OK, so I've been in some deep crap with my computer lately. I just built a new system over the summer andg ot windows 10 on it by installing windows 7 (because I had an unused product key for it) then upgrading to windows 10. It worked perfectly for the first few months but then about 2 months ago, it started to get stuck while booting into windows. It would reach the desktop and begin to load stuff then just stop. The HDD led would stop lighting up and nothing would happen until I force shut down and turned it on again. At first I would only have to restart once and it would boot fine, but over time, I would have to restart 4-5 times.
One day my computer just wouldn't even load windows at all. It would show the bios splash screen then when it tried to boot all it was was just a black screen with a blinking underscore.
I couldn't type anything and the only thing I could do was turn it off. What I'm pretty sure is giong on is that the boot media on the hard drive got corrupted from the forced restarts and eventually just wouldn't boot. I tried using windows 10 installation media to try and repair the system but it ended up failing. I eventually took my hard drive out of my old computer that my brother uses so that I still have a computer to use.
I copied my 300 or so GB of games over and copied all of my personal files over to the hard drive that works and then I was just going to reinstall windows 10, but the thing is, I need the product key but i can't unhook it from the system because I can't boot into the OS it's stored on. So long story short, I need a way to extract a product key from a hard drive I can't boot into. I am able to get onto a windows OS on a different drive, but I don't know how to unhook the key from the other HDD so i can use it again on the exact same system.
In this guide we’ll show how to transfer Windows 10 license to another hard drive or new computer. Transferring Windows 10 license to another hard drive or new computer depends on the type of Windows 10 license you are using. Microsoft distributes Windows in various form like Retail, Volume License, Upgrade licenses, Academic and OEM license (PC’s that come pre-installed with Windows 10/8/7). A regular user might not think of transferring Windows 10 license to a new hard drive or computer until certain situations like – switching to a new PC and thinking about purchasing new Windows 10 license even when you have a license key or working with a macOS device and want to work with Windows 10 using Boot Camp but don’t want to buy another license key arise.
Here’s how to do it. But before that we need to know if the key is transferable or not. How to tell if Windows 10 product key is transferable? Windows 10 as described by Microsoft is a free upgrade, but it does have some restrictions. If you’ve upgraded from an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Windows 8, 8.1, 7 (i.e. It was pre-installed) then your license has OEM rights. This means that you’re not allowed to transfer product key to another device.
The same is when you’re upgrading device that came with Windows 8/7 pre-installed as they are OEM licenses. Once you upgrade to Windows 10 machine gets OEM rights.
Whereas if you are using retail copy of Windows 10 then you can transfer Windows 10 key to multiple devices. This means retail license can be transferred as many times as you want. But sometimes you may receive activation error depending on the situation and number of times the product has been transferred.
Minecraft world download windows 10. Now that we know how to determine if a Windows 10 license key is transferable or not, we need to learn how to remove the license and transfer it to another hard drive or Windows 10 PC. Here, transferring, means Windows 10 license key will be uninstalled from the old computer so that it can be used on a new one. Windows 10 license key cannot be used simultaneously on two computers.
Windows 10 includes a bunch of “Optional Features” that are specifically intended for business networks and servers. Here’s a quick.
How to transfer a Windows 10 product key to a new PC? If you are running Windows 10 retail version, you can transfer the product to a new PC using steps below: Using Command Prompt to uninstall Windows 10 license To uninstall Windows 10 product key from your existing device, follow the steps below:. Right click on Windows button and select Windows PowerShell (Admin). Or press Windows key + and select PowerShell (Admin). Here, in Windows PowerShell type vbs /upk command to uninstall the product key and press Enter. This will uninstall the license key, meaning Windows 10 product key can now be used on another PC. Quick Tip: There’s a possibility that you do not see “Uninstalled product key successfully” message at once.
Hence, we recommend you to run the command multiple times until you see the message. Now you can freely transfer your Windows 10 license key to another hard drive or computer. Note: If older PC on which Windows 10 was running no longer works, you don’t need to follow above mentioned steps. Windows 10 brought out the best of a lot of system apps. The taskbar is one of them, however, you. How to install Windows 10 license key using Command Prompt? To install Windows 10 using Command Prompt follow the steps below: Note: Since we are reinstalling Windows 10 you need to click on “I don’t have a product key” when prompted during Windows 10 setup.
However, if you have full version of Windows 10 (you bought it from the store), you can enter the key in the box shown below: Next, select Windows 10 edition based on the one you were using earlier. As the product key will work on same edition only. Users using Windows 10 Home, Windows 8.1 Core, Windows 7 Starter, Home Premium, Home Basic, should select Windows 10 Home. Users using Windows 10 Pro, or Windows 8.1 Pro, Windows 7 Ultimate or Professional should select Windows 10 Pro. Next during Out of Box Experience you’ll again be prompted to enter Windows 10 product key. Here click on Do this later if you are using Windows 8.1/8/7. However, if you have full version of Windows 10 (purchased from Windows store) you can enter the product key to activate Windows 10 license.
How to fix System restore greyed out on Windows 10? Using Windows Registry Editor, using Group Policy Editor, using elevated. Next you’ll see desktop screen here enter the license key. Alternatively, you can use Windows PowerShell (Admin) to reactivate Windows 10. To do so, follow the steps below:. Press ‘Windows’ key + X from the context menu select Windows PowerShell (Admin).
Here enter slmgr.vbs followed by Windows 10 product key. Once Windows 10 license key is entered, press Enter key to proceed. You’ll now see a message with product key was updated. To verify if your Windows 10 is activated type slmgr /dlv in Windows PowerShell and press Enter.
Here, under “License Status,you’ll see the status as “Licensed” this means your Windows 10 is fully activated. Now, exit Windows PowerShell and use Windows 10.
However, if you do not see the status as Licensed you’ll need to contact support or call them to get Windows 10 reactivated. Activating Windows 10 manually To manually activate Windows 10 license key use the steps mentioned below:. Press Windows key + X. Next from the context menu select Windows PowerShell (Admin). Here type slui4 to re-activate the copy of Windows 10 and press Enter. Next, choose your country or region and click Next. Here, you’ll be able to see a toll-free number, use it to call Microsoft support line, and provide then with the installation IDnumber when asked for.
Next, click Enter confirmation IDbutton and enter confirmation ID provided by Microsoft agent to reactive Windows 10. Click the Activate Windows After completing the steps, Windows 10 should be activated on the new computer.
There are many backup software on the market and some of them does a really good job in making sure that there is an exact copy of the important files available at the backup drive. Although backing up of files is important, many people forget to backup the Windows product key or third party software license that is installed on their computer.
When their computer crashes and had to, they had to go through the trouble of searching for the license number to activate the software that they’ve purchased. If the license key are misplaced and forgotten, they’d have to contact the software support team and provide them with proof of purchase so that they can reissue the license.
The problem is software licenses aren’t stored in one standard location where you can just copy the whole folder to backup and then paste it back to reactivate all the software. They are stored all over the place either in a form of an external file or a registry key. Fortunately we found 10 software that can scan your computer and recover the lost or forgotten product key licenses so you can back it up in case you need to reactivate them again. Computer technicians can also use these software to help customers recover their software license numbers from non-bootable drive. LicenseCrawler LicenseCrawler is a portable license recovery tool that is free for private use. It scans the registry area on local and remote computers located at the same network for available serial numbers for Windows, Office and third party applications. The amount of software license that LicenseCrawler can detect is unknown because there is no such information being published at their website or program.
Since it is free, you can run it and cross check if it is able to reveal the license for the shareware installed on your computer. Works on all versions of Windows including both 32-bit and 64-bit. MSKeyViewer Plus MSKeyViewer Plus is free and portable. Although the name of this tool sounded like it can only view Microsoft key, but it also support Office and third party applications as well. To view the supported applications, run the program, click the About button and followed by clicking the Supported Products button.
The list of supported product seems a bit outdated because this program itself was last updated nearly 2 years ago. Product Key Finder Product Key Finder is free but take note of the adware installation when installing this program. It is a very simple program that claims to support over 200 programs but without a detailed listings. Running the program will instantly list all the license number and allows you to backup to a CSV file by clicking the Save button. Only support 32-bit Windows operating system. Softkey Revealer Softkey Revealer is free and portable program that is able to support retrieving licenses from a huge list of software which can be found on.
Other than just depending on the signature that they created, it also seems to list keys with the value username, password, user and etc. The program is very small in size at only 200KB in size and even comes with additional tools to decrypt Adobe encrypted key, removing content advisor password and changing the current Windows key. Keyfinder Thing Keyfinder Thing is probably one of the most popular free tool to help you recover product keys from your computer. It supports a total of 90 software titles which can be viewed from the View Software List. You can save the results from the File menu.
Take note of the installation of adware during setup. Magic Keyfinder 2012 Magic Keyfinder 2012 is actually a shareware but the you can use it for free with a huge limitation where only the first 10 digits of the supported product keys are displayed. The actual amount of supported software are unknown. Other than using their database signature, you can also use the deep scan where it detects a certain keywords and determine that it is a possible license key.
During testing, only 5 digits from our Windows 7 product keys are being displayed. Download Magic Keyfinder 2012 7. Product Key Viewer Product Key Viewer is a shareware that supports retrieving license key over 1000 applications from your computer.
Only the Pro and Tech version will report activation keys for third party applications. The Lite version will only locate the Windows and Office product keys. You can test Product Key Viewer to identify what software is being identified on your computer for free except the data are being partially hidden.
Download Product Key Viewer 8. Product Key Finder by Top Password The name of this software is exactly the same as the one listed under number 3 except this is a shareware that cost $17.95 and developed under a different company called Top Password.
The amount of supported software is unknown but the official webpage did mention Windows, Office, SQL Server, Exchange Server, Visual Studio, VMWare, Adobe and many other products. The results are displayed instantly upon scanning. It supports scanning the current system, remote system or even on non-booting systems. Works on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows.
Product Key Explorer Product Key Explorer is a shareware that cost $29.50 that supports more than 4000 software and games as well. You can view the complete list of supported products. You can scan both local and remote computers with the built-in option to use a different login credentials. The results can be saved to an external file or a registry file. Recover Keys Recover Keys is developed by the same company as KeyFinder Thing except that this is their shareware version that supports including games. It cost $24.95 to unlock the program or else it will only show the first 4 characters of the license number. It also comes with advanced features to scan multiple computers through IP range or manually selecting the computers that is available on the network.
Editor’s Note: After testing the 10 product key recovery software above, the software that stood out in the tests are LicenseCrawler and Recover Keys. Both of this tool managed to retrieve additional licenses that weren’t detected on the other 8. Although some of the software claims to support recovering license keys from more than a few thousands software, it is possible that the software installed on your computer is not in the list.
You can definitely make a request by contact them to include it in their database.
The Product Key for newer Windows 10 computers is embedded in the computer’s UEFI firmware and cannot be easily seen or accessed. Keep reading this post to know more about Windows 10 Product Key and where to find it. Windows 10 Product Key The Windows 10 Product Key can be defined as a 25 character long code used by Microsoft to prevent theft and verify that your copy of Windows hasn’t been used on more PCs than the Microsoft Software License Terms allow. The 25 character Windows 10 Product Key contains letters and numbers, divided into 5 groups that are separated by a hyphen “-” and written in the following format. Windows 10 Product Key: XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX Where to Find Windows 10 Product Key The method to find or view the Product Key depends on the Windows 10 computer that you are trying to find the product key for. Windows 10 Bought Online: In case you bought a digital copy of Windows 10 from a Microsoft website, the Product Key will be in the email sent to you by Microsoft as a confirmation of your purchase. Upgraded to Windows 10: Your computer does not have a product key, in case you upgraded to Windows 10 operating system from a previous version of Windows (Windows 7 or Windows 8.1).
In all such cases your PC has been registered on Microsoft activation servers with a digital entitlement for Windows 10 that will always be used to activate Windows 10 on your PC. Windows 10 bought from a retailer: You will find the Windows 10 Product Key on a label inside the Windows 10 box, in case you bought your copy of the operating system from an authorized retailer. New Computers: New computers that come pre-installed with Windows 10 operating system will have the product key installed or embedded in the computers UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface). On new computers, you may also find the Product Key displayed on a sticker inside the box. Do You Really Need to Know Windows 10 Product Key It is safe to assume that you will never come across the need to use your Windows 10 Product Key during regular or everyday use.
Microsoft appears to be doing away with product keys, and it is perfectly possible to reset or reinstall Windows 10 operating system on the same PC without having to enter the Product Key. Whenever you reset or install Windows 10, the product key will be automatically detected from the UEFI chip of your computer and Windows 10 will be activated on your computer. As mentioned above, you will not have a Product Key when you upgrade to Windows 10 from a previous version of the Windows operating system.
In such cases Microsoft will allow you to reset or reinstall Windows 10 on the same computer by making use of the digital entitlement that is tied to the hardware configuration of your computer. What if You Change the Hardware Configuration on the Computer Since the digital entitlement is linked to the computers hardware, making significant changes to the hardware configuration on your computer can potentially wipe out the digital entitlement. For example, you will not be able to activate Windows 10 on your computer, in case you have changed the motherboard and made similar significant hardware changes on your computer. In all such cases, you will be required to make a call to Microsoft’s customer support department and get their help in re-activating your copy of Windows 10. View or Access Windows 10 Product Key on the Computer While the need to know, access or view the Windows 10 product key is not really there, you can make use of certain third party software programs to access your Windows 10 product key. While there are many programs that claim to access and view the Windows 10 product key, you need to be aware that some of them do not work and many of them just display a generic product key that does not really belong to your computer.
ShowKeyPlus for Windows 10 ShowKeyPlus is a free software that can be used to view or access Windows 10 Product key on your computer. This program is portable, you can carry this program on a USB drive and use it on any PC. The ShowKeyPlus Program for Windows 10 has a very simple user interface, most users should find it easy to use this program. You can easily save the Product Key and other information displayed by this program to a text file by just clicking on the Save button. You can download this open source program from.
Looking to reinstall Windows on the same PC or move your copy of Windows from an older PC to a new one? Well, depending on what version of Windows you have installed, you may or may not need the product key. If you have Windows 7 or earlier, your system is activated by a single product key that is stored in the Windows registry. Using third-party software or a simple script, you can extract this key quite easily. You can then use this key to install Windows again on the same machine or use it to install Windows on another machine as long as you on the original machine.
If you have Windows 8.1 installed, you won’t have any product key unless you bought a retail version of the operating system. Otherwise, the product key is now stored in an encrypted format in the BIOS or UEFI firmware. This means a lot of Windows 8 machines bought from Dell, HP, etc. Won’t even have a COA sticker on the side or back of the machine. This is good and bad. It’s good because you can reinstall Windows and not have to worry about any product key.
It will simply activate automatically since the key is stored in the BIOS or firmware. It’s bad because it doesn’t allow you to use the key on another machine if something happens to the first one. Also, if you have to replace certain parts in your machine, it might cause Windows to deactivate. In this case where it’s the same PC, just with different parts, you can call Microsoft and they will activate it for you.
With Windows 10, everything changes again. Now there is no product key at all! Windows 10 introduces something new called a digital entitlement. This entitlement is based on off your computer’s hardware and is stored with Microsoft. This is true for any OEM machines or PCs that were upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7 or Windows 8. This means you can’t transfer your copy of Windows 10 to another computer. It also means your original Windows 7 or 8 product key will disappear.
If you buy a retail copy of Windows 10, however, you will get a product key, and the license can be transferred over to another PC. Now there is one exception to the above rules: if you upgraded Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10, then you can technically transfer Windows 10 to another computer until July 29th, 2016. On this date, Windows 10 is no longer going to be free and there will be no more free upgrades.
So you can technically install Windows 7 or 8 again on a different PC and then upgrade it to Windows 10 again. It’s definitely a lot of work, but possible. If you’re thinking about upgrading Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10, you should first use this post to find your product key and store it somewhere safely in case you need to reinstall Windows 7 or 8.
Find Windows 10 License Number
Read my previous post on. Note that you can also use the methods below to show your product key on Windows 10, but it’s just going to give you a generic key, not a real product key. Find Windows Product Key – ProduKey The first method to get your product key on Windows 8 and earlier is by using a third-party program from Nirsoft called. It’s free and Nirsoft software is always clean, so you don’t have to worry about viruses or malware. Scroll down towards the bottom of the page to get to the download links. If you have 64-bit Windows installed, download the x64 version of the program. Once you download it, unzip the files and run the ProduKey application.
It will instantly find all Microsoft applications installed on your system and give you the Product ID and Product Key. It’s a great program and you can just delete the program files once you are done. I also like using this program because I’ve ended up writing down the product keys for other products like Office that I hadn’t thought of looking up. Find Windows Product Key – Script If you don’t want to download any software, you can simply create a script that will return the value of the product key. In order to create the script, you need to first open Notepad.
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