I have a question on moving Windows 10 from an old HDD to another one.
I did my homework to look for answers, but still have some questions before changing anything.
I have a HDD that still works very well on an 8 year old laptop that has not been used a lot, but I would like to move Windows 10 (the laptop came with Windows 8 or 8.1 pre-installed on it, which was upgraded to Windows 10 a couple years ago) to a SSD that I will buy, into the same laptop, to increase performance. The size of the files on the HDD will be less than the whole size of the SDD. I prefer using a clean install (downloading Windows 10 and putting it on a USB key), then install it on the new SDD because I once ran into some issues after a PC reset and I was forced to download some additional Windows files to make it work correctly, so I'd rather avoid cloning the HDD into the SSD just in case I would be stuck with this issue if I reset my laptop in the future. I watched some videos that explained what to do and that the Windows 10 license will be recognized and activated when logging into my Microsoft account, but I usually skip the step of linking my laptop to a Microsoft account by connecting to the internet later.
Now the question: If I finish my Windows 10 installation without linking my laptop to a Microsoft account, will Windows 10 be fully recognized on my new SSD, meaning that the license will be transferred from the old HDD to my new SSD?
The info that I can't find is when exactly the license is transferred, meaning that I'll be ok to format the old HDD so I don't delete the license with it and be stuck without activating the Windows 10 license.
Thanks.