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I just bought a Samsung SSD for my girlfriend and moved the Windows 8.1.1 installation (installed with education key) over to the SSD with the Samsung Migration software. Then I physically swapped the drives and it was all good.

Now a relative of mine is interested in doing the same thing. However, he bought an computer with OEM Windows 8 (or 8.1) and does not have a product key as the Windows was bundled with the computer. Will the migration also work for him? He fears that Windows will detect that it is not really running on the original drive and bail, perhaps even tell Microsoft to block the key or something.

Can an OEM Windows installation be cloned to another drive without a licensing or key problem?

Martin Ueding
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  • There are numerous tools that can do this. I have personally used [Paragon Migrate OS to SSD 4.0](http://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/components/migrate-OS-to-SSD/index.html) but it requires both drives to be internal drives. It failed to properly migrated the installation when I mounted the SSD with a USB docking station. All Windows 8 devices and above have the license embedded in their firmware. Windows 8 and above installation disks automatically detect the given license provided the version being installed is same version that came with the device. – Ramhound Dec 03 '15 at 17:58
  • There are also dozens of questions on how to retrieve the license key of a Windows 8 installation. Important to determine if the device came with Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 if you are not going to actually transfer the installation to the SSD. – Ramhound Dec 03 '15 at 17:58
  • @Ramhound Where is the key stored? The UEFI chip or the UEFI partition of the harddrive? – Martin Ueding Dec 03 '15 at 18:05
  • The embedded key has nothing to do with UEFI or a partition on the HDD. I point out the existing questions on that topic, so you can do research, and so I don't have to repeat what has already been said by other people in the past. – Ramhound Dec 03 '15 at 18:08
  • [How to find Windows 8 product key?](http://superuser.com/questions/495794/how-to-find-windows-8-product-key) explains and provides several options. Speccy also displays the product key. There is [RWeverything](http://superuser.com/questions/513904/how-to-extract-win-8-oem-key-embedded-in-the-bios) that will extract the key specifically from the firmware itself. – Ramhound Dec 03 '15 at 18:11

2 Answers2

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Use Samsung's Data Migration software to clone (and resize) the drive.

Windows activation will stay active as you're only upgrading one piece of hardware. Even if it doesn't (I've never seen this) you can usually just call MS and explain, and they'll give you the activation code.

I've performed this process on around 15 computers over the last year (laptops and desktops) and I've had few issues (none activation related). If anything goes wrong, you still have the original drive as a backup.

You can get the key out of Windows using Nirsoft Key Finder anyway though I think.

NickG
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  • I had a bad fail using Samsung's own migration tool on two machines & ended up using Acronis, which did flag as unvalidated. A call to MS was all it took to restore the 'genuine' validation. – Tetsujin Dec 03 '15 at 18:08
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IIRC microsofts position is that replacing the motherboard for reasons other than repair is considered a "different computer". Other hardware upgrades are not considered a new computer so replacing the hard drive is fine.

On the mechanics of activation there are two types of OEM windows, "system builder" and "royalty OEM". The former is used by small whitebox builders, the latter by better known vendors.

"system builder" copies handle activation in much the same way as retail copies. Just replacing the hard drive on a machine that is otherwise the same as when activated shouldn't cause deactivation. If there have been lots of other hardware changes then reactivation may be needed (but shouldn't be a problem unless you are really abusing things).

"royalty OEM" copies use a key in the bios (iirc for 7 and below it's a key per manufacturer while 8 and above have a seperate key for each machine). As long as the motherboard isn't replaced there should be no need for reactivation.

plugwash
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