Question windows 10 product key retrieval

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balanovich

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Sep 13, 2008
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Hello,
I have windows 10 and i want to change my hard drive. This mean reinstalling windows.
How can I find my Windows Product Key?
I don't know where i got my current windows licence.... It used to be a windows 7 or 8 licence.

wmic or
wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey
didn't yield anything.

I saw other threads but none were like my situation.
My pc was built part by part. I don't know or think my product key is in my motherboard's BIOS.
How can i make sure it is or isn't?

My SSD is old and i need to change it, what can i do?

Thank you
 
Like USAFRet said, just remember on a clean install to select 'I don't have a product key' when asked to enter this.
 
USAFRet said:
Where did the license come from originally?

A reinstall, in the same system, generally incurs NO licensing issues.
Reinstall, blow past where it asks for the license.
The system will activate itself when it goes online later.


But, Belarc Advisor can generally retrieve that license.
https://www.belarc.com/products/belarc-advisor
Click to expand...
I do not know where the licence came from.
It might have been a licence given to me while i was in university, 10-12 years ago... I know i did get a few windows 7 and 8 licences back then......
I remember nothing and want to find out.

I there a way to verify that my mobo has been endowed with my product key ?

thank you
 
balanovich said:
I do not know where the licence came from.
It might have been a licence given to me while i was in university, 10-12 years ago... I know i did get a few windows 7 and 8 licences back then......
I remember nothing and want to find out.

I there a way to verify that my mobo has been endowed with my product key ?

thank you
Click to expand...
Log on to your account at MS (if you have one).
Look in "Devices"
 
I signed in to MS
Now i have registered my device.... i hope.
It says that "Windows is activated with a digital licence linked to you Microsoft account".
I'll buy my new hard drive and I can swap if there is an issue.... However, <Mod Edit> MS for all this trouble over simple PC maintenance.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
balanovich said:
I signed in to MS
Now i have registered my device.... i hope.
It says that "Windows is activated with a digital licence linked to you Microsoft account".
I'll buy my new hard drive and I can swap if there is an issue.... However, <Mod Edit> MS for all this trouble over simple PC maintenance.
Click to expand...
It used to be much harder, AND cost actual money for changes like this.
 
AAAAAAH ! What the hell? I rebooted my PC and now my login is tied to this generic outlook account!
What happened to my old username and password ?
How can i revert back to how thing were ?
 
Lol, i was freaking out a bit to much last night.
I had to recreate my normal account. but things are back to normal.
Thank you

So now that i have a windows licence linked to my MS account, i can change my hardrive and just use my MS account's licence to activate windows again, right ?
 
Last edited:
balanovich said:
Lol, i was freaking out a bit to much last night.
I had to recreate my normal account. but things are back to normal.
Thank you

So now that i have a windows licence linked to my account, i can change my hardrive and just use my account's licence to activate windows again, right ?
Click to expand...
Yes.

And you probably do not have to enter the license key during the install.

A reinstall in the same system (system defined as the motherboard) will/should activate itself.
 
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