In other instances, for example if you built and installed your OS, your key is associated with your Microsoft account, so there is no way to lose it anymore.

Well cover all you need to know in this article, from old school ways to retrieve keys, to the more modern approaches to make good use of your licenses and what restrictions may apply depending on your type of license.

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But because your hardware can significantly change if you upgrade your hardware, this entitlement was expanded to become a Digital License when 2016s Anniversary Update (1607) arrived.

So, if you have a newer Windows PC or you already log in using your Microsoft account, you generally shouldnt have to search for your original Windows 10 key.

Not to mention that different conditions apply for non-OEM retail keys, as well as those given to people who upgraded to Windows 10 for free.

And in a worst case scenario, you might be trying to find the license for a copy of Windows that no longer boots.

Again, these should be auto-applied from your UEFIBIOS when reinstalling Windows on a modern boxed PC, but you can also retrieve them manually.

This can only be transferred to one other machine (not if you upgraded from an OEM key).

However, these commands didnt return any keys on other two machines we used for testing despite Windows 10 being activated.

Copy this text and paste it into Notepad, saving it as a.vbs file.

Then double-click to launch the file.

In testing, some of the applications found both the registry and UEFIBIOS keys, while others only worked for one or the other.

Also includes keys for many other applications such as Microsoft Office and Adobe products (strangely, Internet Explorer was also included in our results, though no key was provided).

As with some of the other tools on this list, ProduKey can load Windows keys from external sourcesdrives.

This software can also load registry keys from Windows installations on other drives (tools Load Hive).

As mentioned above, several of the third-party tools that we already listed will let you load the registry hive file from another Windows installation.

Go to HKEYLOCALMACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersion and look for DigitalProductId in the right panel.

Also note that ProduKey can search for Windows keys on computers at remote domains among other locations, and that the Windows Registry Editor can load hive files from other installations.

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This software didnt return a valid key when decoding the product ID within the tool, though if you had to you could extract the hex data and decode that elsewhere.

And again, this was for a retail key that was originally used on a desktop which was cloned as a Windows To Go drive and plugged into another machine with a different hardware profile.

In other words, with luck, Microsofts activation is forgiving enough and you should have no issues validating your OS license on a new machine or after several hardware changes.

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Windows On Top License Key