Installing Windows 10 on Multiple Devices?

ThrashZone said:

Which version of win-7 did your mom have installed ?
Your option is to buy 10 Home or pro
Home is the cheapest version about 100.us 64 bit or 32 bit
10 pro is 140.us + tax/ shipping
Microsoft Windows 10 Home - 64-bit - Newegg.com

She is using Windows 7 Home Premium (well, before we installed 10). Either way, we're not paying for something we should have for free. Both of us qualified for Windows 10, and both builds show as genuine (of course now W7 is telling me it is not, but that's another story). I don't mean to sound pretentious, but if we're supposed to have these builds of Windows 10 for free, then paying for Windows 7 all over again (or paying for 10 for whatever reason) is not an option.

ThrashZone said:

I asked for help in a way to recover the activation key for 7
I know there's a utility one can use to do it but can't think of it

I don't know of any utility, but I used a string of code to retrieve the product key from mine and my mom's computers. I grabbed my key when I still had Windows 7, in case I needed it when I got Windows 10 downloaded (I didn't need it though, because I was directly upgrading). I got my mom's key after Windows 10 was installed because I needed her desktop to open Notepad. However, the product key it gave us was invalid, according to Windows 10.

Maybe someone who knows code better than I can look at it. The string is:

Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
MsgBox ConvertToKey(WshShell.RegRead("HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DigitalProductId"))

Function ConvertToKey(Key)
Const KeyOffset = 52
i = 28
Chars = "BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789"
Do
Cur = 0
x = 14
Do
Cur = Cur * 256
Cur = Key(x + KeyOffset) + Cur
Key(x + KeyOffset) = (Cur \ 24) And 255
Cur = Cur Mod 24
x = x -1
Loop While x >= 0
i = i -1
KeyOutput = Mid(Chars, Cur + 1, 1) & KeyOutput
If (((29 - i) Mod 6) = 0) And (i <> -1) Then
i = i -1
KeyOutput = "-" & KeyOutput
End If
Loop While i >= 0
ConvertToKey = KeyOutput
End Function

SIW2 said:

If your mum did an upgrade , you need the key from windows.old\windows\system32\config\Software hive

I didn't know there would be a key in there, but thank you. I'll check it.

SIW2 said:

If your mum did an upgrade , you need the key from windows.old\windows\system32\config\Software hive

Okay, I followed that path, and I shouldn't have expected to just cleanly find the key lol.

In the software hive is just a document I opened with Notepad. Now I'm looking at the biggest wall of code I've ever seen, where most of the characters aren't even English. So lost.

DRProcek said:

SIW2 said:

If your mum did an upgrade , you need the key from windows.old\windows\system32\config\Software hive

Okay, I followed that path, and I shouldn't have expected to just cleanly find the key lol.

In the software hive is just a document I opened with Notepad. Now I'm looking at the biggest wall of code I've ever seen, where most of the characters aren't even English. So lost.

Since you mention upgrade, I think this may work for you, worth a try anyway, it's had some success in the past,

tom982 said:

Hi thx1139,

I don't know how to do it in Jelly Bean, but I do with ProduKey:

Your Windows 7 product key is stored in the software registry hive, located here:

C:\Windows\system32\config\software

Please note, software is the file name, not a directory. It has no file extension. Your drive may have a different letter.

This is a little program that will tell you the product keys of the various software installed on your computer. What makes this different, is the ability to load keys from an external registry hive. Exactly what we want

So if you download and run ProduKey (by NirSoft):

http://www.nirsoft.n...key_viewer.html

Then press File > Select Source, you will be presented with a new menu. On this, select Load the product keys from an external Software Registry hive and you will be prompted to open a file. Navigate to the software hive on the external drive and open the hive. E.g. D:\Windows\system32\config\software. You should now have your product keys

Hope this helped.

Tom

Layback Bear said:

Do you not have one of these on the computer you could use.

I said it in my other thread, but I guess I forgot to say it in this one. The tag with the product key is too faded to read on my mom's, and is entirely ripped on mine.

derekimo said:

DRProcek said:

SIW2 said:

If your mum did an upgrade , you need the key from windows.old\windows\system32\config\Software hive

Okay, I followed that path, and I shouldn't have expected to just cleanly find the key lol.

In the software hive is just a document I opened with Notepad. Now I'm looking at the biggest wall of code I've ever seen, where most of the characters aren't even English. So lost.

Since you mention upgrade, I think this may work for you, worth a try anyway, it's had some success in the past,

tom982 said:

Hi thx1139,

I don't know how to do it in Jelly Bean, but I do with ProduKey:

Your Windows 7 product key is stored in the software registry hive, located here:

C:\Windows\system32\config\software

Please note, software is the file name, not a directory. It has no file extension. Your drive may have a different letter.

This is a little program that will tell you the product keys of the various software installed on your computer. What makes this different, is the ability to load keys from an external registry hive. Exactly what we want

So if you download and run ProduKey (by NirSoft):

http://www.nirsoft.n...key_viewer.html

Then press File > Select Source, you will be presented with a new menu. On this, select Load the product keys from an external Software Registry hive and you will be prompted to open a file. Navigate to the software hive on the external drive and open the hive. E.g. D:\Windows\system32\config\software. You should now have your product keys

Hope this helped.

Tom

Looks like what SIW2 failed to mention was that to read that section, you need to have that ProduKey program. When I follow that path, I just end up with a big wall of code I have no idea how to read (thousands and thousands of lines).