Microsoft advises that if you're running Windows 10 or 11, and added your Microsoft account by linking it to the digital license on your device, you can use the Activation troubleshooter to reactivate Windows.

Significant hardware changes, such as motherboard replacement, might require a call to Microsoft’s activation hotline to resolve. Windows 11, with its digital activation, should handle this automatically via Microsoft’s servers but upgrades can cause issues. Windows activation keys can be retrieved from physical product packaging (you kept this, right?), a label on chassis of the PC itself or with utilities that extract them, such as Magical Jelly Bean (opens in new tab). Lost are stored passwords, browser settings, and possibly Windows activation, so keep this information and any keys or other Microsoft information handy.

Applications, data files, and other configuration data are retained. Originally designed for large-scale hardware deployments in the IT world, the command removes the name of the PC and resets a few other internal Windows settings so moving that carefully compiled hard drive takes just a fraction of the full rebuild time.

Windows 10 boot drive