I am trying to find out how out-of-warranty replacement of OEM motherboards (e.g., Dell, Lenovo, etc) will handled digital product keys. Supposedly, the service provider must "contact Microsoft" to ...

No. OEM keys will not activate retail copies of Windows. Also, I am not sure what you mean by an unactivated Dell key. With Windows 8 they started putting those in the UEFI, and all activation is done ...

In an amusing twist that undoubtedly spells the end of some hapless manager's career, Microsoft has accidentally gifted pirates with a free, fully-functioning Windows 8 license key. If you so desire, ...

In December 2022, we published a short PSA, reminding users they could still activate Windows 11 and 10 with valid Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 keys. This practice dates back to 2015 when Microsoft launched ...