I am not current on the licensing changes in Windows. In their old EULA you had to buy a new key for each computer change but having to replace a damaged MB or CPU still allowed for using the same key. Has this policy changed? Would a call in key procedure work?
The 'buying a new key for each new computer' only really applied to OEM keys. If you had a retail key, you could transfer the license to the new system as long as it was deactivated on the old system. For OEM systems, as long as you replaced it with the same motherboard, it was OK to reactivate (may needed to call in to reactivate). But if you upgraded to a different board or CPU, it deactivated and you're legally supposed to buy a new OEM key. There's loopholes to get around that, but can't be discussed here as it violates the ToS for OEM Windows copies.
This still applies to Windows 10 as well if you purchase a Win10 license (OEM vs Retail). However the free upgrade is still a little unclear. What it currently does is:
You have your base OS (Win7 or Win8.1) and you can do the free upgrade. When you upgrade to Win10, it generates a hardware hash based off of the current hardware you have. You can reinstall Windows 10 at any time and not have to worry about inputting a key (the free upgrade doesn't use a key), as it will auto-activate once connected to the internet because it recognizes you're using the same hardware hash. If you change something like an HDD it may trigger reactivation, but a phone call should solve that. Changing things like MB or CPU are still considered a "New PC" in MS's eyes, however.
Now that's where the unclear part comes in about the free upgrades... The upgrade is
supposed to take on the license rights of the OS you upgraded from. E.g., if you had OEM Win7/Win8.1 and did the upgrade, your copy of Win10 would then be OEM. If you had Retail Win7/Win8.1, the upgraded copy of Win10 was supposed to keep the Retail status (including the transfer rights). What is unclear, however, if that's actually true and it's indeed transferring to Retail status forever, or just for the first year. There's been people that have called MS's activation lines and gotten mixed answers whether both versions license to OEM after 1 year, or if they do indeed keep their original license status. There hasn't really been an official statement from MS yet..so we'll have to wait and find out I guess. I haven't really a whole lot as far as people swapping out boards or CPU's yet with the free upgrade, but the people that have done it, have had to reinstall the base OS, activate it, and then upgrade to Win10 again to generate a new hardware hash.
If you purchase Win10 (or get it for free through something like MSDN / DreamSpark), then this doesn't apply to you, as it still uses a key for activation. Both copies of Win10 I have from DreamSpark used keys to activate.
which would be a bummer
