Activation status lost after installing Windows 10 Insider Preview and reverting to factory image

I used the pre-installed factory image. Upon booting up to the troubleshooting tools and selecting system reset, the laptop restarted and launched a Dell-made recovery program. I picked the earliest available image to restore from - described as a factory image and dated around the time I first got the laptop, and replaced the system partition with it.

Did you use the WIndows 8 recovery media that you made from that system, or did you use a copy of Windows 8 obtained elsewhere?

I think the problem comes from needing a generic key to install the Tech Preview builds of Win10 and these keys not matching the installed copy of windows you have upgraded from. I'd like to think that Dell will just update all 7 / 8 / 8.1 keys on the MS activation servers as 10 keys and go from there. That, or Microsoft should implement an algorithm that matches hardware ID to bios key, then matches the Win10 key accordingly.

That said, we're still two weeks out from official launch.

Microsoft scan the devices hardware and register the device as a Windows 10 device by storing its hardware profile on an activation server during installation of Windows 10 from Windows Update. Once the devices hardware profile is registered it is resubmitted to the activation server during clean reinstallation and automatically reactivated as the server matches it as an existing device.

See here and here where I test this:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/windows-10-rtm/windows-insiders-%e2%86%92-getting-windows-10-rtm/

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/windows-10-rtm/creating-a-recovery-drive-and-using-it-in-windows-10/

Thank you Dystopiate and Philip.

Am I correct to assume that, after installing the Windows 10 Insider Preview, my hardware profile was permanently registered as a Windows 10 device, while my previous link between the hardware and Windows 8.1 has been somewhat "broken" or replaced by the new one?

And, as a consequence, I will be unable to roll back to the OEM version of 8.1 pre-installed on my laptop and having it activated - because that key information was modified on Microsoft's side?

I have read your blog before, Philip - a very useful resource.

Meanwhile, I have phoned Microsoft technicians and they have suggested this (the upgrade to win10 preview and factory restore) might indeed have caused an issue, and again direct me to resolve it with Dell (or report the key as a counterfeit, which to me sounds very unlikely).

Am I correct to assume that, after installing the Windows 10 Insider Preview, my hardware profile was permanently registered as a Windows 10 device, while my previous link between the hardware and Windows 8.1 has been somewhat "broken" or replaced by the new one?

No your UEFI BIOS SLP key is still present and you may reinstall Windows 8.1 should you wish. Microsoft allow users to revert should they have problems.

No your UEFI BIOS SLP key is still present and you may reinstall Windows 8.1 should you wish. Microsoft allow users to revert should they have problems.

In this case, why is it that despite performing a complete factory reset with the hard drive wiped, my original pre-installed Windows 8.1 fails to activate? The Microsoft phone assistants and support also failed to activate it. It worked for a year, I made no hardware changes whatsoever, yet after the reset that activation status was lost. What could possibly be the cause?

In your first post, you mention " Windows 8.1 reinstalled successfully".  That's not how the Dell recovery media works -- the recovery media reimages the hard drive.  It does not do a manual install of Windows.  Exactly what media did you use to reload the OS?

I used two methods in an attempt to restore the system to factory settings. Both involved holding shift while restarting the computer. I was then shown a blue screen with various options. I used:

1) The one when it re-boots to a window with just the Dell recovery program. I then selected the earliest image from the list, called factory. I can't really tell if it was a reinstall or a reimage, it just told me to wait. Afterwards, I had to go through the initial setup with the computer name, security preferences, MS account etc.

2) There was another option to restore the system, with a choice to do it on one drive/all drives, all while maintaining the blue modern UI look. After that, it was the same deal - it told me to wait a while, and then I had to go through that initial setup - computer name, preferences etc.

At first I tried 1) and upon discovering that the newly restored system wasn't activated, I figured I must have done something wrong and went with option 2 (although, it might have been the other way around. What I remember for sure is that I tried to restore the system a couple of times, the last time yesterday - and that was definitely option 2).

I'm sorry if by using the term "reinstall" I was confusing. There was no other installation media, no DVD or USB stick, just the blue screen I accessed upon booting.

Next questions:  Was the system purchased new from Dell?

Has the mainboard ever been replaced?

It was gifted to me directly from Dell, next-day delivery, brand new and sealed.

The mainboard has not ever been replaced, or any other hardware component.

(UPDATE: After 2.5 hours on the phone, Dell US have proposed a solution. They will need to "transfer the purchase to my name", which will be done between Dell US (country in which I obtained the laptop) and Dell Poland (my current residence), which will take about a week. Meanwhile, I have to contact Dell Poland using a special paid number they gave me and help with the process. Once that's done, we'll establish whether I'm under American 1-year warranty or European 2-year warranty. Then, they will want to replace my motherboard and issue a new Product Key. Dell Poland will figure out how much to charge me. Needless to say, this is a course of action I don't need to take (and it might still be cheaper to just buy a new Windows 8 key) so I'm still open to your sugegstions if you have any.)

I had this problem during the weekend and then I found this post. I had resigned to call Dell and Microsoft during the week but then I tried applying all the updates that were showing up anyways. They were over 150 and it took a while just to "fail" during the process.

I got a message saying that the updates couldn't be applied and they were going to be reverted. Since some of them need to be applied in order, it seems that the first ones were successfully applied and the all the others reverted.  After the reboot the license was back up.

I was able to apply all the other updates after that (over 120)

By the way I was about to give up because it took a very long time to "roll back" the first massive update, but it worked after more than 1 hour processing the reverting process.