General Discussions

So what I'm going to suggest is common sense for some people but for others they don't consider it.

Before upgrading to Windows 10, Download Speccy www.piriform.com/speccy and use it to make a backup of your OS Key, whether it be Win7 or Win8. If you have a Win7/8 OS Disk this will come in handy if you lose your key at some point Or if you choose to do the Install Via USB Method.

Once you Upgrade to Windows 10, use Speccy to make a backup of that key. This way if you ever decide to reinstall Windows 10 or do a CLEAN Install of Win10(which is what I suggest doing) You will have your key to do so.

Keep this in mind.. YOU DO NOT Get a Windows10 key Without Upgrading to it first, if you do a Clean Install Without Upgrading you wont have a Windows10 key and you'll have to reinstall your previous OS then upgrade to Win10 to get one.

These Tips are essential for those that have an OEM OS you installed yourself or a Prebuilt PC that came with Windows preinstalled. Its Important for you to backup your key in one fashion or another. Its especially important for people that have Laptops or Netbooks that don't come with an OS Install disk and only have a recovery partition.

Some of you will know this, but many others will not and will just do things all willy nilly without thinking(like I did lol).
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Its said that you can revert back to your previous Windows if you don't like Win10 or some such, doing so will be the only way if you don't have any other method of reinstalling your previous OS to get its key.

[Edited by DigitalIP, 8/12/2015 5:29:34 PM]

Great advice, thank you

No problem..
I know its not a long extremely detailed list of things to do, but it works.

Having a backup of your OS key ive come to find out is extremely useful and important.

Pretty much piece of junk program. There are countless programs that do the same better and they work without installing it. If you want to look for a product key, use ProduKey or Keyfinder instead. They can find more than just you Windows' serial.

Also everyone should have the license key on paper or sticker anyway so why bother to look for it from a program?

If a user got pre-installed/factory settings OS, that key will not work (the same apply for all key digger programs though) when installing from a OEM disc/self-made media. It won't show you the right serial as it's current OS (factory installed). Those users will have to look for the key on the license sticker.

But yes you will have to run the upgrade first through Windows Update or physical disc downloaded from Microsoft's website, else it won't activate.

Or in case you don't want to install third-party applications just for grabbing your product key, here is a vb script. I used this script myself to borrow the genuine cdkey from my university computer and install win7 for upgrade to win10 so it works fine .

Spoiler:

Should pop-up the windows produckt key and also save it in key.txt file. Open notepad and paste the above code then save as key.vbs or whatever you want to name it just be sure the extension is vbs and run. Works for Windows 7/10, haven't tested on 8 but it should work.



@Dwnld: You can use OEM media key as well with a slight trick. You are right it won't work if you're installing fresh windows from iso but you can still use it to activate your pirated windows (worked for me). See this
social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ce677eb0-7d97-46d6-81df-a05dca1c2b85/change-product-key-windows-7?forum=genuinewindows7

[Edited by Kavvman, 8/13/2015 2:40:26 PM]

Firstly, speccy isn't just a program to get your windows key, it gives a lot more system info than that.

Secondly you can use an OEM key to get Win10, but you have to upgrade to Win10 in order to get it and you can use that key to do a clean install.

Or clean install when you upgrade by not keeping your personal files when it asks.

[Edited by DigitalIP, 8/15/2015 5:30:09 PM]