Fresh install Question...

Been looking at a Lenovo laptop that is one of those ones that has Win 7 Pro 64bit installed when you get it, but has Win 8 license embedded I guess on the mobo so it's ready to upgrade to 8 which I'm not interested in doing.

My question is this... how do I obtain the license keys for the copy of Win 7 that is running on the laptop?

I want to do a fresh install to eliminate the bloatware without having to go out and buy an OEM copy of Win 7.

Is it possible to find out what the Win 7 license keys are? Surely they can be found somewhere on the system.

Any ideas / directions on how to do this would be greatly appreciated...

The Product Key should be on a sticker on the Lenovo somewhere. They are supposed to ship that way when new.

Not sure you can recover that Product Key if the sticker is gone. The recoverable Product Key is most likely an OEM key.

This one has no COA like they used to have... it has a cute little Win 8 decal with no numbers / letters

I'd be suspicious if this is a new previously unsold machine. I've never heard of such a thing.

Are you buying from a reliable nationally-known vendor? Or from a store in town? Or from a guy across the street?

Maybe someone else has heard of this arrangement?

Windows 8 doesn't have COA stickers. It's in the BIOS.

This thread may lead you to what you are looking for,

Windows 7 Pro preinstalled through downgrade right... - Lenovo Community

Yes, it's a brand new computer that Lenovo sells... they started this right when Win 8 came out.

Anywho, it sounds like I just need to buy a OEM copy of Win 7 and be done with it.

Did you go to that link?

You can download a win 7 ISO here,

Windows 7 Direct Download Links, Official Disk Images from Digital River

Oh I already have that... I want to be able to activate once I install it.

I'll need to enter the keys to do that and they aren't one the COA sticker like they used to have on computers so I need to obtain the keys from within the computer... unless it is in the mobo and it's going to activate itself when I go online or something

The answer you are looking for is in the link I posted above,

Windows 7 Pro preinstalled through downgrade right... - Lenovo Community

That leads to another thread.