bought a new laptop that came with microsoft lifetime

Hi Greg, congrats on the new laptop! The reason you can’t just “transfer” is that your current subscription and the lifetime license are tied to different accounts or activation methods. The paid Microsoft 365 plan runs until March 2026, and the lifetime version is usually linked to a product key or digital entitlement that needs to be activated on your Microsoft account. Here’s what you can do: first, confirm if the lifetime license is for Microsoft 365 or Office (sometimes it’s Office Home & Student, which doesn’t include cloud features). Then sign in to the new laptop with the Microsoft account you want to keep and activate the lifetime license using the key or instructions provided by the manufacturer. After that, you can cancel auto-renewal on your old subscription so it doesn’t charge again in March. Quick question: do you want to keep using the same Microsoft account on both laptops, or are you planning to switch accounts completely?

To transfer your Microsoft 365 account from your old laptop to your new laptop with a lifetime subscription, you will need to follow these general steps:

1. Sign in to your Microsoft 365 account on your old laptop and ensure that all your data is backed up. This includes emails, files, and any other important information.
2. Install Microsoft 365 on your new laptop using the lifetime subscription that came with it. You may need to sign in with the Microsoft account associated with the lifetime subscription.
3. Transfer your data:
   • For emails, contacts, and calendar information, you can follow the instructions to move your email data after setting up your new subscription.
   • For OneDrive data, copy or sync your content to your computer and then add it back to your new subscription.
   • For OneNote, back up your notes and restore them in the new subscription.
4. Verify that everything is working on the new laptop before you decide to cancel the old subscription.
5. Cancel the old subscription if you no longer need it, ensuring that you do this after confirming that all your data has been successfully transferred and is accessible on the new laptop.

Please note that there may be some downtime during the transfer process, particularly for email and other services.

References:

• Transfer data manually between two accounts
• Microsoft 365 Apps activation Subscription expired error