Windows 10: Find Windows 7 Product Key after Windows 10 Upgrade

One of my customers donated an old tower to me. It had windows 7 on it, but was Upgraded to 10, and I think 10 Clobbered it so it would not run...but cannot be sure. I fixed it and it is running pretty well with 10, but I might like to install Windows 7 on here also at some point. The problem is, he had someone copy files over to his new tower, and the old tower when I got it, had the Windows 7 Product Key Scratched off!, and, some of the screws were missing that hold the cover on it, not professional.

Anyhow, I would like to recover that Product Key but don't have a clue if it is even possible now that the expiration date is over to reinstall.
1. I wonder if I can still recover from the Recovery Partition and if that will contain the Product Key?

2. I see what looks like a ProductKey in Speccy, but that could not be could it? I did not think Speccy would post that type of info? Maybe it is because I saved it as Text?

3. I may just keep windows 10 on here and Dual Boot it with Linux, just not sure yet. That way I won't have to complain about the Windows 7 ProductKey being scratched off, because I don't really know who and where this happened. Well...I know where it was serviced last, but still don't want to lay blame if I don't have to. His is an older gentleman so I'm quite sure he didn't do it himself.

I will run Produkey and see if that matches the one I saw in Speccy.



:)

 

Got new motherboard... Now it ask to activate windows again.

The OEM SLP product key on systems preinstalled with Windows 7 cannot be used.

If its an OEM Preinstalled copy of Windows 8, then the product key is injected in the firmware, that you can use. Windows 7 systems must use the product key located on the COA sticker.

How to Find Your Product Key After Upgrading to Windows 10

 

Activating Windows 10

Was the Windows 7 license activated prior to upgrading to Windows 10? If it was, then your license might still be there. See if you can find it:

How to Find Your Product Key After Upgrading to Windows
10

 

Ther is a product key finder in a tutorial. Haven't looked at it for a while.

 

ShowKeyPlus - Windows 10 Forums


The Ultimate PID Checker Download

 

That worked like a charm SIW2! It's not every day things are that easy LOL.

I'm so surprised at how good this tool is, and I see you provided another one.

The crazy thing is, the Key that is on the pc is different from the one I see in the ShowKeyPlus, so someone must have used another key at some point, hope this is not a problem for me. Hope someone else is not using this Key? I only know because I can still see a few of the Key Letters on the pc Product Key Tag.

 

There was no Windows.old Folder so I wonder where it got that darn key from, the Recovery Partition? Produkey did not pick it up like this one did! Reviewing that other tool now.

 

You will have to use pidcheck to find out exactly what the key is.

 

What type of product key did Showkey Plus say that it was? Most of the computers that came with Windows 7 had two product keys. One product key was OEM:SLP. SLP stands for System Locked Pre-installation. That was a product key that was included with the factory provided recovery software and would only work with the factory recovery media and that make/model of computer. You cannot manually enter that product to activate Windows so without the factory recovery media/image it is pretty much worthless. It verified itself with a code that was stored in BIOS and if everything matched, it would activate. I think a user called @Superfly here knows who to turn a standard Windows 7 image into an image that can use the OEM:SLP to activate with.

The key on the label is called OEM:COA. That would be the product key that could be manually entered to activate Windows with. The OEM:SLP key allowed manufacturers to use the same recovery image for every computer that had the same matching code stored in BIOS. The OEM:COA product key would allow the user to install their own vanilla copy of Windows and activate it.

 

Even though Showkey Plus shows what type of key it is?

 

Tired guys, will run that again tomorrow and check it out further!

Thanks NavyLCDR that is some really good stuff that will help me very much! and tells me why the OEM:COA is different than the one I seen in ShowKeyPlus.

 

Yes, if the key is COA (which you seem to indicate regarding a partial match with the scratched sticker) then it's OK - it's only good on the first PC it's used to activate with.

But as the Commander says... the recovery media will be required for a SLP key (it's built into the $OEM$ folder in the recovery media and will activate automatically offline).

PS: thanx for the compliment regarding ShowKey *Wink

 

It's definitely the OEM:SLP, to bad. I also tried to understand Superfly's directions and chose "Retrieve Key From Backup"

Then pointed the tool to the FACTORY_IMAGE D: Partition in hopes that this Partition would have the needed Key, but was quite sure it did not LOL.

As I said earlier I don't have the Windows.old Folder anymore. I wonder if the Key is stored anywhere else but I'm not understanding where. I did look around for it in the C*Biggrinrive to no avail.

If I'm understanding correctly it will not be present anymore, so will have to use another procedure if possible.

No, I do not have any Recovery Media, except for a Vanilla Image.

Will the "Pidcheck" work in this case? I'll give it a try later today, gotta go now.