Windows 8 sticker but no product key in UEFI on refurbished laptop

I'm posting this on TenForums so others will learn from my experience upgrading to Windows 10. But I would really like to know if anyone else has seen a computer with the square Windows 8 sticker, but no product key either on a label or in firmware/bios? <- that's just bolded because that is the main question I have

I purchased a manufacturer refurbished ASUS X750JA laptop on ebay. It has the official Windows 8 little square sticker on the back, which to me indicates it should have a Windows 8 product key stored in UEFI firmware. It came with 2x 1TB hard drives. I didn't want to mess with Windows 8 or 8.1 at all, so I booted the laptop and it came up with the OOBE Windows 8.1 screen as expected. I entered audit mode and exported the drivers to a USB flash drive, then shut it down.

I pulled out the primary HDD and installed a completely blank SSD and clean installed Windows 10 Home. Created a local user account, and Windows 10 was not activated! *raise one eyebrow here* Ran showkey plus and no product key in UEFI/bios. So I connected the HDD to a USB adapter (which is why I did not bother making a back up image first - because I have lots of other means of making a backup image from the removed HDD). Looked at the software registry hive with showkey plus and it showed an OEM Windows 8 Home product key. Changed the Windows 10 product key and entered the Windows 8 product key and it activated just like it should.

If something had happened to that Windows 8 installation on that hard drive, though, without retrieving the product key, I would have been up the creek. I thought that if the Windows 8 was installed by the manufacturer that the product key either had to be stored in UEFI/bios or printed on a COA sticker?

Kyhi said:

It was a remanu - most likely board changed...

and service techs do not flash the bios

Hmmm..... so if I sent a computer back to the manufacturer for a motherboard replacement, they would not have to provide the user with the product key in any manner at all?

Anyway, the laptop is flawless and I am extremely happy with it. Lesson learned, though... Don't assume anything about the product key if your going to clean install Windows 10 on a Windows 8 computer that has not had Windows 10 before! Since I knew I was going to leave the original HDD untouched until Windows 10 was 100% successfully installed, I wasn't worried about doing any backup of it or product key retrieval - but my assumption that the product key would be in UEFI was obviously wrong.

Would of sucked after July 29. Good thing you bought it early.:)

Porthos said:

Would of sucked after July 29. Good thing you bought it early.:)

I made sure of that!

I just thought it was odd - but the product key in the software load it came with was good enough to get a digital entitlement for Windows 10, so it's good enough for me!