I had been dual booting for a while with Windows 11/Fedora until one day I needed to update the BIOS on my motherboard. Windows decided it was too big of an upgrade and wanted me to activate again. I called support, and they said that I had used up all my activations and would need to buy a new copy.

Thanks Microsoft, for helping me switch full time to Linux!

[–] barsquid@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They force you to re-buy the same software for literally the same hardware. That's insane.

[–] doughless@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

For more context, it was a Windows 8.1 license I upgraded to 11. But yes, still crazy they let it "expire" when using the exact same hardware. My theory is that because the BIOS update changed my TPM keys, Windows couldn't tell that it was the same hardware.

[–] Grass@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago

wait that's a thing? I guess I'd never find out because I always used whatever activation method was available on MDL for each version for the odd time I used windows.