Do you remember the good old times when PC manufacturers used to apply those fancy stickers to the back of your laptop or desktop PC depicting your Windows Product Key? If you’re a system administrator you probably already know that these times are gone since Windows 8. Now almost every PC with a pre-installed copy of a Windows OS doesn’t show any physical info or evidence of its product key, nor it features a Certificate of Authenticity (COA) sticker on its back, battery bay or any other place.
The product key is now embedded into the computer BIOS or UEFI, and it can only be accessed there: this also means that we don’t need to type it anymore, because it’s automatically fetched by the OS during the install phase. This can be really good at times, because you won’t ever need to remember or protect it – the system will do the hard work for you. However, it can become a huge problem if you ever need to type it, which is something that can always happen in some edge-case scenarious such as: relevant hardware upgrades, damaged/erased BIOS, OS upgrades, reinstall using a different ISO image and so on.
Whenever such things happens, we most certainly want (or would’ve wanted) a way to retrieve that product key before it’s too late. Luckily enough, there’s a great freeware tool that comes to the rescue: it’s called Windows 10 Product Key Tool and is made by NeoSmart technologies, the same guys that developed the great EasyBCD software (if you don’t know it, check it out!). The tool is compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10.
This handy tool can be downloaded here from the NeoSmart official blog. Once executed, it will retrieve our Windows Product Key from the BIOS / UEFI and show it to us in a convenient pop-up window:
In case the Windows installation has been performed by manually typing a OEM Product Key or using the free Windows 10 upgrade offer from Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1, this tool won’t find anything in the BIOS / UEFI records, thus showing a “Unable to open MSDM table” error message instead:
If that’s the case, it simply means that our Product Key is stored into the Windows Registry. Don’t worry! This only means that, in order to recover it, we will need to use the good old ProduKey tool by Nirsoft, which helps users and SysAdmins to recover Windows, Office and SQL Server Serial Numbers, License Keys and Product Keys since 2005. Despite the rather rusty interface it still flawlessly gets the job done, just like it used to do since the early days of Windows XP:
That’s it for now: happy recover!
Alvin Nyau - Updated onIt doesn’t matter if you got your copy of Windows 10 from the previous free upgrade, from purchasing Windows 10 Home or Pro Edition from Microsoft Store, or it came as the built-in OS when you buy your desktop or laptop computer. If you are going to do a reinstall or transfer your license to another computer, you will need to re-enter your Windows 10 digital license product key during the installation. This guide explains how to find Windows 10 digital license product key from your computer.
If you purchased your physical boxed copy of Windows 10 from a computer shop, the Windows 10 digital license product key will usually be on a label in the box. If yours is a digital copy bought from Microsoft Store, the digital license key is usually in an email sent to you by Microsoft when you made the purchase. When neither is the case, use the following method to find your Windows 10 digital license product key from your PC.
We can find Windows 10 digital license product key using an amazing tool called ProduKey. It is a free software that is able to display your product keys of various Microsoft software you ever installed in your computer. Here’s how.
Your antivirus or anti-malware program may flag the software and warn you about it. It is because the tool is trying to extract info about your Windows 10 which is not supposed to happen in casual software. But trust us, it’s totally safe and has been widely used by hundred of thousands of Windows users.
When you got the key, you can then use the key for Windows 10 reinstall or transferring the digital license key to another new computer. You may need this guide – How to Transfer Windows 10 License to Another New Computer.
If you are trying to upgrade from Windows 7 or Windows 8 to Windows 10, the installation will automatically activate the Windows 10 with your existing Windows 7 or 8 product key. Update: Since a few months ago, Microsoft has stopped the free upgrade. For those who want to upgrade their existing older version of Windows to Windows 10, you will have to buy the Windows 10 digital license first.
If you are doing a full reinstall of Windows 10 which involve wiping your system drive (the hard drive that stores your OS), you will always want to extract the product key first to save the hassle of having to troubleshoot your activation later.
The method about how to find Windows 10 digital license product key as outlined above is assuming you haven’t done the reinstall on that computer. If you have, and your old Windows was completely removed, you may need contact Microsoft Support for activation when you lose your license key. However, you should try to run the Activation troubleshooter from the Setting first. In some cases, it may be able to detect your digital license key and activate it for you.
To run the activation troubleshooter, press Win+i keys to open Settings app. Select Update & Security. From the left pane, click on Activation. Under If you’re having problems with activation, select troubleshooter to try and fix the problem heading, click on Troubleshoot.
It’s best that you save a copy of your Windows 10 digital license key for future activation purposes in situations such as when your hard drive fails. You can always use the produkey method above to extract your Windows 10 product key. Write it down and keep it in a safe place.
A better backup method would be to link your Microsoft account with the Windows 10 digital license. Read – How to Link Windows 10 Digital License with Microsoft Account.
For computers especially laptop from manufacturers such as HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, Acer and Toshiba, in most cases, you can find the Windows 10 digital license product key from a label usually underneath the notebook computer.
However, this isn’t always the case. In some laptops, the product key will not be shown physically anywhere on the laptop surfaces. According to some reports, it’s for security purposes. However, these laptops have the ability to activate its Windows 10 digital license automatically whenever needed. This will work even when the hard drive is completely wiped.
You'll also like:When you enter, register and activate your copy of Windows, using a Retail key, the information is stored in the Windows Registry. Users of OEM computers may have noticed that, since a couple of years, the manufacturers have stopped pasting their COA or Certificate of Authenticity sticker, which displayed the Windows product key to the machine anymore. Now this key is embedded in the BIOS/UEFI.
It is to be noted that a Retail product license is tied to the person whereas the OEM product key is tied to the machine, as per Microsoft Windows Desktop licensing terms. In this post, we will see how to find the original Windows Product Key using Command Prompt or PowerShell, from BIOS or Registry. It works for Retail & OEM licenses too.
From the WinX Menu in Windows 10 / 8.1, open an elevated command prompt window, type the following command and hit Enter:
Your Windows product key will be displayed.
To find your Windows 10 Product Key, open a PowerShell window with administrative privileges, type the following command and hit Enter:
Your Windows license key will appear! This will work on Windows 10/ 8.1/7/Vista.
In Windows 10, the product key will probably be encrypted, tied to your Microsoft Account and stored by Microsoft in the cloud too.
You can also find Windows 10 product key using VB Script.
If you are looking for an easier way, you can also use some free Software Key Finders to recover and save, not just Windows, but even Office, Software, Games serials and license keys.
This post will help you if you want to uninstall the Windows Product Key.
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My new laptop's preinstalled Windows 10 was activated as soon as it was connected to the internet. But no product keys were shown to me. There is no product key label on the laptop. Somewhere I read for newer laptops the product key is embedded in Bios. How can I be sure that if I reinstall the Windows using Media Creation Tool ISO file, it will not ask for the unavailable product key and will detect it in Bios (if any keys is embedded there)?
Get into command prompt by searching for it or doing the Windows key and R button and typing cmd
(it should pop up). Then type this command in exactly as is:
And your product key should pop up right after. voila
Microsoft has made it simple to activate Windows 10.
On new machines the product key is stored in BIOs and is used automatically by the Windows when connected to the Internet.
In Windows 10 hardware activation is used. Your Windows 10 will be automatically activated until you don't make changes to the hardware.
If you want to install same version as fresh no problem click I don't have a product key link during installation and it will be activated automatically.
You can also switch between 32-bit and 64-bit without need of a key in the same edition.
Cracked vst download. If you want to see OEM details visit Microsoft live and check devices tab. You will get everything there.
Yes Windows 10 key is stored in the BIOS, in the event you need a restore, as long as you use the same version so either Pro or Home, it will activate automatically.
You can prove this to your self, by downloading any product key finder on google and the last 5 digits will be displayed for you. Also the code is normally placed on a sticker under the laptop or under the battery.
Thanks!
Download & install Magical Jelly Bean Key Finder from here: https://www.magicaljellybean.com/downloads/KeyFinderInstaller.exe
This app reads the product keys of Windows & many other apps (Photoshop, MS Office, IDM, etc.) from the registry & shows it to you. You can easily find out the product key of your installed windows (any version).
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In my laptop (Dell Inspiron 1440) the product key of the pre-installed Win7 Pro was written on a sticker at the bottom of my laptop. You can also check at the bottom of your laptop.
The usual {wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey} command won't work on some PCs with product keys baked in BIOS, I tried this with my Alienware 17 R2 not too long ago. You'll had to use RWEverything to read the ACPI data. For machines originally installed with Windows 10, look for MSDM tab, on the bottom you'll see the product key string under Data. For machines originally installed with Windows 7, look for SLIC tab instead.