How To Locate Windows 10 Serial Key
If you upgraded to Windows 10 for free from an activated copy of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, you should have a digital license instead of a product key. A Windows product key is a 25-character code used to activate Windows. How to find your Windows 10 or Office 365 product key. Asking the user to type in a product key or serial. Can quickly locate your Windows key (along with.
It 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.
How to Find Windows 10 Digital License Product Key
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.
- On your Windows 10 PC, download and install produkey by Nirsoft.net.
- Once installation is completed, launch the software.
- You should then see a list of Microsoft Software installed on the computer, including Windows 10 Pro (or Home).
- The product key will be listed beside it. You can double-click on the Windows 10 Pro for more detailed info such as the Product ID, Product Key, Build Number and more.
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.
When do you need to find Windows 10 digital license product key
Find Windows 10 Product Key
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.
How to find and backup your Windows 10 digital license product key
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:- How to Link Windows 10 Digital License with your Microsoft Account
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- How to Transfer Windows 10 License to Another New Computer
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If you've purchased a new PC with Windows pre-installed in the past few years, you might have noticed a few changes on the outside of the device.
The biggest change is the absence of a product key, which was included on the holographic Certificate of Authenticity (COA) sticker with PCs that came pre-installed with Windows 7 or earlier versions.
Beginning with Windows 8, that information is no longer on a COA but is instead embedded in the BIOS. If you re-install the same version of Windows that came with your PC, it should activate automatically.
If you want to record that product key so that you can restore Windows later, it's easy enough to do. Open a PowerShell window and issue this command:
(Get-WmiObject -query 'select * from SoftwareLicensingService').OA3xOriginalProductKey
If you see no output, that means your system does not include the Windows key in the BIOS, as is often the case with home-built PCs, devices built by a System Builder OEM, or those that were originally sold with a Windows 10 license.
Network administrators who manage licensing using Key Management Services can get details about PCs on the network using a different set of options for the same PowerShell command. To view all details about a machine's current licensing status, use this command:
How To Find Activation Key Windows 10
Get-WMIObject -Class SoftwareLicensingService | Select-Object -Property *
(Be sure to include the asterisk at the end of that command.)
Windows 10 Key To Install
To save the key, click in the PowerShell window, drag the mouse pointer across the entire 25-character key, and then right-click. Although nothing appears to happen, your selection has actually been copied to the Clipboard. Paste it into a text file and save it in a safe place.
Previous tip: Find out if your PC can run Hyper-V
Next week: Another Windows 10 tip from Ed Bott
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