted into Windows 10 digital licenses, best stored in an (optional) Microsoft account.Why they are not clear about this? Who knows, I suspect: Windows 10 is for “free” because it is the foundation to sell any on top services like Microsoft 365, Azure etc. so same as MacOS they adopted the idea of upgrades “for free”. This is my understanding, why they do not fight home users doing something that they decline from a license perspective.
However, the guys at Microsoft reponsible for licensing (legal, fraud, etc) are mostly not the team that is responsible for selling, marketing. So even with subscription based licenses you can still cause violations that are based on
“you can use it all, but no one checks if are allowed to / you are licensed beforehand”.
This is an old mantra, stands mostly unchanged.
Example: most domains out there are target of being underlicensed with the following items:
Business examples:
RDSH Licenses
reason: every domain that was originally founded in 2000/2003 and upgraded through the way, suffers a bug where the RDSH license property cannot be written to an user Active Directory account anymore, means you have no effective usage check again the RDSH license server.
Reviewing logfiles will alert you for this issue.
Ofc there is a KB and powershell fix for this but in most domains this fix is not applied and affects all user accounts that have been created before domain level 2008R2.
CALs
There is instance where you have to “install” CALs for Server, Server Products (SQL, Exchange etc)re-imaging / sysprep
Although it is not a good practice some still do this, but many not have a license to do so, yet the tools exist and are free to use with no license check.Home use:
I cannot find anything but the Windows upgrade topic at the moment, but I think there were some regulations that even home users could do things that they are not allowed by licensing terms. The mentioned re-imaging right is one of these.1 user thanked author for this post.
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What do you mean by unused?
If I retire an old Windows 7 Pro machine and it is sitting on a shelf “unused” can I use its Pro key to upgrade a newly purchase Windows 10 Home machine to pro?
no the Win 7 pro license is only for Win7, it is a license for Win10 pro
If you have the appropriate edition (e.g. Pro) of Windows 7 already installed, you can still use your Win7 installation key even for a clean install. Curious to hear your take on that method.
You can use an unused Windows 7, 8 key to clean install Windows 10.
you can use but you are not allowed to. That’s the point.
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MS recommend 2016 or 2019, but you can’t upgrade directly, you need to go through 2012. See the bottom of this article.
Alternatively it’s a fresh install, but that depends on your system.
Is it AD or user/password shares?cheers, Paul
Please do yourself a favor in do an inplace upgrade as follows:
Windows Server 2012 R2 > Windows 2019, do not use 2012 as a step.
I recommend to patch the offline WIM File of 2012 R2 and 2019 using OSD Tools by David Segura. WIMWitch can be a great help to keep your WIM Updated in addition but does not support older OS anymore.
https://www.scconfigmgr.com/2019/10/04/wim-witch-a-gui-driven-solution-for-image-customization/
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Microsoft recommends upgrading from 2008R2 to 2012, instead of 2012R2, which makes a big difference, especially technically.
It is misleading, both ways may work but the current recommended one is one upgrade more (as you can skip the 2016 upgrade on the way to 2019) and also has a much higher risks of having issues due to .net and IE dependencies.
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The theme website is wrong.
How’s that? The site linked above specifically mentions that you can’t go directly from 2008 to 2016/2019.
this themed page has been around for some months now and I got aware about this in a big transition project from 2008 R2 servers.
please check the settled docs article for Server 2016 and it shows that it is possible to upgrade from 2008 R2 to 2012 R2
For on-premises servers, there is no direct upgrade path from Windows Server 2008 R2 to Windows Server 2016 or later. Instead, upgrade first to Windows Server 2012 R2, and then upgrade to Windows Server 2016.
Also the server docs page for 2012 R2 says you can upgrade from 2008 R2.
and later from 2012 to 2016 or 2019 as upgrades are supported for 2 major releases for a long time now. The only exception is Win7 > 10 (any release) which breaks this rule.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/installation-and-upgrade
The only “need” to go to 2012 without R2 and update 1 is for 2008 (Vista) which I would not upgrade anyway as it has a very bad base, not so 2008 R2 which has a mostly a good servicing base for upgrades. it depends the OS health and scenario.
Unfortunately timed with this new campaign Microsoft has completely overwritten the previous article for 2019 and only refers to this wrong data for 2008 R2 path while it follows the rule with 2012 R2
“if your server is running Windows Server 2012 R2, you can upgrade it to Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2019. “
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started-19/install-upgrade-migrate-19
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Hi there I would like to contribute to this topic. If you disconnect the internet connection while trying to setup the online account you get the offline account, too.
Same for these that do not trust Hello pin. I admit I use it because MS says it should be more secure as it is only locally saved and secured against changes with your online account and (if set) MFA.
However recently my Business account password expired (AD hybrid) and the PIN still let me logon to my W10 enterprise (Azure AD joined only).
After this event I am not so sure if this is really safer, as with the PIN I still had access to all “offline” files on the device. I wonder if this would even work if my on-prem account was locked out
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