Cant Activate Windows 11 after BIOS Update !

I called Microsoft's support and it's a known issue.

Microsoft is working on it and it seems it could be fixed next monday or thuesday.

Best regards

Bernard

That was also my solution. I got a refund and purchased a new digital license. Everything works fine now. However, I guess I may have the same issue if I update my BIOS in the future. If enough people resolve the issue via refunds, maybe it will encourage Microsoft and/or the board manufacturers to properly investigate what is going on and fix things so that BIOS updates don't deactivate Windows. It's such a huge waste of time for everyone involved and a very unpleasant experience for Windows customers.

Unfortunately my original product key comes from a Windows 8 "retail box" (with optical DVD support) copy so I cannot be refunded after 3+ years. I made all the upgrades requested/required by Microsoft: Windows 8 -> Windows 8.1 -> Windows 10 -> Windows 11. So now I'm stuck: I cann't downgrade to Windows 8 (unless re-install from scratch) and I can't format and re-install Windows 11 because my old Win8 license will not be accepted anymore.

This happened to me with a Windows 11 Home I bought from the store just a month ago. I built a new PC, for some reason the gigabyte control panel wasn't detecting new Bios, so the other day I was checking the motherboard support site for another reason and noticed there were tons of bios updates, even 2 new updates had come out in the last month since I bought the thing. It's a Gigabyte z790 gaming x ax board. Got it up to the latest version, reboot, windows detected a hardware change...can't activate. I decide to call support the next day...after 6 hours and 5 different reps from being transferred around and disconnected a couple times with no call backs, I am still not activated, they even had me reinstall twice, an in place install and then a clean custom install...I have never been so frustrated in my life. I am not just trying to get them to give me a refund so I can upgrade my bios and install from a retail copy with a product key.

Seems almost criminal that they do this "digital license" **** associated to a microsoft account but you have no means to view what licenses you have on your account or any way to select them or force them in the activation screen.

To make matters worse, after support "helped" i'm even worse off, they had me remove the device from my account page thinking that was interfering with it. and they've ran some scripts to remove whatever key I originally had and put in some generic product key.

I am having the same problem and wanted to know if there was any update on fixing this.

I updated my NZXT z690 BIOS last night and now windows deactivated.

I cant get it to activate when I run the troubleshooting or "I changed hardware"

Thanks,

Thanks. You have Windows Pro with Retail license. Did it come preinstalled or you bought it separately?

it is a digital license from upgraded windows 8 to windows 10 during " free upgrade to windows 10 " many years ago, so i linked it to my microsoft account and transfer it to my new pc . it was activated before updating MB BIOS