How To Get Windows 8 Serial Key From Surface

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Where can one find the key of the installed windows 10 operating system on the surface book?

I tried to find it on the case and asked google but couldn't find an answer.

Windows 8 Serial Key Torrent

RononDex

It went on to tell me to “Enter the recovery key to get going again” Here is a photo of the message: Unfortunately I didn’t have the recovery key to my Windows RT Surface machine. I did remember that the key is stored somewhere on my Microsoft account that I use to login to the machine.

Find the serial number on Surface devices. Content provided by Microsoft. Applies to: Windows 8.1 Windows 10. Select Product Version. If Cortana isn’t available in your area, download and install the Surface Headphones app on your Windows 10 PC. Under About, look for Serial number. On the screen, select the Windows 8.1 system installed on your Surface. Select the user account whose password you have forgotten. Click Reset Password button. Then your forgotten password will be reset to blank. After that, take out the bootable USB drive and restart your Surface. Then you can login to your Windows 8.1 Surface without password.

  1. A product key finder program will only find your valid Windows 8 key if Windows 8 is installed and working, and if you've manually entered the Windows 8 product key in some previous installation. See our Windows Product Keys FAQ and Key Finder Programs FAQ pages for more help.
  2. It came to me with a preinstalled Windows 8. There was no serial key on any surface of laptop and i was given no CD or any other stuff, just the laptop; so I had no serial key. Like a month ago, my harddisk crashed, and needed to replace it; and temporarily a pc service installed Windows 10 because of we didn't know the serial key.
  3. I have a windows 8 64GB surface tablet. I have to reinstall windows and its asking me for a product number of 25 digits. I dont have the box it came in, I have the serial number of the tablet. The recovery number and the recovery id. Is there anyway to get my product key? The tablet has a virus so i cant use it and I really need to reset it.
  4. How do I get my windows product key from Windows 8.1? I use this when i needed to find my old serial for Photoshop, shows you all your hardware and software details installed including Windows key. He wants to do a clean install from the ISO and he wants his 8.1 key. Besides the fact that he can pull it from Windows 10.
RononDex
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2 Answers

According to Microsoft:

How To Get Windows 8 Serial Key From Surface

How to find your product key depends on how you bought your copy of Windows 10:

  • If you bought Windows 10 from an authorized retailer, the product key will be on a label inside the box it came in.
  • If you bought a digital copy of Windows 10 from a Microsoft website, the product key will be in the confirmation email you received after buying it or will be distributed digitally as an entitlement, in which case you won't receive a product key. For example, if you upgraded to Windows 10 for free, you'll receive an entitlement instead of a product key.
  • If you bought a new PC running Windows 10, the product key will be pre–installed on your PC and your PC will automatically be activated, included with the packaging the PC came in, or included on the Certificate of Authenticity (COA) attached to the PC.

I would assume it is in the box the Surface Book came in.

Windows 8 Serial Key Generator

CharlieRB

Windows 8 Serial Number

CharlieRB
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You can get the product key using:

Note: Please run the command with admin privileges ii won't work directly

Stephen Rauch
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Chetan NavaleChetan Navale

protected by Community♦Dec 22 '17 at 3:16

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Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged windows-10microsoft-surfacelicense-key or ask your own question.

If you’re planning on doing a reinstall of Windows but can’t find your product key, you’re in luck because it’s stored in the Windows Registry. It’s just not easy to find, and it’s impossible to read without some help. Luckily, we’re here to help.

As you can see in the screenshot above, the product ID is stored in the registry but is in a binary format that can’t be read by humans unless you are some sort of Cylon. You aren’t, are you?

RELATED:Beginner Geek: How to Reinstall Windows on Your Computer

We’re not really sure why Microsoft went to great lengths to make it difficult to see the product keys for their software, especially since they are stored right in there in the registry and can be read by software, if not by humans. We can only assume that they don’t want anybody to re-use a key from an old computer.

The great thing is that you can even recover a key, even from a computer that won’t boot anymore. All you need is access to the disk drive from a working computer. Keep reading for more.

How To Get Windows 8 To Start In Desktop Mode

Three Places You Might Find the Key

RELATED:Where to Download Windows 10, 8.1, and 7 ISOs Legally

The key you need will be in one of three places:

  • Stored in software on your PC: When you (or your PC manufacturer) installs Windows, Windows stores its product key in the registry. You can extract this product key, and–often–enter it when reinstalling Windows on your PC. Crucially, you’ll need to grab it from your operating system before you begin reinstalling Windows or it could be deleted if you format your hard drive.
  • Printed on a sticker: Some PCs use a technology called “System Locked Pre-installation,” or SLP. If your PC uses this, the product key on your PC–the one stored in the registry, and the one key-viewer applications display–will be different from the actual key your PC needs. The actual key is on a certificate of authenticity (COA) sticker on your PC or its power supply. The one in the registry and key-viewer application is a red herring. This system was common for Windows 7 PCs.
  • Embedded in your PC’s UEFI firmware: Many newer PCs that come with Windows 8 or 10 use a new method. The key for the version of Windows the PC comes with is stored in the computer’s UEFI firmware or BIOS. You don’t even need to know it–assuming you’re installing the same edition of Windows the PC came with, it should automatically activate and work without you needing to enter a key. It’ll all happen automatically.

Be sure to use the same version and edition of Windows the computer came with. In other words, if it came with Windows 7 Home Premium, you can’t install Windows 7 Professional.

If the Key Is Stored in Your PC’s Hardware

Let’s start with the simplest situation. On newer Windows 8 and 10 computers, the key isn’t stored in software where it can be wiped, or on a sticker where it could be smudged off or removed. No one can glance at your computer’s sticker to steal its product key. Instead, the key is stored in the computer’s UEFI firmware or BIOS by the manufacturer.

You don’t have to do anything special if you have this. You should just be able to reinstall the same edition of Windows the PC came with and it should just work without even asking you for a key. (Still, it may be best to find the product key using one of the below methods and write it down before reinstalling Windows–just in case.)

If you want to find the UEFI-embedded key and write it down, you can do so quite simply. Just open the Start menu, type “powershell”, and run the Powershell application that comes up.

Old and I presume if I had registered sooner would it have automatically given me a active product key? And then at the right hand side of the page it says Change your product key will one of the above keys shown here do the trick! Hi, before I go into the 3 options of my 8.1 system in the Restore and Update section will it ask me for a product key while it goes into to resetting windows? Where it say Basic information About Your Computer at the bottom It shows a product Key no: but it its only 20 digits long? As this lap top is over 3 yrs. Serial key finder.

Then, enter the following command and press Enter:

You should be rewarded with your embedded license key. Write it down and store it in a safe place.

Read the Key From the Certificate of Authenticity Sticker

If you have a Windows 7-era PC, there’s a good chance the PC’s key is a single key the manufacturer uses for all their PCs. Thanks to “System Locked Pre-installation,” you’re not allowed to use that key to install Windows. If you try, you’ll get error messages about the key being invalid.

To check, you’ll need to look for a certificate of authenticity sticker on your computer. The COA sticker verifies that the computer came with an authentic copy of Windows, and that sticker has a product key printed on it. You’ll need that product key to reinstall Windows–and, if the manufacturer used System Locked Pre-installation, that key is different from the one your PC came with in software.

Examine your computer to find the key. On a laptop, it may be on the bottom of the laptop. If your laptop has a removable battery, it may be under the battery. If there’s some sort of compartment you can open, it might be in there. It may even be stuck to the laptop’s charger brick. If it’s a desktop, look on the side of the desktop’s case. If it’s not there, check the top, back, bottom, and anywhere else it might be.

If the key has rubbed off of the sticker, there’s not much you can do. You can try contacting your computer’s manufacturer and explaining what happened, but we can’t guarantee they’ll help. Microsoft would always be happy to sell you another key, though!

Use NirSoft’s ProduKey to Recover Product Keys (Even if You Can’t Boot the PC)

The easiest way to get access to your product key is with a third-party utility, and there’s nobody better at those than NirSoft. Their utilities are always crapware-free, and are always really useful. The only issue with this particular utility is that some antivirus will detect it as a false positive, because some malware might try to steal your product key.

Note: the NirSoft keyfinder won’t always work for OEM computers, depending on how they decided to activate the licenses. If your OEM installed your computer and used a single key for all their PCs, this won’t work. It also doesn’t work for Office 2013.

How To Get Windows 8 Serial Key From Surface Pro

All you have to do is download ProduKey, unzip it, and then run it to immediately see all of your product keys. It’s as simple as that.

If you want to recover a key from a dead computer, you can hook up the hard drive to a working PC, and then run ProduKey and use File > Select Source to point to the external Windows directory. You can then grab the keys from that computer easily.

You can also use a Linux live CD to pull the Windows directory off the other computer and onto a thumb drive, or just grab the registry files if you prefer. If you need help, we’ve got a guide to pulling data off a dead computer.

Find the Windows Key Without Any Software (Advanced Users Only)

Assuming you can boot your computer without any problems, you can easily create a simple VBscript that will read the value out of the registry and then translate it into the format that you need for reinstalling. We’re not sure where this script came from, but reader raphoenix posted it on our forum a long time ago, so we’re sharing it here for you.

Copy and paste the following into a Notepad window:

You’ll need to use File -> Save As, change the “Save as type” to “All Files” and then name it productkey.vbs or something similar ending with the vbs extension. We’d recommend saving to the desktop for easy access.

Once you’ve saved it, you can just double-click and the popup window will show you your product key.

Pro tip: If you use CTRL+C when the popup window is active, it will copy the contents of the window to the clipboard, and then you can paste it into Notepad or somewhere else.

The product key system is complicated to understand because Microsoft doesn’t really want typical Windows users to reinstall Windows on their PCs. Instead, they’d rather you use your computer manufacturer’s recovery media. But the recovery media is full of the bloatware you don’t want on your PC–that’s why so many geeks often opt to reinstall Windows on their new PCs.

How To Get Windows 8 Serial Key From Surface 1

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