How to retrieve your Win10 key.

[GuidoLS]

Doesn't Nirsoft work?

No - it returns the same generic code as the rest of them do.

[mjgr33n]

I have done a lot of research and there is no evidence you get assigned a special key after taking advantage of the upgrade offer. In fact from the tweets of Gabriel Aul form Microsoft, they have stated that when you upgrade your HWID gets registered against the Generic keys as as a fully activated machine.

The problem is that they use the same key for Windows Insiders.

The difference being that if an insider uses a machine that does not have it's HWID registered on the activation servers as being valid upgrade and they decide to leave the insider program then the machine's activation will expire eventually, if it has been registered then it will just go back to being a fully activated machine.

They have done this on purpose so that people can join and leave the Insider program relatively easily.

[mjgr33n]

Also MS do not want people to have new keys for every old key that existed for Win 7 and 8.1 in existence it is a loss of potential future revenue for them, as they have stated they wanted support ot last for the length of the machine, the exception is obviously if you purchase Windows 10 retail license, in which case they support the license not the machine, so that is going to be fully transferable between machines etc.

That is not to say somebody might not come up with some sneaky way of transferring licenses between machines that MS does not approve of in future, like for example on MDL forums. But I would not hold my breath.

[GuidoLS]

I have done a lot of research and there is no evidence you get assigned a special key after taking advantage of the upgrade offer. In fact from the tweets of Gabriel Aul form Microsoft, they have stated that when you upgrade your HWID gets registered against the Generic keys as as a fully activated machine.

The problem is that they use the same key for Windows Insiders.

The difference being that if an insider uses a machine that does not have it's HWID registered on the activation servers as being valid upgrade and they decide to leave the insider program then the machine's activation will expire eventually, if it has been registered then it will just go back to being a fully activated machine.

They have done this on purpose so that people can join and leave the Insider program relatively easily.

Mind posting links to these comments? Including the tweets, if you don't mind.

[mjgr33n]

Mind posting links to these comments? Including the tweets, if you don't mind.

Of course I mind reading through ten thousand tweets, feel free to read through them yourself though https://twitter.com/GabeAul/with_replies

The classic reply that keeps getting sent back from the top down is this one http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...9-7b975611b73b

Does have 2 contradictory statements though one is -

Once your device upgrades to Windows 10 using the free upgrade offer and activates online automatically, an entitlement is registered to your PC’s hardware for the edition of Windows 10 you upgraded to in the Windows 10 Activation service. You can confirm this process has completed by verifying that the Activation status in Settings – Update & Security – Activation says “Windows is activated”.
Once Windows is activated after upgrading to Windows 10, you will be able to clean install (i.e. boot from media and install Windows 10) the same edition of Windows 10 seamlessly without having to enter any product key.
Please make sure your PC is activated first by going to the Settings >> Update & Security >> Activation.
Create your own installation media to do a clean install on the same PC by clicking here.
Skip entering the product key during Windows 10 Setup. Windows 10 will activate online automatically on such devices. The skip option is only available when booting from media and launching setup
The automatic online activation will occur seamlessly after clean installing Windows 10 if the device had previously upgraded and activated online, with the same edition of Windows 10 that registered an entitlement for your PC’s hardware as the Windows 10 edition being activated.
If you followed the above steps and are experiencing Activation failures, this is likely caused by a server issue discussed here :
Windows 10 says I have to connect to the internet to activate, but I am connected.
Please stay put as we work to address this issue.
If your Activation status says “Connect to the Internet….” please do not clean install Windows 10 until you finish activating successfully. Some PCs may experience a problem with activation due to a server issue discussed here:
Windows 10 says I have to connect to the internet to activate, but I am connected.
Q: What happens if I change the hardware configuration of my Windows 10 device?
A: If the hardware configuration of your Windows 10 device changes significantly (e.g. motherboard change) Windows may require re-activation on the device. This is the same experience as prior versions of Windows (e.g. Windows 7 and Windows 8.1). The free upgrade offer will not apply to activation of Windows 10 in such scenarios where hardware changes reset Activation.

Quoting the original post: "Once your device upgrades to Windows 10 using the free upgrade offer and activates online automatically, an entitlement is registered to your PC’s hardware for the edition of Windows 10 you upgraded to in the Windows 10 Activation service"
Now, once you clean install OS on that device, the entitlement is validated by the activation service and a new OS license is issued to the device. However, since the activation service is currently experiencing issues, this process might take some time.
Please allow 24-48 hours for this to settle.

If one believes the first one with the Question at the end then I cannot see a way of transferring licenses and this was the information mostly tweeted about originally, if you believe the second quote then you might well get a license assigned within 24 to 48 hours which contradicts most of what was written previously. My machine has been activated nearly 48 hours now and it has not received a different key yet form every method I have tried, I will check again at the weekend to make sure and as much as I would like it to be true, does not seem likely yet. But I would love to be proven wrong about this as it saves me buying 3 new licenses in future Not that Windows 10 pro retail will be that expensive to buy in a years time, just as you can buy Windows 8.1 pro retail for around £35 now.

[GuidoLS]

Don't take this wrong, but there was a very specific reason I asked for direct links. I'm not sure if you have noticed or not (I'm thinking not) but you are just a touch late to this dance, and we've been doing the Gabe Aul Twitter cha-cha-cha for almost 6 months now, and the only thing he's done more than flipped has been flopped - to the point where the vast majority here, meaning both the skeptics (pretty much everyone here but me on Hexus) and the believers (mainly me) have stopped taking anything from the Twitter feed as valid information. At best, it's been very poorly disseminated information. At worst, it's been a waste of unlimited bandwidth and seconds of life wasted reading it.

It's not the job of people here to verify your posts. If you are going to make assertions, you're going to need to back them up. Especially in regards to Twitter posts.

[mjgr33n]

Don't take this wrong, but there was a very specific reason I asked for direct links. I'm not sure if you have noticed or not (I'm thinking not) but you are just a touch late to this dance, and we've been doing the Gabe Aul Twitter cha-cha-cha for almost 6 months now, and the only thing he's done more than flipped has been flopped - to the point where the vast majority here, meaning both the skeptics (pretty much everyone here but me on Hexus) and the believers (mainly me) have stopped taking anything from the Twitter feed as valid information. At best, it's been very poorly disseminated information. At worst, it's been a waste of unlimited bandwidth and seconds of life wasted reading it.

It's not the job of people here to verify your posts. If you are going to make assertions, you're going to need to back them up. Especially in regards to Twitter posts.

Well apologies if I have caused you any offence, none intended, however there is nothing I can do about the fact that windows 10 upgrades do not give unique keys. Nor the fact that I have been reading those posts on twitter and MDL for the last few weeks and do not want to go back through thousand of posts just for you or anybody else.

You are the one that created this post about retrieving keys from windows 10, I have tested it against 5 machines and they all gave the same key back, different than the generic key but all still the same and cannot be used to activate anything as far as I can see so far, where is your proof that what you wrote is accurate for Windows 10, that script was used way before windows 10 to retrieve keys where is your proof it works for people that upgraded to windows 10?

I would love nothing more than you to be right and there be some way to retrieve a working key, but given you created this post the burden of proof is on your shoulders not mine.

Happy to try most things, but so far not seen any proof that unique keys are assigned to people who upgrade yet other than one obscure reply from an MS employee which more looks like he meant activation than actual unique license given it is the activation they are saying happens within 24-48 hours for clean installs.

Here is another twitter for you https://twitter.com/GabeAul/status/627145633560952833 -

Gabriel Aul
‏@GabeAul
@kennethkee93 You won't need a key, the entitlement is cloud stored. A clean install on the same PC will just reactivate.

Still no mentions of unique keys anywhere, your thread you should really prove that there is unique keys assigned to our machines once upgraded.

Also why does it matter if we don't get unique keys, we still get something free we would otherwise not have and one can always become an insider to get free OS forever on any machine, just keep oneself on the Slow Ring for more stability, nothing is truly free in life unless you want ot move to Linux.

[GuidoLS]

I'm not offended - truth be told, I don't care. I've made my decisions on which direction I am going in with upgrades, and attempted to provide information to those that desired some additional insight.

re: The keyfinder - that particular script, and other variants, have been available for at least 15 years. If you are getting the same key back on 5 machines, then you are getting a different result than thousands of others. Also, I made no attempt to claim that anything could be done with that key. Just that it existed. There's a couple of lively conversations going on over on Ars Technica and Reddit on the topic - you may want to check those out as well.

As far as my proof goes?

http://www.howtogeek.com/206329/how-...-product-keys/
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-...s-Product-Key/
http://www.geeksgyaan.com/2014/12/ho...ey-finder.html

And several dozen other sites all listing the same, or similar, scripts, all returning the data. I don't make it a point of posting bad info, even by accident. And why does it matter? Because people asked. And that's all the reason I need. Again, I never claimed that anything could be done with it - just that it existed. Please don't try to attribute anything else to me that I did not state.

[mjgr33n]

I'm not offended - truth be told, I don't care. I've made my decisions on which direction I am going in with upgrades, and attempted to provide information to those that desired some additional insight.

re: The keyfinder - that particular script, and other variants, have been available for at least 15 years. If you are getting the same key back on 5 machines, then you are getting a different result than thousands of others. Also, I made no attempt to claim that anything could be done with that key. Just that it existed. There's a couple of lively conversations going on over on Ars Technica and Reddit on the topic - you may want to check those out as well.

As far as my proof goes?

http://www.howtogeek.com/206329/how-...-product-keys/
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-...s-Product-Key/
http://www.geeksgyaan.com/2014/12/ho...ey-finder.html

And several dozen other sites all listing the same, or similar, scripts, all returning the data. I don't make it a point of posting bad info, even by accident. And why does it matter? Because people asked. And that's all the reason I need. Again, I never claimed that anything could be done with it - just that it existed. Please don't try to attribute anything else to me that I did not state.

Well I certainly do not want for us to argue and get heated when we both only trying to help others, but you did state in another thread that you could get the actual key, yes you did say you where unsure if it could be used to activate, fair enough.

As an FYI to everyone, neither Speccy nor Magic Jellybean are returning the actual license key that's generated. They're posting a generic code that everyone seems to be getting (VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T). This is NOT your Win10 key. I'll post a VBS script that returns the actual key in its own thread so more people can find it. Can you use this key to activate another machine? I don't know, and I'm not apt to test it. I'm not going to say your usage is unique, but it does seem a bit unusual...

As for proof, none of those links have anything to do with windows 10 or people that have upgraded to windows 10, this is what you claimed in the other thread. So this is what is bothering me about you posting a thread for a script that you did not write and claiming it gives you the key for windows 10. It gives you a key for other OS for sure but no evidence it remotely helps with anything

Anyway, if there is a way of getting a fresh key it will certainly end up at http://forums.mydigitallife.info/forum.php

But all evidence points to machines being activated against a generic key so far, nobody anywhere has proven they are getting assigned unique keys, so there is no way of anybody using what that script gives you to swap from one machine to another

[Hingy]

Ty, got my key for my records now.

[Zed963]

Thanks, this was very useful

[mjgr33n]

If you ran that script and got TY4CG-JDJH7-VJ2WF-DY4X9-HCFC6 then you getting the same as others who have upgraded on the free offer. Not a unique key you can save or use later, all upgrade machine have their HWID registered and encrypted on the cloud activation servers.

[Marcvs]

I *think* AIDA64 works.. Will check once i rebuild

[mjgr33n]

I *think* AIDA64 works.. Will check once i rebuild

AIDA64 gave me - Microsoft Windows 10 Professional VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T which is the generic key, this is what your machine is activated against if you upgrade

[Kumagoro]

I got TY4CG-JDJH7-VJ2WF-DY4X9-HCFC6

I upgraded from Win7 64bit Pro which was a pre activated OEM code install and not from retail or using a code from a COA

[w0463167]

spoke to technical, the key is saves on the activation server alongside a list of your hardware serial numbers, if you change a few components and reinstall win 10, skipping the licence keys, it will still activate.
apparently if you change your motherboard and processor but keep the rest of your hardware the same, it should also still activate (though this is less likely, and may require a phone call to M$