Windows 10 suddenly deactivated

Sumit 44,316 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

2018-11-08T19:00:04+00:00

I called about this yesterday, as both of my Windows 10 Professional installations, which I had obtained through a free upgrade from Windows 7 Ultimate over two years ago, had become deactivated. Microsoft Tech support brushed me off and told me that since I no longer had the Windows 7 product keys in my possession, there was nothing they could do. I do hope they are actually going to fix this, and soon! this is quite aggravating.

Mark
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Anonymous

2018-11-08T19:01:05+00:00

This seems to be the same issue I'm having. It started last night, November 7th, with the Windows Activation watermark on the right-side of my screen, and when I try to troubleshoot it it says that my key is for Windows 10 Home and I'm running the Pro built, and that I'd have to reinstall Windows to change to the Home build. Not even through their Store page can they "fix" my issue. I've also re-typed my current (and legit) Windows key and it wasn't recognized. I've been using this same key for a couple of years already.

Very frustrating and annoying, hope they come up with a solution soon.
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Anonymous

2018-11-08T19:01:35+00:00

I am having this issue as well. I got windows 10 Pro from the free upgrade when windows 10 came out. This is the first time this has been an issue. Now i'm here seeing many others with the same issue and just waiting for a fix to all this. Come one Microsoft/Windows fix this issue.
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Anonymous

2018-11-08T19:05:40+00:00

Due to Microsoft dropping the ball on this, like a bunch of rookies.

Here's a guide to remove the Windows 10 Activation Watermark.

1. Open Notepad.

2. Copy and paste the script below to a new Notepad file.

@echo off

taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe

start explorer.exe

exit

3. Save this file to the Documents folder as:

Watermark Remover.bat

4. Run this file in Administrator Mode by right clicking and selecting the 'Run as Administrator' option from the drop down menu.

You can stop here if you leave your computer on constantly, however to make this permanent on every boot follow the instructions below.

**5.**Open the Windows menu and type:

Task Scheduler

6. Open Task Scheduler.

7. Look on the right of the app and you'll see:

Create Basic Task...

8. Select the Create Basic Task...

9. Once this is open name the task:

Watermark Removal

10. Select Next to move on to the Trigger.

11. Select Daily and then select Next to move on.

12. Leave everything as is, and select Next. (Your time and date may be different to my own.)

**13.**Select Start a program, then select Next.

14. Once the next page is open, select Browse...

15. A File Explorer window will pop up. Now, go to your Documents folder, and select Watermark Remover.bat

16. Select Open and the window will close.

17. Select Next.

18. Select Finish. And that's it. You're done with making this fix permanent.

There's the guide to removing the watermark while Microshaft Winblows Team tries to fix the issue with Windows 10 Pro keys suddenly deactivating.
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