How to Find Your Original Windows 10 Product Key

[Stathi]

Product Key from Bios, use CMD or Powershell and copy/paste:
wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey

The script returned a Key but its not correct. I bought an MSI laptop with Home version. I then bought a set of 4 Windows 10 Pro Product keys from ebay for $15. I was unable to upgrade the laptop without calling MS, but they did activate it over the phone with no issue at all. Fast forward a few years....on a different PC that I did a clean install on, and used another of the 4 keys purchases, I have now upgraded that PCs MB, CPU, Mem, GPU. I made a USB stick to install and Windows is now installed but now activated. Ideally, I would transfer the key I was using before the HW upgrade on this new "clean" install of Windows. At a minimum, I do not want to attempt to use the key I used to upgrade my MSI laptop. So I am on my laptop trying to find the darn key. What is listed in system doesnt match ANY of the keys on my list, nor does the script above. What should I do?

 

[Stathi]

I recently upgraded my system, (FX8350 to Ryzen 2700) and although I have a retail copy of windows I still unregistered my windows license from the old hardware first using "slmgr /upk" as my friend upgraded his hardware too but he ended up having to ring microsoft and let them take control of his rig to get the licence to transfer as he couldn't get it to re register using his credentials. Unregistering then re-registering ("slmgr /ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx") on the new hardware saved me a lot of potential drama as the automatic license transfer doesn't always work.

Just upgraded my MB, CPU, MEM, GPU. FX6300 BLK to 2700X. Kind of like you. I have 4 keys I bought off ebay a few years for $15. I want to make sure I do not use any of the others I have on my laptop for example. It would be nice to use the one I had used before upgrading hardware. The laptop was a New MSI with Home, which I upgraded. I had to call MS, but it worked. That MSI Laptop now shows a number that is not any of the 4 I have printed out from my initial purchase on ebay. I cant by the life of me figure out how to get the True original Key from the MSI laptop so I can fricken write it down on my list. I also have NO idea how to figure out how to know which key I had used on the other PC previous to upgrade. Did you ever find a way ?

 

[TanyaMa]

Windows is activated using your organization's activation service. I tried both Powershell and WMIC command and not reveal the key product.

 

[JonnyDeer]

Is it possible to retrieve the license key online? My copy of Windows 10 isn't currently installed (I'm a linux user) and I can't obviously access its registry. Is the key by any chance stored somewhere in my MS account information? I installed Windows 10 in a virtual machine, but it doesn't pass the activation process. I wouldn't want to go through the whole hassle of installing Windows all over again just for the freakin key. Thank you

 

[Axle Greese]

I don't know why the product keys are the way they are on my two PCs.

I log into the same MS account from both PCs.

They both have the same generic OEM product key ending with -3V66T that you can google.

When I enter my Windows 8.1 pro *RETAIL* product key for Win 10 Pro on the newer PC, I still see the generic OEM product key. However, when I run "slmgr -dli" from the command-line the license is shown to be a Retail Channel License.

Now, when I reinstalled Windows 10 Pro on the much older PC which originally had Win 7 Ultimate (OEM) back in the day, and I then run "slmgr -dli", the OS is also shown to be from the Retail channel.

Does this mean any Windows installation linked to the same MS account will have a retail channel license?

 

[KaXaSA]

Well, the Activation "troubleshooter" was useless for me. Had to replace my motherboard & CPU, and of course installed Win10 (1803) new with my same MS account login, and it wouldn't activate. The troubleshooter would present selection of current system, but kept saying there was some problem. Luckily what fixed this (avoiding a call to MS) was using change product key and entering my Win7 product key I upgraded back in 2015. (I did actually have my supposed Win10 product key extracted before, but that wouldn't take with change product key.)

Just created an account to thank you, this actually worked for a PC I upgraded (Everything was new except HDD/SSD, PSU, and GPU). Both the Windows troubleshooter and the Microsoft support were 100% useless.

Since he had activated Windows 10 using his Microsoft account he always assumed he could upgrade hardware without any issue and with the free windows 10 upgrade he never really got an actual key(?).

Since we used the same SSD we actually tried to recover the key after the hardware upgrade using cmd/ vbs file/ regedit but all the information was blank. (testing them on my pc I could recover the key with no issues). The activation setting menu had a generic XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-3V66T key.

So finally we tried to use the Windows 7 key (couldn't find Windows 8 key) and to our surprise, it actually worked.
Keep in mind that I'm pretty sure this was the same key he was using before the windows 8 and 10 upgrades I have no idea if this matters.

 

[punctualturn]

Great article, thanks.

One step “missed”...I was able to find the key at www.ubuntu.com.

 

[zamroni111]

I made changes to the script to make it echoing the result as text instead of message box.
you can download from: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnY7Y2AS5iI-grV4MmiryeeQHxDJVA?e=rMekdH
you can click the script file or run in command line so the result can be copied to clipboard: cscript serialkey.vbs