ShowKeyPlus

Kyhi said:

because that key is still used by windows 10 - for digital entitlement

But how does showkeyplus pick up the retail 7 key without windows.old?

If you use produkey, for example, it only returns the generic 10 key, not original 7 key by default, but will pick 7 key up from windows.old if pointed there.

I do no have windows.old.

Surely this means the 7 retail key is stored somewhere on my pc, albeit in encrypted format on my pc, presumably still in registry?

I am talking about a manually entered retail key not a generic 7 key built into bios (which is of no use without recovery disks).

I can understand this key being stored on the MS activation servers along with the hardware id but I presume showkeyplus cannot access the servers?

alphanumeric said:

It's stored in the registry under another reg key. Under Internet Explorer somewhere I think. Do a clean install and it won't be there or be detected. Do a registry search and you'll likely find it. Windows 7 doesn't store the key in the BIOS, there is an OEM identifier but no key. Only Windows 8 and 10 store a key in the BIOS.

Yeah I meant oem marker really.

So, you are saying old key is stored if upgraded, but not clean installed.

That certainly makes sense now. Useful to know, aif somebody has lost 7 retail, self installed oem, key or COA oem key (which has been used of course) and wants to revert after 30 days. No good for preinstalled 7 slp key of course without coa key.

Superfly said:

Yes, upgrades store it in the registry for rollback purposes - irrespective of Windows.old (which has it's own registry)

Yeah makes sense. I guess there is no point in removing it from 10 registry after 30 days, because if you rollback, you are restoring registry from windows.old.

This could be a case where a registry cleaner would be counter productive (rhetorical question really)?

Thanks guys for enlightening me, and this is useful to know. Showkeyplus is awesome compared with other tools.

Just had another thought.

Clearly if you clean install after a normal upgrade a la 10240 method only embredded 8.1 keys can be found, but what about 10586 where you use old key to activate - does that get stored?

Superfly said:

Digital entiltlement uses a special "Downlevel" file to verify (online) the key for upgrade and create a Genuine Ticket - once that is sucessfully created, the key is discarded and only the GT is used for activation.
(The new process is just a more efficient way of getting the GT - difference is, it's not from an installed system, but through Win 7/8 licencing info built into the Downlevel file.)

Thanks - then the only difference with an upgrade is that it stores the old key just to facilitate rollback.