Windows 10 lets you link your Windows 10 license to your Microsoft account. Linking Windows 10 license to your Microsoft account enables you to reactivate Windows 10 on the same device without any issues, especially after replacing the storage and motherboard.
When Windows 10 license is linked to your Microsoft account, the Settings > Update & Security > Activation page displays “Windows is activated with a digital license linked to your Microsoft account” message.
While selling off your computer or gifting your computer to someone else, you might want to unlink the Windows 10 license from your Microsoft account. In this guide, we will show you how to safely unlink Windows 10 license from your Microsoft account and remove the device from your Microsoft account.
Unlinking Windows 10 license from Microsoft account
To unlink your Windows 10 license from your Microsoft account, all you need to do is sign out of the Microsoft account by migrating from your Microsoft account to a local user account and then remove the device from your Microsoft account. Here is how to do that.
Step 1: Open the Settings app. Go to Accounts > Your info page.
Step 2: Click the “Sign in with a local account instead” link.
Step 3: Clicking on the link will bring up the “Are you sure you want to switch to a local account?” dialog. Click the Next button.
Step 4: Type the PIN that you created earlier for the Microsoft account.
Step 5: Enter a name for your local user account, type a password, and then re-enter the password before clicking the Next button. If you don’t want to have a password for the account, leave the New password and Confirm password fields empty. If you are selling off the device, not using a password for the account makes sense.
Step 6: Finally, click the Sign out and finish button to sign out of the Microsoft account. Doing so will unlink the Windows 10 license from your Microsoft account.
You will now see the lock screen. You may now sign in to the local account that you just created and navigate to Settings > Update & Security > Activation page.
The Activation page should now display “Windows is activated with a digital license” or “Windows is activated” message instead of “Windows is activated with a digital license linked to your Microsoft account” message.
Step 7: Now that you have unlinked the license from your Microsoft account, it’s time to remove the Windows 10 device from your Microsoft account. To do that, visit the Devices page in a web browser, sign in using the same Microsoft account that you earlier used to sign in to Windows 10.
Step 8: The page displays all devices linked to your Microsoft account. To remove a device, click the Manage link present just below it.
If you have multiple computers linked to your Microsoft account, we suggest you cross-check the computer name shown on the page to the computer name that you want to remove from your Microsoft account just to make sure that you are removing the computer that you want to sell or gift.
To know your computer name, type sysdm.cpl in the Start/taskbar search and press Enter key to open the System Properties dialog. The Computer Name tab displays your computer name. Check if the name displayed here matches the one shown on the Devices page of your Microsoft account.
Step 9: In the resulting page, click on the down arrow icon next to the Manage option and then click the Remove laptop option.
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