This is how to find your Windows 10 product key and activate it
Whether
you used Microsoft’s free
Windows 10 upgrade offer or got a new license off
retail, MSDN and the likes, you need to know how to find your Windows 10 product key
and how activation works on free upgraded as opposed to new retail copies of
Windows 10. Here’s everything you need to know about Windows 10 product keys and
activation process.
Upgrading to Windows 10:
If
you have used a genuine copy of either Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 to upgrade your PC
to Windows 10, then your license
will be tied to the hardware you upgrade on, and not your Microsoft account. In
this case, you won’t get any new product key either. This can be verified by
using any third-party product key software like ProduKey or The Ultimate PID
Checker. They will show you generic product keys like TX9XD-98N7V-6WMQ6-BX7FG-H8Q99
for Windows 10 Home
and VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T
for Windows 10 Pro
edition.
Clean Installation of Windows 10:
If
you want to perform a clean
installation of Windows 10 on the same machine, you can download an ISO file,
turn it into a USB drive or DVD media and then run the setup for clean install.
During the installation, Windows setup will ask you to provide product key, just
skip this step and allow the installation to complete. Once clean installation
of Windows 10 is complete, your copy
of Windows will activate
automatically as soon as you connect to Internet. This happens as Microsoft
knows you clean installed on the same hardware. To check your activation status
of Windows 10, you can either go to
Settings (WinKey+I) > Update & security > Activation: