Windows 10: I'm in need of formatting my laptop, what would it be of the digital license?

Good evening,

I need to format my laptop and I was wondering what would happen to the digital license? I bought it second hand from a guy and Windows 10 pro was already activated, I believe using his Microsoft account. If I format the hard drive I have to install a new copy of Windows don't I? Also, the laptop had Windows 8 when manufactured so he installed 10 afterwards, not sure if that's relevant anyway. Will a new copy of Windows be automatically activated upon installation? If not, can I use the Product Key (which I found using a "wmic" command in command prompt) which is now present on this copy of the OS? Any help and advice would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance

:)

 

Digital license

Thats how licensing works with Windows 10, the digital license is attached to your Microsoft Account and makes it easy to reactivate Windows 10 in the event you reinstall it.

Learn more:

• Use a Digital
  License to Manage and Activate Windows 10

 

Windows 10 - Digital license after PC format

Once you have installed the same version of Windows 10 you had installed which based on the information you provided appears to have been Windows 10 Home you won't have to do anything in order for it to automatically activate. Windows 10 automatically activates based on a digital entitlement, since your machine already has an digital entitlement for Windows 10, Windows 10 Home will automatically activated itself.

Additionally, when prompted to enter your product key, skip that step and/or enter the Windows 7 key located on the COA sticker on your device.

Any license key you would have retrieved before you decided to format your machine would have been a generic key which cannot be used to activate nor install Windows 10. So it would have served absolutely no purpose in retrieving that key.

The only tool that would have given you the Windows 7 license key would have been ShowKeyPlus but it is located on the sticker so you don't need a tool to determine it (you also don't need it to reinstall Windows 10).

 

Windows 10 digital license

I had upgraded to Windows 10. How can I find my license key?

Every time i start my laptop the windows activation page opens up. The 2nd step is to type in the product key/digital license.