While using previous versions of the Windows operating system such as Windows 8.1, Windows 8, and Windows 7, many users used to back up the activation after successfully activating their copy of the Windows operating system.
The core benefit of backing up Windows activation is that it makes it easier to activate Windows again after performing a clean install or reinstall of Windows. The other benefit of backing up Windows activation is that users don’t need to store the product key to activate Windows after a fresh install or reinstall.
How backing up Windows activation works?
When you successfully activate Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1, Windows stores the activation information in a system file. The Windows activation backup tools backup this file and allow you to restore the same file when you perform a clean install or reinstall of Windows.
Is it possible to back up Windows 10 activation?
First, the bad news. There is no way out there to backup Windows 10 activation. Tools that support backing up Windows 7/8/8.1 activation don’t support Windows 10. For instance, the popular Advanced Tokens Manager (the free tool to backup Windows activation) doesn’t support Windows 10.
The good news that you don’t need to backup Windows 10 activation if you upgraded from Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 using the free upgrade or if you performed a clean install of Windows 10 and activated your Windows 10 copy using Windows8.1/8/7 product key.
This is because, when you upgrade to Windows 10 using the free upgrade and successfully activate Windows 10 or when you activate Windows 10 using Windows 8.1/8/7 product key, Microsoft gives a digital entitlement to your PC. The same digital entitlement will be used to automatically activate your copy of Windows 10 when you perform a clean install or reinstall the same edition of Windows 10 on the same PC in the future.
Besides that, Microsoft now allows linking your Windows 10 license to your Microsoft account so that you quickly activate your copy of Windows 10 even after replacing your PC’s hardware.
If your Windows 10 copy is not automatically activated after you clean install or reinstall the same, you can contact the Microsoft support team to get your copy of Windows 10 activated. In some cases, the Microsoft support team might need to access your PC to make sure your PC was running an activated copy of Windows 10 before the clean install or reinstall.
That said, when you perform a clean install of retail copy of Windows 10 and successfully activate it using a valid key, Microsoft will not give a digital entitlement to your PC which means you will need to enter a valid product key when you perform a clean install or reinstall of Windows 10 in order to activate your copy. So we recommend you store your retail key in a safe place just in case if you need it in the future.
In short, as of now, there is no way out there to back up your Windows 10 activation. In fact, backing up the activation is not required.
