Windows 10 suddenly deactivated

Sumit 44,306 Volunteer Moderator

Hi,

There is an ongoing issue about Windows 10 suddenly shown as deactivated. T~~he affected users need not to do anything as it is a known issue. Here is what was told by Microsoft Chat support:~~

Microsoft has just released an Emerging issue announcement about current activation issue related to Pro edition recently. This happens in Japan, Korea, American and many other countries.I am very sorry to inform you that there is a temporary issue with Microsoft's activation server at the moment and some customers might experience this issue where Windows is displayed as not activated.

Our engineers are working tirelessly to resolve this issue and it is expected to be corrected within one to two business days

~~Thanks to Vijay_Verma and Danielfor~~ the information.

Thanks to PaulSey..., a Microsoft employee in this thread which has explanation about this in more detail:

We are aware of reports that some customers’ Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise machines are not recognizing their licenses as activated. Users may receive the following notification: “Error: you are running Windows 10 Pro, but you have valid digital license for Windows 10 Home," or one of the following error codes 0X803F8001, 0xC004C003.

We are actively working to resolve this within 24 hours. You can still use your PC; however, the watermark will appear until activation is restored. Thank you for your patience.

We will update this post with additional information as needed and once activations are restored.

Edit 1: Users report that Windows activation troubleshooter might say You have a Windows 10 Home license but you are running Windows 10 Pro. You are advised to ignore that message and wait for the fix.

Edit 2: Update as of morning 11/9/2018 Morning EST.

Any affected customer can continue to use Windows 10 Pro as usual, and the watermark will disappear within 24 hours as activation is automatically restored.

To manually resolve the issue: Select the Start button, select Settings > Update & security > Activation, and then select Troubleshoot to run the Activation Troubleshooter. (If the device is already activated, the Troubleshoot option will not appear.)

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous

We are actively working to resolve this within 24 hours. You can still use your PC; however, the watermark will appear until activation is restored. Thank you for your patience.

We will update this post with additional information as needed and once activations are restored.

Paul...

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466 additional answers

Anonymous

2018-11-09T14:43:42+00:00

Hello, I'm having activation issue on an AR17R4 which had an oem license for windows 10 home version.

Purchased license for 10-Pro and don't understand how MS can take away PRO and downgrade to home.

Fix this issue NOW!!! I paid $200 for it and I expect my machine to run on the OS I paid for.
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Anonymous

2018-11-09T14:22:32+00:00

As of 11/9/2018 at 9:10 AM EST...

I have WIN10 Pro (OEM from Lenovo) and am experiencing the watermark. When I try to run the troubleshooter I get the following error:

"Something interrupted our troubleshooting. Make sure you're connected to the internet, wait a few minutes and try again. (0x80070520)"

So, despite claims that this is fixed, I am still having an issue.
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Anonymous

2018-11-09T14:18:55+00:00
Yesterday, problem :

I had the message that Windows 10 Pro was not activated, and that I needed to downgrade to Windows 10 Family.

the activation troubleshooter would not fix the issue

on my MSFT account webpage, my machine was NOT now showing up in the list of machines associated with my account

the Windows Store would NOT let met me purchase a license

the (web) MSFT Store would NOT let met me purchase a W10 Pro license… selecting the product and adding to the cart would produce an error (maybe a DoS situation due to the large flow of consumers trying to purchase W10 at the same time)

But today, fixed!

the message is gone (it went away by itself ; meaning I did not have to run the activation troubleshooter at all)

in the parameters, the activation panel is now showing correctly that W10 Pro si activated

on my MSFT account webpage, in the list of machines associated with my account, my machine is now showing up correctly with W10 Pro

So it seems that the issue was finally fixed by MSFT.

At least for me. And for others as well, if I read correctly the news:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-users-seeing-their-erroneous-product-activation-issues-resolved/

So well done MSFT on fixing this rapidly. But I am still a bit frustrated that MSFT communication around the problem was poor. No crisis communication. When interacting with MSFT support ChatBots or calling MSFT support phone# and interacting with VoiceBots, no messaging was made on recognizing the issue. No information was given or sent on what to do and what to expect. Room for improvement!
Fully Agree: MSFT should take heed to the Request Given by the User: in this Post: [ Could one expect anything improved in the Future? ]

Today, The whole system around Community Communications is Broken. Users need a Filter in order to only See Relevent Data around what is Fixed, Being Done, or not yet know. , in That way, users and MSFT engineers will not have to read through 40k Responses about an issue: Stating" Me too, I have the Same Problem".

Well, Here is Hoping. Thanks.
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