How To Find Your Windows 10 Product Key After Updating To It For Free

When you upgrade to Windows ten from Windows 8 y'all can encounter glitches with product activation. Here'southward an easy fashion to notice the product key later upgrading.

With the first major update to Windows 10 (called the November Update) now rolling out to devices and PCs worldwide, users should annotation that there are changes as to how licensing is handled. When Windows ten launched in tardily July, the operating arrangement required computers to take a genuine Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 license installed.

If you read our commodity on how to determine the compages, edition, and channel of Windows currently installed, you'll notice when you upgraded to build 10240, and Windows maintained the licensing status according to the aqueduct. So if y'all upgraded from Windows 7 OEM or Retail, your free Windows 10 upgrade would inherit those channels.

Details on Finding Primal

With build 10586, this is non every bit clearly defined since all Nov updates are automatically divers as from a retail aqueduct. Regarding troubleshooting issues with product activation, this adds a flake of complication since PCs that authorize for the upgrade, in particular, retail licenses, volition employ a default production cardinal used by Windows 10 Home and Pro.

I improvement introduced with the November Update is using your Retail or OEM product key to activate Windows 10. The problem is when you upgrade to Windows x, especially from Windows 8, and yous encounter glitches with production activation, you usually don't take a product key. Luckily, in that location'due south a free utility calledShowKeyPlus that will observe it for you. Hither'due south how it works.

Discover Windows 10 Product Key After Upgrade

After downloading it, extract the zilch file, then launch ShowKeyPlus.exe.

Immediately, ShowKeyPlus will reveal your production fundamental and license information such every bit:

Production Proper name
Production ID
The currently installed fundamental is the generic product central used by Windows 10, depending on the edition installed.
The Original product key. This can be your Windows 7 or Windows 8 retail or OEM production primal before upgrading. This is the product fundamental you want if you run into product activation issues in Windows 10.
OEM Key OR Retail: ShowKeyPlus will bank check for the presence of an OEM marker; that is how large-name vendors activate multiple machines at the factory running Windows.

If you're encountering product activation issues, once y'all use ShowKeyPlus to find your original production key, you lot tin can use it to update the product fundamental values in Windows ten.

Copy the product cardinal and go to Settings > Update & Security > Activation.

Then select the "Alter product primal" link.

Paste information technology in and restart Windows 10, and you lot should be activated.

Y'all tin likewise use ShowKeyPlus to find your product cardinal from a Windows Backup and besides to verify which edition your product key is associated with using the Check product key function. Again, a handy gem to have in your tech toolbox.

Download ShowKeyPlus from GitHub