For how long is a Windows 10 Pro license valid?

Question

I couldn't find any info about this. I'm thinking about buying a Windows 10 Pro license but I'm wondering for how long it will be valid? Is it some cloud thing that needs to be renewed every year, or is it forever?

Answer 1

For now, windows licences are perpetual - with varying degrees of transferability.

Practically you can use a windows retail or OEM licence for the life of the machine its on. Retail licences can be transferable between machines but you need to remove the licence or possibly reactivate. You might end up not being able to activate a machine due to lack of activation servers eventually but that's a long way down the road.

MS is supposedly considering an office 365 style annual licence, and there's some licence types like KMS that need to periodically be reactivated against a server, but that's a non issue for a personal, home or non centrally managed office system.