While this is certainly a number that Microsoft has well documented, trying to count from the outside the number of Windows licenses that have been sold since the operating system’s inception is virtually impossible. Microsoft has never released this information, so we have to stick with the estimates of some analysts who It will place a total of 1,250 to 1,750 million licenses throughout its history.

Managing something like this shouldn’t be easy, we get that, but of course that’s no excuse for legal licenses that users have been using for years to stop paying overnight, even if users aren’t violating the terms of the law. And yet, as we can read in The Verge, that’s exactly what’s been happening ever since Windows 10 and 11 users see their systems lose activation if they make any changes related to their hardware.

At the moment there is no official confirmation in this regard, but all indications are that this issue with Windows licenses has its origin at the time the one that Microsoft decided to close a faucet that had been officially closed for years, but in reality was still fully functional. I am talking, you may have already imagined, about the possibility of upgrading to Windows 11 from Windows 7 and Windows 8. At the end of September, Redmond decided that it was time and, as we told you then, this is no longer possible.

But what’s going on? It turns out that Windows users of some current versions of the operating system, but who have reached the same versions after upgrading from previous versions, namely 7 and 8, are finding that Your Windows installations are disabled when you make any hardware changes or even some BIOS configuration tweaks.

This in itself is not particularly new because We already know that a certain type of license can be deactivated when making changes in hardware. In such cases, just contact Microsoft technical support, inform them about the situation and they will kindly and conscientiously help you to solve it, and in this case I am not only speaking from the experience that I know from third parties, also because it happened to me. the same and within minutes the problem was solved.

However, according to testimonies like the one reproduced in The Verge, That’s not happening this time:

«Automatic activation didn’t work, so I contacted customer service. They told me that since my Windows 10 license was upgraded from Windows 7 and they stopped supporting Windows 7 product keys, they could not continue my Windows 10 Pro license after the hardware change. […] They also acknowledged that changing the hardware is not a violation of the Windows license, so there is no reason why my Windows 10 license should be revoked or altered in any way.»

The good news is that as we can read in the same publication, Microsoft has already confirmed the receipt problem and it looks like they are working on it:

«“Microsoft is aware of these customer reports and is investigating them,” said Bill Babonas, senior product manager for Windows, in a statement to The Verge. “Customers experiencing technical difficulties should contact customer service«.

Something is something, but according to previous testimony, it seems that in customer service They still don’t have a clear idea of ​​how to handle this situationso it’s possible that affected people, i.e. those who upgraded from Windows 7/8 to Windows 10/11 and made some hardware changes to their computers, still can’t reactivate their OS installations, which could be a problem.

Therefore, our recommendation for all people who have this type of license is to temporarily refrain from making changes to their computers’ hardwareuntil Microsoft announces that it has resolved the incident and reactivated support for said licenses.

Another option, undoubtedly much faster and less problematic, is to get a new Windows 10/11 license, which, with support from Microsoft, allows you to make these types of changes without problems. It is true that their official price, if you buy them directly from Microsoft, is quite high, but remember that with special offers for our readers, you can get a 100% original license, which will not cause you these problems, for less than 15 euros.