I tried to activate Windows 10. It failed with error 0x803F7001 and a description stating that the "Previous version was not activated". Following are the steps I performed to get to where I am now:
I have a laptop which had a single HDD and an OEM copy of Windows 8.1 pre-installed on it. I had no other drives.
In July 2015, I took advantage of the free Windows 10 upgrade and successfully upgraded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10. I did not perform a clean install, just a regular upgrade from 8.1 to 10 on my HDD. I had no activation issues – everything worked like a charm.
Yesterday I physically removed my HDD from my laptop and inserted my SSD.
I performed a clean install on the SSD using the Windows 10 media creation tool.
Windows 10 will not activate. I am getting Error: 0x803F7001 with a description stating that the "previous version of Windows on this machine was not activated" which is false as described in my steps above.
I understood that the Windows activation servers blueprint your machine, taking the key from the BIOS and using that as a method of activating Windows 10. I also understood that in order for this to happen, you have to first upgrade to Windows 10 normally from Windows 7 / 8 (not clean install) after which you can perform a clean install. I have done just that. Then I swapped out my HDD (with the activated Windows 10 on it) for an SSD to perform a clean install. What did I do wrong? How can I resolve this?
Windows 10 Professional
if the machine came withWindows 8.1 Core
orWindows 8.1 Single Language
.