Installing 10565 on a tablet that I suspect came with a pirated 10 Pro

Long story short, I am an Amazon reviewer and I recently received a Cube i10 (at a discounted price) from a merchant for the purpose reviewing it.

The first unit they sent had dead pixels AND a KMS folder in Windows and a "KMS8.exe" inside that folder.
I went back and forth with the merchant about this KMS8 executable and he claimed no knowledge of it, at all.
I did a reset of Windows 10 and when it loaded, the KMS folder and the exe were no longer on the device.
AND, ProduKey (from Nirsoft) showed that that device had a key.
I *thought* that the KMS8 was there to activate Office on it, since after the reset, Office was gone as well as the KMS folder and exe.

The merchant sent a new tablet and no dead pixels.
There was also not a KMS folder or exe in Windows.
Nirsoft ProdKey says it cannot find a product key.
WinKeyFinder shows the key as being ALL "8"s.
Magical Jelly Bean shows the "8"s as well.

I was snooping around in the “ProgramData” directory and found afolder named “DAEMON Tools Lite”. Inside that folder were 2 files.One named “license.dat” and the other “settings.ini” with the following entry:
[Ini]
DT0=C:\Users\i10\Desktop\新建文件夹 (2)\cn_windows_10_multiple_editions_x86_dvd_6846431.iso

After finding this, I am even more suspicious of this being a legit 10 Pro.
I never have used Daemon Tools, much less installed it on this tablet.


I have several Windows 7 keys from my TechNet subscription when I bought it right at the release of 7.
If I am understanding correctly, 10565 will allow me to use one of these TechNet keys from Windows 7.

Or, am I completely mistaken?
And, if I am able to use one of these keys, at what point will 10 prompt me for it?

Thanks for any help\input and suggestions.

Sounds like it is definitely working off an illegal Windows activation scheme. A product key finder should either see one of the generic product keys that Windows 10 gets from an upgrade, or it should see a retail Windows 10 product key.

There is still much confusion about whether a Windows 7 Product Key will activate build 10565 on a device that has never had Windows 10 on it before, but it wouldn't hurt to try. Windows 10 build 10565 will ask you for a product key on your device when you do a clean install of build 10565 on it.

One way to know for certain what type of activation the current Windows 10 installed has is to run "slmgr /dlv" (without the quotes) from a command prompt.

NavyLCDR said:

Sounds like it is definitely working off an illegal Windows activation scheme. A product key finder should either see one of the generic product keys that Windows 10 gets from an upgrade, or it should see a retail Windows 10 product key.

There is still much confusion about whether a Windows 7 Product Key will activate build 10565 on a device that has never had Windows 10 on it before, but it wouldn't hurt to try. Windows 10 build 10565 will ask you for a product key on your device when you do a clean install of build 10565 on it.

One way to know for certain what type of activation the current Windows 10 installed has is to run "slmgr /dlv" (without the quotes) from a command prompt.

NavyLCDR, I thank you for the info.

Here is a screen grab for you to decipher. Will this tell you for certain?

OldBull said:

NavyLCDR, I thank you for the info.

Here is a screen grab for you to decipher. Will this tell you for certain?

What it looks like is that it is a valid activation with Microsoft of a MAK license. A MAK license is one product key that can be activated for a certain number of times. So, if the merchant bought 10 activations for that MAK key, then that means there are 10 installs of Windows with the same Product Key. The 11th install with that same product key should not activate because that key would be all used up, until the merchant purchased more licenses for that key.

I would say that means that the Windows 10 you have is not necessarily pirated. I am not all that familiar with MAK keys and activation, so I've posted about all that I know. The questions I would have are:

1. Was it legal for the merchant to sell you the tablet with a MAK activation?
2. What happens when you want to do your own clean install of Windows 10 on the tablet? They didn't provide you with a product key - so is that product key stored in bios, and what are the limits of it re-activating on the same computer?

Another thing that would be interesting to see would be the results of running showkey on the tablet from this forum:
Showkey - Windows 10 Forums

If you want to post the results, you can click on any product key shown on the showkey result and it will XXX out the product key, except for the last 5.

The Daemon Lite program appears to be what they used to install Windows 10 with - not necessarily activate Windows 10 with.

NavyLCDR said:

What it looks like is that it is a valid activation with Microsoft of a MAK license. A MAK license is one product key that can be activated for a certain number of times. So, if the merchant bought 10 activations for that MAK key, then that means there are 10 installs of Windows with the same Product Key. The 11th install with that same product key should not activate because that key would be all used up, until the merchant purchased more licenses for that key.

I would say that means that the Windows 10 you have is not necessarily pirated. I am not all that familiar with MAK keys and activation, so I've posted about all that I know. The questions I would have are:

1. Was it legal for the merchant to sell you the tablet with a MAK activation?
2. What happens when you want to do your own clean install of Windows 10 on the tablet? They didn't provide you with a product key - so is that product key stored in bios, and what are the limits of it re-activating on the same computer?

Another thing that would be interesting to see would be the results of running showkey on the tablet from this forum:
Showkey - Windows 10 Forums

If you want to post the results, you can click on any product key shown on the showkey result and it will XXX out the product key, except for the last 5.

The Daemon Lite program appears to be what they used to install Windows 10 with - not necessarily activate Windows 10 with.

ShowKeyPlus shows all "8"s as well.

OldBull said:

ShowKeyPlus shows all "8"s as well.

Interesting. Hopefully one of the product key/licensing experts like @Superfly can shed some more info on this!

NavyLCDR said:

Interesting. Hopefully one of the product key/licensing experts like @Superfly can shed some more info on this!

I thank you once again and will wait and see if the Gent you speak of drops in.

Superfly said:

The KMS reference is an exploit to activate Windows 8 and Office. What happens when you upgrade then, is that Windows 10 uses a generic MAK key for digital entitlement (as it's a volume upgrade - shouldn't be allowed but is).

Alternatively, the key in use may be an MSDN Win 10 MAK key that has been built into the recovery partition.

MAK keys are not stored in the registry for security purposes and replaced with the -BBBBB placeholder.

You could install the latest Preview with your Win7 key (same edition) - I think this will give you digital entitlement.
You could then clean install Win 10 RTM thereafter without having to enter a key for activation, if you so wish.

SuperFly, thanks very much.
I am still undecided on what I am going to do with it. I will most likely try the Win 7 key and see how that goes.
I will report back the results, if that's what I do.