that's why I never, ever, EVER have official Windows installed. you should get soemthing extra when paying, and that extra shouldn't be inconvenience. heck, I have put cracked windows even on laptops that had Win licence with them on purchase, just because of this (you changed HDD, doubled RAM or similar? forget it! this ain't the same machine, and you won't run this OS again! just have this one hour call and maybe...)
Even back in the days of Windows XP, the call was 10 minutes and you talked to an automated machine and just read it your license key. Not an hour long call.
But it was tedious though. The OS gave you a tremendous long number you had to punch into your phone and then it gave you numbers in return you had to type into the OS, but as that screen wasn't available to you you first had to write them all down (If I remember it correctly!).
