If you recall a few weeks ago, my mother's computer was first encrypted,
forcing me to reset then restore the computer. In both cases, the
product key was missing and even though it could be retrieved from the
BIOS, any attempt to enter it into the activation settings failed and I
was told that the key was invalid.

Anyways, my mother passed by last night and I tried the only thing left:
completely delete every partition before reinstalling from the latest
Windows 10 ISO. It worked as did the product key which Microsoft
suddenly decided was valid. I also intercepted Windows wanting to once
again encrypt the hardware and potentially lock her out once more. It
seems that by default, any device post Windows 8.1 is automatically
encrypted even if it is merely Windows 10 _Home_.

--
@RabidHussar

RabidHussar wrote:
> If you recall a few weeks ago, my mother's computer was first encrypted,
> forcing me to reset then restore the computer. In both cases, the
> product key was missing and even though it could be retrieved from the
> BIOS, any attempt to enter it into the activation settings failed and I
> was told that the key was invalid.
>
> Anyways, my mother passed by last night and I tried the only thing left:
> completely delete every partition before reinstalling from the latest
> Windows 10 ISO. It worked as did the product key which Microsoft
> suddenly decided was valid. I also intercepted Windows wanting to once
> again encrypt the hardware and potentially lock her out once more. It
> seems that by default, any device post Windows 8.1 is automatically
> encrypted even if it is merely Windows 10 _Home_.
>

If this was my machine, I would have entered the BIOS screens
and disabled Secure Boot and turned off the TPM. *Then*
installed Windows.

Paul

On 2021-09-06 1:46 p.m., Paul wrote:
> RabidHussar wrote:
>> If you recall a few weeks ago, my mother's computer was first
>> encrypted, forcing me to reset then restore the computer. In both
>> cases, the product key was missing and even though it could be
>> retrieved from the BIOS, any attempt to enter it into the activation
>> settings failed and I was told that the key was invalid.
>>
>> Anyways, my mother passed by last night and I tried the only thing
>> left: completely delete every partition before reinstalling from the
>> latest Windows 10 ISO. It worked as did the product key which
>> Microsoft suddenly decided was valid. I also intercepted Windows
>> wanting to once again encrypt the hardware and potentially lock her
>> out once more. It seems that by default, any device post Windows 8.1
>> is automatically encrypted even if it is merely Windows 10 _Home_.
>>
>
> If this was my machine, I would have entered the BIOS screens
> and disabled Secure Boot and turned off the TPM. *Then*
> installed Windows.

At this point, if Windows decides that it wants to encrypt itself, it
will probably do so without becoming a problem since everything is
updated and configured as it should be. Why it encrypted itself
beforehand without the user requesting it AND not providing the key AND
rejecting the product key after a reset is beyond me though.

--
@RabidHussar