The plentiful Windows 10 activation issues have been a pain for many, especially those that have upgraded from Windows 7 for example are often having a hard time once they need to re-activate. End-users now have learned the hard way that even updating your motherboard BIOS can revoke your Windows 10 product license and render it inactive - withouth a proper solve to get reactivated again.

New problems and complicated activation issues are now rising as your license key is tied towards your unique PC hardware signature. 

Microsoft already has made promises that with the next Windows10 update things will get better. But more and more problems arise. For example if you would upgrade your PC with new hardware, chances are likely your license is revoked. Trying to reactivate or calling Microsoft to make that happen often does not result into your license getting activated again - as 'new hardware' is indicative for a new PC. Meaning you will need to purchase a new license.

Even more frustrating is the fact that when you upgraded to Windows 10 coming from Windows 7 or 8 and then later on update your motherboard BIOS, your new Windows 10 license will render itself inactive. At that point Windows very likely cannot re-activate on-line online, calling Microsoft tech support for a phone re-activation won't help you either as they cannot reactivate your license based on the upgraded Windows 7 or 8 key.

A good example of the frustrating mess that Microsoft has created can be read here in our forums where Guru3D oldtime Blackfyre ran into this issue himself after he updated his Z97X Gaming GT motherboard from a F6 BIOS to the F7 BIOS, and changed the RAM DIMMs.

Thanks everyone for your help... I upgraded the RAM, I got the one I linked in the OP... However now Windows 10 says I have to re-activate, and it won't activate anymore. I'm not sure if it's the BIOS update or RAM change that caused it, but I had a chat with support, and called Microsoft too, none of which are able to help me. Saying hardware changes mean that you lose your product key if you upgrade...

Have a read on the entire chat transcript here ...

In the near future this situation will hopefully be solved as Microsoft already indicated through the Insider program to make some changes. This does refer to the upgrade process, but might solve the issue mentioned above as well.

We have received a lot of feedback from Insiders on making it easier to activate Windows 10 on devices that take advantage of the free upgrade offer to genuine Windows by using existing Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 product keys. If you install this build of the Windows 10 Insider Preview on a PC and it doesn't automatically activate, you can enter the product key from Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 used to activate the prior Windows version on the same device to activate Windows 10 by going to Settings > Update & security > Activation and selecting Change Product Key. If you do a clean install of Windows 10 by booting off the media, you can also enter the product key from prior Windows versions on qualifying devices during setup.