Installed W10's activation key?

Hello.

Is W10 Home Ed's control panel - system and security - system - Windows activation's Product
ID the key (its last three letters says OEM) used to install & activate? If not, then where I
can get its activation key to install W10 cleanly from scratch?

Thank you for reading, and hopefully answering.
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Ant wrote:
Hello.

Is W10 Home Ed's control panel - system and security - system - Windows activation's Product
ID the key (its last three letters says OEM) used to install & activate? If not, then where I
can get its activation key to install W10 cleanly from scratch?

Thank you for reading, and hopefully answering.

When you install Windows 10 the first time on a PC, a record is
kept of the machine NIC MAC address.

The next time you install (cleanly), the installation asks the
server "have you seen this PC before". The server answers
"yes, I have seen it". Then, the OS activates without a fuss.

If you make too many hardware changes to the PC (change the
motherboard), then the activation scheme breaks down. If there
is a Microsoft Account associated with the installation, you
can contact Microsoft Support and have the situation corrected.

*******

The generic keys created by free upgrades, are

VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T (Windows 10 Professional) my Test Machine
YTMG3-N6DKC-DKB77-7M9GH-8HVX7 (Windows 10 Home - multi language) English/French laptop!
BT79Q-G7N6G-PGBYW-4YWX6-6F4BT (Windows 10 Home - single language)

Those keys do not satisfy any key entry software in the OS.
Writing these on the bathroom wall, doesn't help anyone.

I list those, so you can tell what kind of key you've got. If
it's one of those, your key is "nothing special".

*******

If you want to see the Win10 key (generic) as well as the
qualifying Win7SP1 or Win8.1 key, you can try this program.
There is an older Win32 version as well. This is to show
the author has converted it to an "App". Free items
should download from the Store without a fuss (I'm not a big
Store user, and it's been a while since I tried). You can
go to Settings : Apps later and remove it if you want.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/sh...s/9pkvzcprx9nv

Apps work like on a cell phone, and need "permissions" to do
stuff. Don't ask me what permissions it needs to read the
Registry.

And if you're old fashioned like me, you could always get
the win32 version (security risks and all). No, I'm not
referring to Majorgeeks here. I've never received bogus
materials from Majorgeeks. It's just the nature of Win32,
to not have anyone "inspect it"...

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/deta...owkeyplus.html

As for the technical details, for at least the current key,
Microsoft has a relatively simple "obfuscation algo" it uses
to convert the 25 letter string, into a shorter item for
storage in the registry. The value of ShowKeyPlus and
similar programs, is they have a copy of the algo and can
reverse the process. The difference with ShowKeyPlus, is
it visits a second location to try to find the qualifying key
(when a person has done a Free Upgrade, or maybe in cases
where a person has done an Anytime Upgrade on an older OS).

Paul

On 21/02/2019 21:01, Ant wrote:
Hello.

Is W10 Home Ed's control panel - system and security - system - Windows activation's Product
ID the key (its last three letters says OEM) used to install & activate? If not, then where I
can get its activation key to install W10 cleanly from scratch?

Thank you for reading, and hopefully answering.

you don't need a key to install Windows 10. Just install it and for the
key you need to click small blue text that says "Not now" or something
similar. However, if your machine is from big branded OEMS such as HP
or Dell and the machine came with Windows 10 then the key is in
BIOS/Chips. You can get the key by running Product Key from NirSoft - a
free tool:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html

Are you still thinking !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mind
boggles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

Paul wrote:

When you install Windows 10 the first time on a PC, a record is
kept of the machine NIC MAC address.

The next time you install (cleanly), the installation asks the
server "have you seen this PC before". The server answers
"yes, I have seen it". Then, the OS activates without a fuss.

If you make too many hardware changes to the PC (change the
motherboard), then the activation scheme breaks down. If there
is a Microsoft Account associated with the installation, you
can contact Microsoft Support and have the situation corrected.
....

Oh wow, thanks. Interesting. You're right. I didn't have to enter and activate at all with a clean installation on
the same box. Nice. I did manage to get the key with https://github.com/Superfly-Inc/ShowKeyPlus/releases. I took a
screen shot and saved a text file just in case though! It showed many keys from W10. Wow.
--
Quote of the Week: "As a thinker and planner, the ant is the equal of
any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts
she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high
mental qualities she is above the reach of any man..." --Mark Twain
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org /
/ /\ /\ \ http://antfarm.ma.cx. Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

"Ant" wrote in message
...
Is W10 Home Ed's control panel - system and security - system - Windows
activation's Product
ID the key (its last three letters says OEM) used to install & activate?

The Product ID is not an activation key, it’s an ID for MSFT to determine
the level of support and if support is the responsibility of MSFT or the OEM
- retail(non-OEM) versions of Windows don't include an OEM specifier in the
Product ID

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