Windows loses activation after bios update, then refuses reactivation as claims license in use

[opt33]

I needed to update bios twice on new z690 msi unify x motherboard as still immature platform. Will need to in future as well. Both times the bios update inactivated windows 11 because of "hardware change"....there was no hardware change just updated bios. The second time, it wont allow me to reactivate.

Security updates are done via bios updates not that infrequently, businesses, etc that need security as well as homeowners should not be prompted to buy a new windows 11 license with each bios update. Is there any way to prevent this from happening?

 

[Apsaalooke Crow]

Is there any way to prevent this from happening?

Well for sure not updating the bios...
...considerin the bios is in reality just a tiny os that acts as an interface between you and pc before OS is installed and has little use after unless you like to play around with partitions and other OS's... and even then ... lol... seeins as how to be sure the bios worked and was fine for the initial setup imho it is only taking a silly risk to ever update a bios because if it worked it would potentially work forever.

I can't imagine the security updates "require" a bios update.
Consider just how puny a bios is in reality.. like update what?... perhaps if there was some yet to exist future hardware that became standard, and those drivers were not in the bios library I guess... but by what we consider norm today wouldn't that hardware and bios be long obsolete by then?

 

[opt33]

BIOS Updates for New Intel Security Vulnerabilities (incl. Zombieload V2) Announced in Intel Platform Update 11/12 | Security & Technical Advisory - GIGABYTE Global

Updated December 2nd 2019 – GIGABYTE is aware of a new group of security vunerabilities affecting Intel mobile, desktop...

www.gigabyte.com

MSI Global - The Leading Brand in High-end Gaming & Professional Creation

As a world leading gaming brand, MSI is the most trusted name in gaming and eSports. We stand by our principles of breakthroughs in design, and roll out the amazing gaming gear like motherboards, graphics cards, laptops and desktops.

www.msi.com

New platforms often have buggy bios that cause all sorts of issues, updating bios to resolve early bugs is the norm for people who build their own computers. And new cpu vulnerabilities are routinely dealt with via bios updates see 2 links.

Finally received a response from senior support for windows 11 after escalated. Windows 11 like 10 is supposed to tie itself to the motherboard, likely either bug in windows 11 where it has difficulty reading something in MSI bios (immature new platform) or MSI bios update inappropriately changing something that Windows 11 needs, so MSI and Microsoft will have to sort it out.

If anyone else has this issue, microsoft support suggested a workaround fix until bug worked out, tying Windows 11 to your login account. Can search for instructions on windows site to see how to check if this is case, this will ensure windows reactivates once you click troubleshoot after a "hardware change" even if caused by a bug, instead of prompting you to buy a new license.

 

[Apsaalooke Crow]

inactivated windows 11 because of "hardware change"

I guess I shoulda mentioned btw that in reality when you update bios it is a "hardware change" in that what you are actually doing is when you update is "flash" the hardware... (the chip that is a really tiny ssd in effect)
...that is the bios or uefi
...it does not update as in patch or add information, it replaces the existing information and for all practical purposes and certainly as far as an operating system is concerned is a different chip even though you did not remove it and solder a new one on your motherboard.

I am thinking in reality the issue is MSI failed to make the update correctly in that It should be executed to mask the change and not report itself as different than the existing chip.

 

[opt33]

MSI is the only mobo with this issue after asking on another forum, Asus, GB all updating bios on their Z690 without losing activation. Over 25 years, I have updated bios countless times, never had an issue with windows inactivation. But heard back from MSI, they are "looking into it", wasnt sure whether MSI or Microsoft could solve the issue, but looks like MSI is unnecessarily renaming/changing something with bios update that Microsoft uses for recognition, so hopefully they sort it out.

 

[Apsaalooke Crow]

hopefully they sort it out.

Cool friend.
... and you should have a sweet gamer when its all tidied up.

My thoughts were it is not as if it's a crazy dual zeon platinum on a workstation board.

Pretty much the native bios is going to be every bit as functional as any update for any practical purpose for some time to come.

Could always try a jumper board reset. some even have native bios cached and retrievable as a redundancy.

If you flash first and install OS on formatted drive then of course it should go swimmingly... if you simply must have the update.

~all good on ya

 

[rjb64]

Has their been a fix for this? I have an Asus Maximus Apex Board and the last 2 times I have flashed my BIOS I have not been able to Re-Activate W11.
I purchased W11 on the MS Store using my MS Account so only have a digital key, no actual physical key.

I fixed it last time by "rolling back" my OS, this time I cannot. I also was on the phone with MS Support last time and wasted 2 hrs of my time as they could not Activate from their end.

This is extremely annoying, considering I paid $200 CDN for the OS.

Any thoughts, other than a clean install of Windows 11 ?

 

[opt33]

Has their been a fix for this? I have an Asus Maximus Apex Board and the last 2 times I have flashed my BIOS I have not been able to Re-Activate W11.
I purchased W11 on the MS Store using my MS Account so only have a digital key, no actual physical key.

I fixed it last time by "rolling back" my OS, this time I cannot. I also was on the phone with MS Support last time and wasted 2 hrs of my time as they could not Activate from their end.

This is extremely annoying, considering I paid $200 CDN for the OS.

Any thoughts, other than a clean install of Windows 11 ?

A clean install wont fix the issue. You need to log into your MS account and go to "devices" under the account. Then to "register device". Then you will need to change registered device from "old" device to "new" device, even though just hardware change. As long as you bought win 11 from ms store, this will work fine. It will take some trial and error, but you can get it working. (there is an option to just delete all devices without transfering from one device to another but dont do this because then you cant transfer). So you want at least one device registered, then transfer and it will remove old one and replace with new one.

Hopefully in future someone with better programming skills fixes licensing issue at microsoft, but this is clearly low priority based on bugged coding.

 

[rjb64]

unfortunately I am not seeing how to device from old device to new device. I see how to add a device, but dont see an option for a PC....only Surface and XBox stuff.....

Tried entering in the Serial Number for my Apex Motherboard and no go....what an absolute pita....as said this the 3rd time I have gone through this with a simple BIOS Update.....unbelieveable....Im open to any suggestions except "contact MS Support", they were pretty much useless last time and never did resolve the issue.

 

[opt33]

yeah, I remember at first running into surface/xbox issue. If you got windows 11 from ms store, you should be able to get it activated via hardware change instructions, took me a while to navigate through the poorly worded/organized steps. I know you first have to link your account with your windows installation. When I update bios now, it makes me enter new logon password, but then it automatically finds my account and reactivates win 11. Below is the link I saved, but go through it and make sure you link ms account to your windows 11. I spent a few hours, finally figured it out, should have written it down what I did.

Reactivating Windows after a hardware change - Microsoft Support

Learn how to prepare your Windows device for a hardware change and find help reactivating Windows after a hardware change is complete.

support.microsoft.com

 

[rjb64]

Yeah Im completely stumped..!!! I have been through the Hardware change troubleshooting to no avail. This is 3rd time now I have been through this. My PC is linked to MS Account but whatever try I cannot re-activate windows. Even had a buddy provide me with a Key and I tried changing key....that didnt work!

The last time this happened I was on the phone with MS Customer Service and wasted 2 hrs of my time as they couldnt fix it, even with them remoting in. Is it possible I have a corrupt boot drive and thats the culprit.....thinking at this point the only thing left to try is a clean install of W11....dont know what else to try!?

 

[davehc]

, tying Windows 11 to your login account.

Can't get my ancient brain around that one! Isn't it always?

 

[rjb64]

Still cannot get W11 to Re-Activate.....any other suggestions barring a new clean install?

 

[Jesse]

I have the same issue with a MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4. If I rollback the bios to the original version it will let me activate Windows. I was on customer support chat 4 hours on their customer support chat with no results.

 

[rjb64]

Right! Painful isnt it!!!
I havent tried to do anything to Activate my W11 over the last month...too busy with "life"

Fired up my System the other night and it was "magically" activted......yes I had spent many hours on the phone with customer service and after moving up to the 3rd level and giving full access to my pc remotely they could not figure it out.....not great considering I spent $200 CDN for a W11 License!!!!!!

Can hardly see what happens next time I Flash my BIOS !!!
And to the guy in this thread that said "dont flash your bios"....what a dumb statement ...obviously not a PC power user or he doesnt build his own systems.....new Z690 Platform....new DDR5 RAM, obviously new BIOS versions come out weekly looking for stability with the new DDR5 Memory kits, of course we are going to flash our BIOS!!!!!!

 

[davehc]

I am not for or against. For what it is worth, I have only flashed my bios twice in the past 15 years.

But, maybe this will help a couple of the posters here:

Do You Need to Update Your Computer's BIOS?

Just because there's an update for your BIOS doesn't mean you should install it.

www.howtogeek.com

 

[rjb64]

I am not for or against. For what it is worth, I have only flashed my bios twice in the past 15 years.

But, maybe this will help a couple of the posters here:

Do You Need to Update Your Computer's BIOS?

Just because there's an update for your BIOS doesn't mean you should install it.

www.howtogeek.com

Do you build your own high performance gaming pc's?
I would say you do not if you have only flashed your mobo bios 2x in 15 yrs


I have flashed both mobo bios's and gpu vbios's 100'sf times over the past 20 yrs.....but thanks for the post.

My current system specs:
- 12900K @ 5.1P / 4.1E all core OC
- DDR5 Corsair 6200 / C36 (running at 6000 c32)
- Asus Z690 Maximus Apex
- Evga RTX 3080Ti
- Corsair AX1600i psu

The entire system is watercooled.......I flash my mobo bios regularly as do all of us power users.....never have I seen an issue with Windows un-activating itself after a flash.

I would chaulk it up as W11 being relatively infant still.....but it did fix itself ...so we shall see.

 

[davehc]

No, I am not a power/game user. Of course, my current computer - a very modest machine, is NOT 15 years old
The link was NOT an attack on any individual, just a little general insite regarding bios, from a third party source. I dont Think the author mentioned power or average users, as it was not really relevant to the article

 

[rjb64]

^^^^ Well lets not de-rail this thread ....its about a common problem amongst a number of people that are having an issue with W11 De-Activating after a bios flash.....steps to flashing bios are pretty elementary and there are no secrets
For non enthusiasts I agree, you can go thru an entire generation of your build without flashing your bios....particularly if you're not into "enthusiast pc stuff" like Overclocking...running benchmarks....gaming AAA titles etc...in other words if all you do is a little word processing...email....facebook and web surfing, then yeah I can see why you wouldnt flash your bios and perhaps be nervous about doing it, but after literally hundreds of bios flashes...its not a big deal and in the enthusiast world its normal, accepted and encouraged and in many cases must be done.
I always build my new PC's on an open bench, before even powering it up the first time I flash the bios to the latest version, that common and normal practice.


What we have to look at are the common denominators.
Its also occurring on only a few Boards and not all...the Boards I have seen it happening on are actually "enthusiast level boards".

I would like to know if the others with the problem originally installed W10 with either a retail key or a digital license and then upgraded to W11 or (like myself), after building the rig, installed a clean copy of W11 from USB Media Creator tool (no W10 at all)?
This may have something to do with it.
Obviously something isnt right .....why does my W11 suddenly show "Activated" after 4 weeks of giving up and doing nothing ?

That would have to be a W11 update at some point that I have recieved as I have not updated and Drivers, FW or Software in the last 4 weeks.
I would suspect something to do with Windows 11 being relatively new and of course a lot of us W11 users are also running Z690 chipset and Alder Lake w DDR5, so of course we are flashing bios regularly to find stability, particularly running DDR5 w XMP Profiles for various Kits.

Also, many of our enthusiast boards have 2 bios chips (as does mine), so will definitely report back after a I switch bios chips and see if "I remain activated" thru the process

 

[Andrew2]

What we have to look at are the common denominators.
Its also occurring on only a few Boards and not all...the Boards I have seen it happening on are actually "enthusiast level boards".

I would like to know if the others with the problem originally installed W10 with either a retail key or a digital license and then upgraded to W11 or (like myself), after building the rig, installed a clean copy of W11 from USB Media Creator tool (no W10 at all)?

Define "enthusiast level boards"?

I do/have done BIOS updates on my boards, and none has ever deactivated my copy of Windows, including Windows 11. And I did a clean install of Windows 11 on my machine, and it activated without issue with my "digital license".

Anyway, I have a Gigabyte Z390 board with an Intel i9-9900K, 32gig of RAM, NVMe drive, running Windows 11.