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#Windows 10 home coa update
Go to: Settings > Update & Security > Activation
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The Windows 10 Settings app has a page for displaying your activation information, including whether you have a digital license, though your key isn't shown here:
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Free upgrade licenses are a digital entitlement. This can only be transferred to one other machine (not if you upgraded from an OEM key).
#Windows 10 home coa for free
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So, if you have a newer Windows PC or you already log in using your Microsoft account, you generally shouldn't have to search for your original Windows 10 key. This means your Windows 10 license now ties Windows keys to Microsoft accounts, letting you activate a copy of the operating system simply by logging in with valid online credentials. But because your hardware can significantly change if you upgrade your hardware, this entitlement was expanded to become a "Digital License" when 2016's Anniversary Update (1607) arrived. Windows 10 introduced a "Digital Entitlement" element to Microsoft's license which links your Windows key to an ID generated based on your PC's hardware. We'll cover all you need to know in this article, from old school ways to retrieve keys, to the more modern approaches to make good use of your licenses and what restrictions may apply depending on your type of license. Microsoft has been changing and improving the way it handles Windows licenses. In other instances, for example if you built and installed your OS, your key is associated with your Microsoft account, so there is no way to "lose it" anymore. But in recent years manufacturers started storing this license within the machine's UEFI/BIOS and the information is automatically retrieved and applied when reinstalling the operating system. (Be sure to include the asterisk at the end of that command.In brief For the longest time Windows PCs came with a product key sticker that was placed outside of the machine or with your computer's manuals. To view all details about a machine's current licensing status, use this command: Get-WMIObject -Class SoftwareLicensingService | Select-Object -Property * Network administrators who manage licensing using Key Management Services can get details about PCs on the network using a different set of options for the same PowerShell command. If you see no output, that means your system does not include the Windows key in the BIOS, as is often the case with home-built PCs, devices built by a System Builder OEM, or those that were originally sold with a Windows 10 license.
Open a PowerShell window and issue this command: (Get-WmiObject -query 'select * from SoftwareLicensingService').OA3xOriginalProductKey If you want to record that product key so that you can restore Windows later, it's easy enough to do. If you re-install the same version of Windows that came with your PC, it should activate automatically. The biggest change is the absence of a product key, which was included on the holographic Certificate of Authenticity (COA) sticker with PCs that came pre-installed with Windows 7 or earlier versions.īeginning with Windows 8, that information is no longer on a COA but is instead embedded in the BIOS. If you've purchased a new PC with Windows pre-installed in the past few years, you might have noticed a few changes on the outside of the device.