So here I am, left with a Dell product of which a big part of functionality was sporadically invalidated by Microsoft.įirst of all, how the fork can Microsoft block a product key they (presumably) sold to manufacturers like Dell (which then burns it into the BIOS of a single system)? And worse, why is Microsoft even pointing to the manufacturer when it's Microsoft which blocked the key and which could easily remove the block? I then called Dell support but they told me that these keys come from Microsoft and there is nothing they could do, especially since my device is now out of warranty. After obtaining the necessary information for him he told me that the product key was blocked by Microsoft and gone 'back to the manufacturer' (Dell) and that there is nothing he or Microsoft could do. Lastly, I tried the phone activation again but managed to get connected with a human agent.

Various other tips I found on the web which didn't helpĪll to no avail.

Unfiltered/un-firewall'd WiFi instead of Ethernet.

Removing and re-adding the key via slmgr.

Reading out the product key from the BIOS and adding it via 'Change Product Key'.

I then put the old SSD back and the Windows 10 installation there came now back with the same error. Needless to say, I tried Troubleshoot but it failed with the same error. If you do think you have a valid license or product key, select Troubleshoot below. We can't activate Windows on this device because you don't have a valid digital license or product key.

However, while the installation worked fine, I was unable to activate Windows, which came back with the following error:

After replacement I went to the Dell website, downloaded the latest Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2019 image for my thin client, created a bootable USB stick with the Dell USB tool, booted the thin client from it and installed Windows. But because we require more local storage we replaced the 32GB SSD with a larger one (Micron 5100 1TB). I got a Dell Wyse 5070 Extended Thin Client which came with Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2019 which worked until now.

Windows 10 iot enterprise 2019 ltsc