How many digital licenses can be tied to a single Microsoft Account?

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Benoire

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#201315 13-Aug-2016 12:19

I've got a number of HTPCs which utilise the same MS account in order to keep each one similar as well as access to the store. Each one was upgraded from Windows 7/8 licenses to 10 using the free upgrade process. Now that we can tie the digital license (DL) to an MSA I want to utilise the single MSA that each uses to tie the license to the account.

Now, we know that 1 DL = 1 MSA as that is obvious, but I cannot find any details as to how many DLs can be linked... Can I do 5DLs > 1 MSA?

Could anyone call in Nathan from MS as I can't remember his username?

Appreciate any replies!

Chris

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#1611064 13-Aug-2016 12:45

That'd be @nathan

People often mistake me for an adult because of my age.

Keep calm, and carry on posting.

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Benoire

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#1611072 13-Aug-2016 13:05

Thanks!

@Nathan do you have any ideas to the question? Any thoughts are appreciated.

gzt

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#1611076 13-Aug-2016 13:32

Personally I would not expect a problem. It is a common scenario many users have. Laptop/desktop/htpc/etc. The only advantage I can see for this linking is self-activation (vs phone activation) in the case of dumping old hardware and reusing the licence.

Other than that I'm not getting the point of this feature.

Also is there a downside like an admin user walking away with a licence key?

Benoire

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#1611087 13-Aug-2016 13:37

gzt: Personally I would not expect a problem. It is a common scenario many users have. Laptop/desktop/htpc/etc. The only advantage I can see for this linking is self-activation (vs phone activation) in the case of dumping old hardware and reusing the licence.

Other than that I'm not getting the point of this feature.

Also is there a downside like an admin user walking away with a licence key?

Before this happened, the license was tied to the PC and formatting would lose the activation. with the anniversary update they added the ability for the license to be tied to an MS account too, made it more hardware resilient. A super user could walk away, but I believe this only works for home and pro editions as enterprise uses VLK stuff; so unlikely.

Brumfondl

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#1611089 13-Aug-2016 13:44

I have four at the moment. Paul Thurrott was saying on What the Tech (I think) this week that he has 45. I doubt there is a limit.

Benoire

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#1611092 13-Aug-2016 13:48

Brumfondl:

I have four at the moment. Paul Thurrott was saying on What the Tech (I think) this week that he has 45. I doubt there is a limit.

So to confirm, a single MS Account but 4 digital licenses for four individual windows 10 PCs? And they all remain after login/logouts etc.?

Gilco2

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#1611096 13-Aug-2016 14:26

With Windows 10 it is maximum of 10 devices for the Windows store. I have tried windows 10 on a few different devices and when I tried to access store on the 11th one the message said I had reached maximum and must remove a device before can access store with the 11th device. I don't actually have that many it was just trying different combinations. Apparently it is higher for Windows 8.1 I was told.

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gzt

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#1611099 13-Aug-2016 14:51

Windows aside, it looks like different device limits for each of movies, games, apps, music.

If I understand correctly allowed one removal every 30 days. Incentive to maintain..

richms

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#1611102 13-Aug-2016 14:59

I have so many PCs that I put on the same account that the 10 device limit for the store is a real PITA. I dont have any paid stuff, but free things are limited too. WTF?

Not done any license transfer things at all yet, Just run the media creation tool on the PCs and let it do its thing and then connected my MS account once logged in for the non-pro machines. Pro ones are on my domain so it didnt seem to let me do anything like that.

Richard rich.ms

Benoire

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#1611103 13-Aug-2016 15:01

richms:

I have so many PCs that I put on the same account that the 10 device limit for the store is a real PITA. I dont have any paid stuff, but free things are limited too. WTF?

Not done any license transfer things at all yet, Just run the media creation tool on the PCs and let it do its thing and then connected my MS account once logged in for the non-pro machines. Pro ones are on my domain so it didnt seem to let me do anything like that.

You add a Microsoft Account after the device is domain connected from the accounts section of the new settings area...

Brumfondl

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#1611379 14-Aug-2016 14:10

Benoire:

Brumfondl:

I have four at the moment. Paul Thurrott was saying on What the Tech (I think) this week that he has 45. I doubt there is a limit.

So to confirm, a single MS Account but 4 digital licenses for four individual windows 10 PCs? And they all remain after login/logouts etc.?

Yes