Windows 10: Windows 10 Upgrade Installation: Digital License vs. Product Key Strangeness?

I have 2 Dell laptops, personally owned and maintained, one is for business use and the other is for my personal use. Both came with Win 7 Pro OEM stickers with keys, and I had Windows 7 Pro installed on each prior to upgrade to Win 10 Pro.


First, I upgraded my personal laptop to Windows 10 Pro at the beginning of 2020 using a retail Microsoft USB media preloaded with Win 10 Pro version 1903. I used the retail pack method as it also came with a new Win 10 key card as I knew I was long past the free Win 10 upgrade period. The upgrade went ok, but interestingly, Win 10 activated without ever asking me to enter the Product Key from the key card. I assumed that somehow it automatically applied a digital license or read a Product Key from the USB media directly just guessing.


Then recently, I upgraded my second business laptop to Windows 10 Pro, also using a retail Microsoft USB media preloaded with Win 10 Pro. Again, the upgrade went ok, but interestingly, again Win 10 activated without ever asking me to manually enter a Product Key.


Now, curious as to what keys were actually being used to activate Win 10 on each laptop, I used a script to retrieve the keys from each and to my surprise, both laptops had the same 25-character key / digital license! Additionally, this same installed key didn't match the product keys from either of the retail key cards that I had purchased! Does this sound normal?


I don't normally have both laptops powered-on at the same time, but will I eventually run into some kind of conflict or activation problem with Microsoft if both laptops have Win10 installed having the same digital license key? To avoid any potential issues in the future, should I change one or both laptops to instead use the product keys that came with the retail Win 10 packages? Thanks for your thoughts.

:)

 

Digital license & product key details

• Hi, I'm running Windows 10 already and received an upgrade notification from Microsoft but can't install it because I don't have the Product Key or Digital Licence details

 

Digital license key

What do you mean by digital license "key"? I've heard of a digital license for Windows 10, and I've heard of a Product Key for Windows 10, but I've never heard of a digital license key.

 

Digital license & product key details

How do I upgrade Windows 10 (this was from Windows 8 via free upgrade) without
digital license & product key details?