Licensing and activation are separate, and only loosely related. If you are at anything resembling a large org, they don’t even use the HWID or OEM key- they will be using an internal KMS server.
It really sounds like you have way more permissions than you should have on a work device. You should’ve hit a wall even attempting to install Win11 (I can confirm that my work blocks this very effectively). I also question why you would want to do that at all. I’m also not sure you needed to do anything to activate- I believe 10 and 11 use the exact same HWID/keys/etc
Honestly, I’d just suggest going to your IT and tell that you fucked around and broke things. The IT guys have seen that (in different ways) so many times it shouldn’t really be a too big deal. Way worse if you try to hide it
I feel like IT could yell at OP for a little bit, but would ultimately have to stare the fact that they allowed non-privileged users to just change the operating system square in the face. Like holy hell, 500 employees and anybody can just be like, “Hey, maybe I’ll make a major OS change today because why not?” What else are they letting happen?!
Just ask them to re-image it. An individually bought key might not pass audit. I recall my company getting audited by Adobe for Acrobat and we had to pay about $12k sure there were lots of individually purchased copies of Acrobat. Adobe did not care if we showed them the receipt for it.
Go with humility first, you screwed up. Follow it up with a joke about how you discovered a flaw in the configuration of work laptops, and now they can fix it to prevent someone else from being able to do that 🤷♂️
I think you’ll be ok
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Licensing and activation are separate, and only loosely related. If you are at anything resembling a large org, they don’t even use the HWID or OEM key- they will be using an internal KMS server.
It really sounds like you have way more permissions than you should have on a work device. You should’ve hit a wall even attempting to install Win11 (I can confirm that my work blocks this very effectively). I also question why you would want to do that at all. I’m also not sure you needed to do anything to activate- I believe 10 and 11 use the exact same HWID/keys/etc
The danger comes from Microsoft. If there’s an audit and it’s discovered that you are using pirated keys, that can coat the company a bunch of moneys
Now Microsoft is not quite as anal with those as some other companies (uh, Oracle for example) but it’s still not good
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Honestly, I’d just suggest going to your IT and tell that you fucked around and broke things. The IT guys have seen that (in different ways) so many times it shouldn’t really be a too big deal. Way worse if you try to hide it
I feel like IT could yell at OP for a little bit, but would ultimately have to stare the fact that they allowed non-privileged users to just change the operating system square in the face. Like holy hell, 500 employees and anybody can just be like, “Hey, maybe I’ll make a major OS change today because why not?” What else are they letting happen?!
I work in it and one of our employees brought a laptop to us that had been completely and thoroughly dismantled with a screwdriver.
She told us that she wanted to remove the hard drive but she couldn’t find it.
It had a flash hard drive that had been detached from the board was sitting next to the Wi-Fi card.
Me and the other it guy just kind of like looked at each other for a minute and then got her a new laptop.
To be fair she was due for an upgrade anyway, but I’ve never had anyone dismantle their soon to be recycled devices.
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Just ask them to re-image it. An individually bought key might not pass audit. I recall my company getting audited by Adobe for Acrobat and we had to pay about $12k sure there were lots of individually purchased copies of Acrobat. Adobe did not care if we showed them the receipt for it.
Lmao
Try clean reinstall (wipe disk etc) if you can pick up the hardware key
Or a warranty case lol
Also gz for a new lesson learned;)
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You don’t need to buy a key from your own pocket.
Just be honest like I said in another reply. Ask for help. I’m sure he’ll help you out and you’ll be fine.
Go with humility first, you screwed up. Follow it up with a joke about how you discovered a flaw in the configuration of work laptops, and now they can fix it to prevent someone else from being able to do that 🤷♂️ I think you’ll be ok
I don’t think you’re fucked. As long as you’re honest about what happened.
IT shares a bit of the responsibility here by giving you so much access to your system to allow you to install a whole OS on your own.