How to replace Windows key in BIOS. How to find out the OEM Windows activation key from the BIOS. Windows activation key in AIDA64
- Hello dear administrators! Question: how can I find out the OEM key for a licensed Windows 8.1 laptop if it does not have a hard drive? Or in other words, how can you find out the Windows 8.1 key embedded in the laptop’s BIOS? My problem is that my hard drive failed and I bought a new one, now I want to install Windows 8.1 Single Language pre-installed from the store on it, but I’m afraid that the system is not activated automatically during installation.I read on the Internet that using some programs you can find out the Windows 8.1 key,
- “hardwired” into the laptop’s BIOS and the key is saved in any case, for the entire life of the laptop.
Hello admin! I bought a laptop a year ago, then it had Windows 8 installed, which I immediately tore down and installed Windows 7, but now I’m thinking about returning Windows 8, but I don’t know the license key, can I look it up somewhere? Previously, the Windows key was printed on the bottom of the laptop, but now it is not there.
How to find out the OEM key of a licensed Windows 8.1 laptop if it does not have a hard drive. Or in other words, how to find out the Windows 8.1 key “hardwired” into the laptop’s BIOS
Hello friends! With the advent of laptops with pre-installed Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and UEFI BIOS, Microsoft changed the rules for distributing licensed copies of Windows; now the operating system license key is no longer on the sticker located on the bottom of the laptop; from now on, the key is “sewn” in text form into the ACPI MSD table of the BIOS laptop. What to do, these are the new rules and according to them, an ordinary user does not need to know the key of the operating system installed on his laptop.
You can also find out the key if the laptop does not have a hard drive at all, in this case we will have to boot the laptop from a bootable flash drive Live CD AOMEI PE Builder, this flash drive contains all the programs I mentioned, in today’s article I will show you how to create such a flash drive.
- Note: If you look at the question from the other side, then it is not at all necessary for an ordinary user to recognize the Windows 8.1 key embedded in the laptop’s BIOS, and here’s why. The fact is that when you install on a laptop exactly the version of the operating system that was preinstalled on it from the store (in most cases, Windows 8.1 Single Language), the key will be inserted automatically during system installation and you will not need to enter anything. In other words, know the registered key You do not need to enter the ACPI MSD table of the laptop BIOS under any circumstances, even if you replace the hard drive on the laptop. I wrote about all this in detail in this.
For example, let's take a laptop with Windows 8.1 pre-installed from the store, delete everything from the hard drive and install another Windows 10 operating system, and then run our utilities and find out the Win 8.1 key registered in the BIOS.
Download all programs in one archive on my cloud storage.
So, let's look at the Windows 8.1 key registered in the BIOS with the programs: ShowKeyPlus, OemKey, RWEverything, ProduKey.
The first program in line is ShowKeyPlus
The program displays detailed information.
Product Name(The version of the operating system currently installed on the laptop) - Windows 10 Single Language.
Product ID: Product ID.
Installed Key: The key for Windows 10 Single Language currently installed on the laptop.
OEM Key: TO Windows 8.1 key, registered into the ACPI MSD table of the laptop BIOS (what we need is the key embedded in the BIOS).
OEM Edition: Operating system version ( Windows 8.1 Single Language) preinstalled at the factory by the laptop manufacturer. This is the version that the key will fit into ( OEM Key) and it will be entered automatically during system installation, that is, you will not have to enter it.
OemKey program
It only shows the Windows 8.1 key embedded in the laptop's BIOS.
Go to the program folder and run the executable file Rw.exe.
Click on the button ACPI.
Click on the MSDM button and see the Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 key.
The ProduKey program, already familiar to you from our previous articles, will also cope with the task of determining the key embedded in the BIOS of a laptop.
The utility shows two keys, the first one is an OEM key registered to the ACPI MSD table of the laptop BIOS, and the second, the key of the currently installed Windows 10.
How to find out the OEM key of a licensed Windows 8.1 laptop if it does not have a hard drive?
Create a bootable USB flash drive Live CD AOMEI PE Builder
Friends, in this case, we need to boot the laptop from the AOMEI PE Builder Live CD bootable flash drive. Download the flash drive image from my cloud storage.
After downloading the ISO image, we launch the program, which is what we will use to create a bootable USB flash drive.
In the main window of the WinSetupFromUSB program, select our flash drive (be careful, all data on the flash drive will be deleted).
Put a tick on the item Auto format it with FBinst and check the FAT32 box.
Check the box Vista/7/8/Server 2008/2012 based ISO and click on the button on the right that opens the explorer window.
Explorer opens, find the ISO image of the Live CD AOMEI PE Builder, select it with the left mouse and click "Open".
Hello dear readers. Do you know how to properly activate licensed Windows? Say what you know, hmm, I thought so too, but somehow I came across a laptop on which, after installing the new Windows 8, I was going to activate it using the key, but to my surprise I couldn’t do it. To be more precise, after clicking on the “Activate Windows” button, instead of a request to enter a key, strange errors appeared, such as this: “DNS name not specified.”
Over time, of course, I figured out what was going on, it turned out that during the installation of the system some strange key was picked up, which at the time of activation was simply not recognized by the system. This problem could only be resolved by deleting the old activation key, and of course, installing the working key that came with the laptop. Therefore, I decided to write an article using my personal example of how I managed to remove the old activation key and activate Windows from scratch.
So, I had a laptop with a pre-installed operating system and, of course, a key that was embedded in the BIOS. and I configured it using the . Then, I opened the computer properties and immediately clicked on the “ Activate Windows».
The activation process began immediately, I was even surprised why the system didn’t even prompt me to enter the key. Well, okay, I thought, perhaps the computer automatically supplied the required activation key. But literally a moment later an error appeared, which I wrote about just above. All subsequent attempts to activate Windows were unchanged, except that the error code changed.
Well, I thought and tried to find a field in which I could indicate the key that I got from the BIOS, but instead some incomprehensible key was already indicated everywhere. I could only see a few characters, but this was enough to understand that this code did not match what I had prepared. Thinking that there was some kind of confusion with the activation keys, I decided to delete the old key and re-enter the new one.
In general, after I deleted the old activation key and re-entered the one I prepared, everything worked out for me. First I saw the word “Success!!!”, and then that Windows activation was completed.
So if you find yourself in a similar situation and need to know how to remove old activation key, then just below you can find a simple and understandable guide on how to do this.
Removing the old activation key
To remove the old activation key in Windows 8, as with many other system settings, we will need the command line, or rather, there we will just have to run a few commands.
So, let's start by launching the command line, of course with administrator rights, otherwise when performing further steps you may not succeed.
Okay, the command line is running, now in the window that appears we write the following command:
slmgr.vbs/upk
and of course click “ Enter».
A window should appear notifying you that the key was successfully deleted.
That's all, in general, everything is much simpler than it seemed. This way we will be able to delete the old activation key.
After this, you can easily specify a new key and activate Windows.
You can do this in the Windows 8 menu or enter two more commands in CMD:
slmgr.vbs –ato
This way we will enter a new key and start activating the system.
How to remove an old activation key in Windows 8, 7, 10
In today's article we will look at the question of how to find Windows serial number, which was preinstalled on your equipment upon purchase.
Recently, Microsoft has changed the way it licenses its OEM products, namely Microsoft Windows. We are talking about those types of licenses that are usually preinstalled on laptops and system units by the manufacturer or assemblers, namely OEM licenses, developer licenses and single language versions.
Previously, when you bought a laptop with Windows 7 installed, you could find a sticker on the back of the equipment with the name of the purchased license and its activation key, which usually consisted of 25 characters. But since the release of Windows 8, the methods of distributing licenses have changed and now on the back of your laptop you will only find a Microsoft branded label, which confirms the right to use the operating system. Neither the name of the license nor the key will be on the sticker anymore!
Why is that? The thing is that with the advent of UEFI BIOS, it became possible to sew a key directly into it, and the system is activated automatically, without manually entering the key, provided that the exact edition of the operating system for which the serial number is preinstalled is installed on the laptop. Those. If you bought a laptop with Windows 8 with a license for one language, and then upgraded the system to Windows 8 Professional, then in this case your copy of Windows will not be activated.
- Contact the equipment manufacturer's technical support service. This will take a lot of time and will cost a lot of money. In addition, you will receive a clean operating system with basic settings and will definitely lose all personal information.
- Use standard Windows recovery tools. In this case, you will simply roll back your system to its original state from a copy that is stored on an “invisible” partition of your hard drive, provided that you have not deleted it.
This method is more likely intended for novice users, but is not entirely convenient in practice. The thing is that when the system is rolled back, the user receives the original pre-installed copy of Windows, with all previously installed demo programs, proprietary utilities and other garbage that clogs the system and, in most cases, is never useful to an ordinary or even an advanced user. You will also not be able to change the hard drive partitions as it would be more convenient for you during recovery.
In addition, you must copy your personal data and settings to external storage in advance, otherwise you will lose them. This also brings some inconvenience.
If for various reasons you do not want to carry out these operations yourself, then we are ready to offer you our assistance in installing the operating system on your equipment. Check it out on our website!
- What to do if the recovery partition does not exist, or recovery from it is impossible for various reasons? In this case, you will need to download the operating system distribution that is associated with your purchased license. Next, you need to burn it to a DVD or create a bootable USB flash drive, and then perform a clean installation of the operating system.
But the difficulty is that Microsoft has not officially published its distributions for download for a long time and finding the edition of Windows you need can cause problems, and downloading various modified pirated assemblies is also wrong. Another disadvantage of this approach is the problem with initial activation after a clean installation. Windows, for various reasons, despite the fact that the assembly is selected correctly, may not want to undergo activation.
How to get a Windows license key on a laptop
This is why we will need to extract the license key from the BIOS in order to activate the system manually via the Internet or by phone. To do this we need to open the command line: Start > Run > cmd.exe
In the window that appears, you need to run the command:
wmic path softwarelicensingservice get oa3xoriginalproductkey
