Solved Can't read product key

[FuturDreamz]

thank you, but the key I bought off the internet for $12 came in and activated sucessfully. now beginging the upgrade to Windows 10, then activate, then do a clean reinstall with uefi enabled

 

[Barman58]

Be aware that the fact that a cheap eBay key activates initially is no guarantee that it will stay activated, a lot of these keys are Non legitimate Volume licence keys that will only remain active until the system attempts to connect to the Key Management Server, which will fail and remove the activation. This is normally due slightly later than the returns expiry with eBay.

Hopefully you will not suffer this problem but it's best you are made aware of it now rather than end up wondering why you have lost your activation in a few months

 

[FuturDreamz]

Be aware that the fact that a cheap eBay key activates initially is no guarantee that it will stay activated, a lot of these keys are Non legitimate Volume licence keys that will only remain active until the system attempts to connect to the Key Management Server, which will fail and remove the activation. This is normally due slightly later than the returns expiry with eBay.

Hopefully you will not suffer this problem but it's best you are made aware of it now rather than end up wondering why you have lost your activation in a few months

...Would a KMS key survive the upgrade to Windows 10? Windows 10 is up and running and reports itself properly activated.

And I would've thought using a KMS key would require linking it to the server somehow? I downloaded insalattion media from a different source

 

[Barman58]

The way that KMS works is that the device has to contact the server at a preset time interval. The interval is set by the system administrator from the server for each key and can vary for different types of device usage, It would be normal to set the time limit on a desktop PC in the office to several hours, to cover someone walking out of the office with the PC, the time on a laptop used by a rep working out of the office would be set to something more like 90 to 120 days to allow for the long times when it is difficult to contact the office, (though it can be achieved using a secure VPN connection remotely), if the key is set to allow more than one failure once the limit is reached without the handshake being received from the server the activation fails .

There are also MAK (multiple activation Keys), that are available that allow a set number of activations, some sellers obtain these and sell to innocent users and they operate fine until, the seller sells more activations from the key than were Allocated to the key. When Microsoft become aware of this they deactivate all of the previous activations and blacklist the key from further use, this also takes a time to happen by which time the seller is no longer on ebay under the same name.

Microsoft will have a record of the key used to upgrade to Windows 10, Who purchased it originally and what key type it was, so they can monitor the status of the key in future if the updated licence has not been renewed in the future they can deactivate the licence (though they may not consider this a priority - the free upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 officially ended in 2016, so who knows)

 

[torchwood]

Hi

from a admin command prompt, for both 7 & 10

slmgr /dlv


it will list current status


Roy

 

[Bree]

wow, thta program is a pain because every time you make a mistake it wipes the whole line so you can't just change one letter

Type your guess in Notepad then copy and paste into ShowKeyPlus. Make changes in Notepad.

...what are the restructions on allowable letters? right now I have a table of 200 posibilities that I'm trying to brute force through https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7

You cannot use a CoA key in that link and get a download, it only accepts a full retail key. If you get the key correct it will however tell you that it's a valid OEM key (but not tell you what edition it is for):

Error
The product key you entered appears to be for software pre-installed by the device manufacturer. Please contact the device manufacturer for software recovery options.

You could use the Notepad trick in either, but ShowKeyplus is more useful as it will tell you the edition.

To avoid misreading numbers as letters or vice versa the numbers 015 and the letters AEIOULNSZ are not used in any MS product key.

 

[FuturDreamz]

Type your guess in Notepad then copy and paste into ShowKeyPlus. Make changes in Notepad.



You cannot use a CoA key in that link and get a download, it only accepts a full retail key. If you get the key correct it will however tell you that it's a valid OEM key (but not tell you what edition it is for):
You could use the Notepad trick in either, but ShowKeyplus is more useful as it will tell you the edition.

To avoid misreading numbers as letters or vice versa the numbers 015 and the letters AEIOULNSZ are not used in any MS product key.

showkeyplus does not allow pasting

 

[Bree]

showkeyplus does not allow pasting

I see what you mean, right-click > Paste does not work. The keyboard shortcut Shift+Insert does work though, that's what I used.

 

[FuturDreamz]

Hi

from a admin command prompt, for both 7 & 10

slmgr /dlv


it will list current status


Roy

see attached

 

[torchwood]

Hi

Thats lookin good, note its NOT KMS, standard user licence


Roy