Windows 10: i have formatted my laptop and i want to activate my windows, i have product key

i have formatted my laptop and i want to activate my windows, i have product key

:)

 

Activate windows 10 after re-installing (I have lost my product key)

I own a Lenovo T430 laptop. In 2017, I installed Windows 10 using my original Windows 7 product key. Unfortunately, I cannot find that product key anymore. I need to re-install windows 10. Will it be automatically activated after the installation, if I skip the step of asking the product key during the installation?

In my opinion, I believe that my laptop will have a digital entitlement stored on the Microsoft Activation Servers and this will not be a problem. Is that true?

If not, please suggest me a solution or a workaround.

 

Windows 10 product keys and activation - and the KMS angle

Changing the product key to the generic Windows 10 product key will reset activation to the standard retail channel for activation. It might just activate (if there was a previous digital license for Windows 10 for that computer established with Microsoft). Once Windows 10 is back on the retail activation channel, then more than likely changing the product key to the Windows 8 product key using the same method may work.

 

Windows 10 product keys and activation - and the KMS angle

I ought at this stage to pause and say a big thankyou to Bree and NavyLCDR (and alphanumeric...) for hanging in there and trying to help.

As this process has gone on we seem now and again to have got diverted into trying to deal with subordinate or separate aspects of the problem. Just to recap:

- the original focus was on trying to do a clean (re)install of Win10, using the embedded OEM Win 8 key which ShowKey Plus indicated was in the firmware;

- I have tried a clean install, twice, using first a Rufus-created bootable USB then an MCT-created USB. Both booted and started the install (so were properly formatted and functional), but both brought up the product-key screen and the Win 8 embedded key wasn't recognised;

- Bree and I have just been grappling with the secondary problem - that IF I were to try to re-create a bootable USB for a clean install using Option 4, I needed to copy and paste the files from the Win10 .iso image. It has emerged that because i'm using a Win 7 machine for all this preparatory work, I can't open .iso files using Windows Explorer. Ok, we can park that as a side issue, as I can - if need be - open an .iso using 7-Zip;

- but, as NavyLCDR suggests, trying different ways to create a bootable USB seems to be missing the point: however formatted and created, the USB stick runs OK. The problem is that it is unable to find the embedded key nor is that key recognised when manually entered. So a differently-created or formatted USB stick won't help.....

- In theory when I get to the 'product key' screen I suppose I could simply say I don't have a key, and skip that step. The problem then - as I see it - is that Win 10 would clean-install, but I would not then be able to activate it (if the embedded key doesn't work during the install, why would it work afterwards?). I would end up worse off than I am at present, where I have the corporate Win 10 activated and working more-or-less normally, but because it's KMS, it will at some point in the next few months be de-activated;

- That rather leads me towards the alternative suggestion made by NavyLCDR: that instead of persisting with a clean install that seems not to be possible, I could try a different way of (re) activating the existing Win 10 by using the different key suggested. I hesitate to ask for an explanation of what that key is and why it might work. But right now I'm not sure there are any other possible ways forward.