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We are offboarding a hundred plus Dell Latitude E7470 and 7480 model laptops by reimaging them with base Windows 10 Pro, and about a quarter of them fail to activate Windows 10 Pro due to not having a valid digital license.

I have found that following the guide here at dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/the-oem-product-key-and-oem-system-locked-preinstallation/ shows the laptops impacted lack a MSDM field from BIOS.

I have additionally found I can predetect this devices using the following DOS command which, when successful, pulls the OEM key in BIOS/UEFI:

wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey

We following a standard reimage over WDS/PXE for all the units, and units with the OEM key in the BIOS/UEFI activate fine, but others that do not fail.

I have also tried the Dell OS Recovery Tool at https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-uk/drivers/osiso/recoverytool, which actually checks the Dell serial against Dell's database and knows that it has a Windows 10 Pro License. Units that fail to activate via WDS/PXE, fail to activate using this tool to install as well.

Looking up the Dell Service Tag online, it shows that it came with Windows 10 Pro:

619-AHKN : Win 10 Pro 64 English, French, Spanish
PART NUMBER DESCRIPTION QUANTITY
025K3   SRV,OS,WIN10,64,MUI,E/F/S   1

Unfortunately, the devices I have on hand have left warranty support, I have detected one in warranty unit with the problem, but it's not currently available for me to work with.

After Dell servicing, we have been provided Dell paperwork for reactivating Windows that matches this image of the card. Ours are fresh and the seal is unbroken, reading:

W8P/W10 32/64BIT SVC DPK

These come with a Windows Product Key, but these also fail with:

We can't activate Windows on this device because you don't have a valid digital license or product key. If you think you do have a valid license or key, select Troubleshoot below. (0x803fa067)

Troubleshooting does not help here. It just points me to the Microsoft Store.

I have verified an MSDN developer key would work, so activation itself isn't the issue, but the lack of a key in BIOS/UEFI appears to be the problem.

Thoughts?

Mike L'Angelo
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Greg Esposito
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  • `We are offboarding a hundred plus Dell Latitude E7470 and 7480 model laptops` "Offboarding"? – Greg Askew Sep 14 '20 at 15:17
  • We are retiring the laptops from active service ahead of donating them. – Greg Esposito Sep 14 '20 at 15:34
  • If these are being donated to a charity, Microsoft sells non-profit licenses for about 10% of the retail cost. Not much else to do if the firmware product key doesn't exist and it isn't printed on the COA label. – Greg Askew Sep 14 '20 at 16:13

3 Answers3

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In the end, we found that machines that had motherboard servicing were not set up with an OEM key in BIOS/UEFI.

The cards with keys Dell sent were all bad, most likely MS invalidated them. MS confirmed they were bad.

Dell noted that any machines under warranty they would fix, but the rest are not fixable under warranty, and we are reimaging with Linux or a BYOL license.

Here is a helpful command to find if an OEM key is in BIOS/UEFI.

wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey

If that returns empty, there is no Dell OEM key, and Windows won't activate.

If there is, it will. We are now auditing our fleet before end-of-warranty.

Greg Esposito
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  • I've also seen this with ThinkPads; the laptops (and replacement motherboards!) can be purchased with or without a Windows OEM license embedded, so we have to check these carefully when ordering, and I'd recommend checking the key is present in new laptops as soon as they arrive. – Michael Hampton Nov 05 '20 at 21:56
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Windows 10 bulk licenses for laptops are unique to those devices and can not be transferred or so I heard rumors. I have seen this statement before but, I am not 100% sure about it, as it was also complemented with rumors of pirated licenses coming up as laptop bulk licenses with Microsoft verification system.

PaSe
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  • OEM-preinstalled Windows may be transferred to another owner with the original device. Section 4 (a): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Useterms/Retail/Windows/10/UseTerms_Retail_Windows_10_English.htm – Greg Askew Sep 15 '20 at 11:45
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Windows 10 licenses are not transferable from one PC to another. At the first activation of the license, the motherboard series, the processor as well as the HDD are transmitted to microsoft. it is a real problem and the replacement of an HDD

RefurbishedPC
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