New
#20
Yup. I've got 5 upgrade Home > Pro retail keys (4 x Win7, 1 x Win 8.x). I have used these upgrade keys randomly and indiscriminately over the last few years on multiple devices
I currently have 7 devices, all upgraded using the keys (but note I only had 5 keys in total !!) and don't have a clue which key was used on which machine. I am convinced MS didn't give a stuff, as long as the key was valid, it let it go. All are still working flawlessly
Until ....
I bough a new laptop yesterday with Win 11 Home ..... NONE, NOT ONE of the upgrade keys were successful, none were accepted.
I too have been trying keys because i have a whole lot of keys to try and i have some laptops that i have had for a few years got from an old job that they were throwing away but they never had chargers which i finally got around to buying some. With various disc Installs and keys on the computers.
None of the keys tried worked. Didn't try the OEM keys yet but its the last shot. They are xp and vista keys but i don't want to have to go through several OS to try it as those shouldn't work past vista all though have not tried.
@ Paul Back (one week ago..) very useful bat file. Thanks. How do i find my Office login?
Hello @Naj Snarf,
If you are talking about findingActivation / Registration Keys
in general, thenBelarc Advisor
is great to retrieve this sort of information:
> Belarc Advisor
If you want to go further with this, then I suggest that you start your own Thread as this is off topic for this Thread.
I hope this helps.
Made an edit as I mucked the original post up a bit
Keep in mind that OEM Windows 7 and earlier use a BIOS SLIC table. Thats what's used during installation when using "Custom OEM" install media. Standard Windows 7 etc install media won't look for or use the SLIC Tables. Those PC get a generic OEM SLP key.
Those OEM SLP keys won't work when entered manually. They are blocked on the activation server. The key on the OEM COA sticker is a unique key, but requires online activation, on first time use with the stated OS version on the sticker.
Windows 10 install media won't look for, or use the OEM SLIC table. And from the sounds of it, won't accept the OEM COA keys either now. It was only from Windows 8 onwards that the OEM embedded key was unique to that device. And was one that was looked for and read by Windows 10 standard install media. Those Windows 7 and 8 OEM keys aren't likely looked for anymore when using current Windows 10 install media.
I was a Microsoft MVP / Insider MVP. As a result I have more Technet / MSDN keys than I'll even need or use in my lifetime. And all my current hardware has multiple DL's for just about any version of Windows 10. It makes it pretty well impossible to test out these new developments. But I thought I'd pass on my insight into it anyway.
Last edited by alphanumeric; 17 Oct 2023 at 03:49.
There is no key in the slic table, the matching xrm-ms file and slp key has to be entered.
The oem media does it like this:
Code:cscript %windir%\system32\slmgr.vbs -ilc %windir%\system32\oem\OEM.xrm-ms cscript %windir%\system32\slmgr.vbs -ipk 32KD2-K9CTF-M3DJT-4J3WC-733WD
There is a key in the MSDM table for win8 and newer.
I dont know if manually entering the msdm key after installation would work. It might.
nir sofers little tool should be able to find the msdm key if anybody wants to try it
FirmwareTablesView
Changing the installed key to a valid Windows 7 or Windows 8 key used to work and activate Windows 10, it was the last remaining way after MS turned off the free activation on upgrading from Win7/8 to Win10.
It still worked for me on 28th September, as can be seen in post #1.
MS have turned this activation off now, I tested and confirmed that in post #15