When it comes to functionality
- The major inconvenience is that you’ll see the “activate Windows watermark” at the lower right corner of your screen.
- You won't be able to personalize the desktop background, window title bar, taskbar, and Start color, change the theme, customize Start, taskbar, and lock screen.
- you can’t get hands-on on a few Windows features that are only available after the activation. Such as dark system mode, Focus assist, Windows Hello, Windows Defender, and security.
- You will also notice a link appearing in your Settings app which will say: “Windows is not activated. Activate windows now.” That link and the watermark in your desktop area will remain until you activate your Windows 10 with a genuine license key.
- You can’t update your system. (if it is a cracked one then after updating it will always going to ask license key.)
- Microsoft will occasionally send you reminders to do the product activation. So, there may be some pop-ups when you are working or playing games that might cause inconvenience.
- However, you can set a new desktop background from File Explorer without activating Windows 10.
NOTE: Apart from those mentioned issues, you will not face any significant difficulties. For those who use their unactivated copy of Windows within 30 days of installation, their operating system will keep on working.
