News How to Find a Windows 10 or 11 Product Key

[Admin]

If you plan to reinstall Windows 10 or 11 or take an existing license and use it on a new PC, you'll need the product key which is hidden on your current computer.

How to Find a Windows 10 or 11 Product Key : Read more

 

[don0819]

Thanks for the article, however I found that using method 1 I got a different answer than Method 3, and using key finder (Method 1) the license # was correct - as I knew what it was I was just trying the methods out. Method 2 returned the "OA3XOriginalProductKey" but there was no key reported, it was a blank line. I wonder why 2 of the 3 methods didn't work? This was Windows 11 Pro, and the license key is a Windows 10 Enterprise key as reported by key finder.

 

[drajitsh]

Thank this is a useful article

 

[torbjorn.lindgren]

The OA3xOriginalProductKey method returns the Windows OEM license key stored in the BIOS for pre-installed machines where they used that method to store it - most OEMs do this because this is the only way where they DON'T need to physically affix a sticker with the key on the machine which saves them time.

If there's no Windows OEM key in the BIOS it will be empty and if you've reinstalled using a different key it will give you the wrong key! It is useful as a way to access the key that comes with the hardware on most newer OEM machines but is no substitute for actually checking what license key Windows actually use.

And the third method usually? sometimes? returns a "digital key" that's only valid for the specific install - there's no real use for this since it can't be used even on the same hardware after a reinstall!

So really, only the first method should ever be used, there are other programs and tools that will work but there's no reliable methods that doesn't use tools!
So you might as well use the most well-known one, Magical Jelly Bean KeyFinder.

And in my experience Microsoft will 99 times out of 100 automatically detect and apply the correct key (as long as you select the right Windows Edition) even when doing clean installs on existing hardware even if you don't use a MS account for login and it doesn't have a BIOS stored license key. If it does have the stored key it goes up to 100%.

OTOH this stored BIOS license key can be a problem if you're trying to do a clean install of a DIFFERENT edition of Windows (like Pro while the machine came with Home). Windows install bypass the Edition selection when it finds that key in BIOS storage, the workaround for this is to edit one of the file on the install media which forces it to always ask.

Note that it does this (install "wrong" edition) even if it later in the process shows that Microsoft will find and use the license for the other edition without logging in on an MS account, it does it by looking up various hardware serial numbers but this happens much later in the install process and only works if you've forced it to the right edition.

 

[toco19]

These don't work. I have tried it on 3 PCs : 2 with Win 10 Pro, 1 with Home. Both Pro machines list identical keys in the registry and both return a different but identical keys with jellybean. The Home edition result is the same but with different keys listed than the Pros. All machines were blank with method 2 same as don0819 stated above. None of these keys match the originals which I have kept a list of on my Server. Jellybean does list my MS Office keys correctly tho so at least there's that. I used it many years ago with previous versions of Windows where it performed well BUT there was a change with Windows 7 where it used to also list an Internet Explorer key which matched the sticker key. Activation changed the Windows key to another digital key I believe.

 

[don0819]

Thank you @torbjorn.lindgren for the excellent explanation! Keyfinder it is!

 

[Colif]

If you link Licence to a Microsoft Account, you don't need to know key at all.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...e-change-2c0e962a-f04c-145b-6ead-fb3fc72b6665

nullifying entire point of article.

 

[don0819]

Thanks, I do have a Microsoft Account! These licenses are very confusing to me.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I don't understand why anybody would need to do this at all considering basically all systems these days either have a digital license attached to the BIOS ID string OR a Microsoft account.