Windows 10: Windows 10 License Key no longer matches BIOS OEM key

We have been mass deploying new Lenovo Windows 10 PCS, using the Sysprep utility to prepare the image for mass deployment. The biggest concern we had going in was that we preserve the OEM license key.


This seemed to be working fine, we created our base image, sysprep'd the machine and captured the image. After deploying the image to a new PC, we went through the setup wizard, licensing, personalization, etc. and checked to make sure the OEM key was still in place (it was). After initial deployment we inevitably had additional Windows Updates which we applied before putting them into production.


We deployed 25 or so PCs in this manner and without warning the 5 most recent roll outs are reporting a Microsoft License Key which is different than the BIOS stored OEM key. The one thing we did differently on these 5 machines was that we connected to them with RDP to do the final setup before putting them into production.


When I tried to recreate this issue to see what step was causing the License key to change I was unable to recreate the failure. I followed the same steps we used on previous deployments, stopping at each step along the way to check and compare the license keys. I did these tests directly on the PC as opposed to RDP.


Does anyone have any idea what would cause this, how to prevent it or is there any cause for concern?


Thanks,


Brian

:)

 

Question On OEM Windows clean install......

"Flavors" of Windows licenses

Windows can be a little "odd" about license keys. There are at least 4 categories:

• Retail
• OEM
• Volume (electronic download)
• Corporate (no key needed)

For guaranteed success, the license key and media should be in the same category. If you have retail media, you may not be able to install it using an OEM or Volume license key, even though the key is valid for that version of Windows. *Wtf :wtf: Apparently, this is part of Microsoft's anti-piracy scheme (i.e., all customers are guilty until proven innocent).

 

my windows 10 oem didn't come with a product key

indeed OEM's have embedded keys a OEM upgrade is for machines with OEM copies and DO NOT COME WITH A KEY! sadly many vendors confuse the two because pre-windows 10 'OEM" came with a key
a end user should always buy a Retail OR "System builder OEM" copy when it comes to windows 10 system builder is not `OEM` you can blame microsoft for the retarded terminology screw up

it sounds like the op bought a pirated copy with no key microsoft does not ship windows 10 on optical disks .... they use flash drives

 

windows 10 key

Download the ISO on the machine you are going to do the fresh install on and you're good..no longer need the key
Windows pos your key in the bios or something..