How to recover your Windows product key – Whatever you buy in this world comes with a piece of the certificate that proves your ownership of that thing. For example, when you buy a car, you get a certificate of registration along with a bill that proves the ownership of that car and to whom the car belonged to.
Similarly, in the digital world, You get a product key that proves that you are the rightful owner of that product. For example, when you buy windows from an official source such as Microsoft Store, you get a windows product key that proves the ownership of the operating system.
For various reasons, you might have to reinstall your operating system, and when you reinstall your operating system, it loses all the previous data, including the product key, which was proof of your ownership.
And in order to become a legitimate user of the operating system, you have to enter the product key once again and use the full features. If you are struggling with the same, then let’s take a look at how to recover your windows product key.
Method one to recover your windows product key
Let’s start with the simplest way to recover your Windows product key. You don’t need any software or command prompt like any other tutorial or method. You just have to use the windows settings, and you will be able to recover your windows product key.
- First of all, you have to click the windows button or use the mouse to press the start button.
- Once you have clicked the start button now, you can enter regedit in the search box and by right-clicking on the search result, select run it as administrator.
- It will open the registry editor tool. Kindly be careful to just follow the steps and do not try to change any other setting. You might fall into deep trouble, and your system might behave oddly.
- Now in the Registry Editor, search for HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows NT \Currentversion.
- As soon as you locate the current version settings folder, look at the right side of your display, and you will find a digital product ID file.
- Once you have successfully downloaded the file, you can use any third-party tool to decode its value and get the lost key.
Kindly remember most of these tools are going to work when your computer is running with the key. Otherwise
Method 2 to recover your windows product key
Now let’s take a look at the second method to recover your Windows product key. You might require a small technical knowledge in order to recover your windows product key using the second method.
- First of all, kindly click the windows button from your keyboard or click the start icon using the cursor of your mouse.
- Once you have opened the start menu, kindly enter wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey in the command prompt window.
- As soon as you enter the command and press enter, it will show you the original product key of your window.
- Kindly write down this product key using pen and paper. Kindly do not copy-paste the product key in Microsoft Word or notepad because when you reinstall the window, it might also delete the file.
Method three to recover your windows product key
Now let’s take a look at the third method to recover your windows product key. Just like the second method, you have to use a simple script in order to fetch the product key saved on your computer. Let’s take a look at all the steps.
- First of all, kindly open the notepad on your computer and paste the script given below.
Set WshShell = CreateObject(“WScript.Shell”)
MsgBox ConvertToKey(WshShell.RegRead (“HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DigitalProductId”))
Function ConvertToKey(Key)
Const KeyOffset = 52
i = 28
Chars = “BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789”
Do
Cur = 0
x = 14
Do
Cur = Cur * 256
Cur = Key(x + KeyOffset) + Cur
Key(x + KeyOffset) = (Cur \ 24) And 255
Cur = Cur Mod 24
x = x -1
Loop While x= 0
i = i -1
KeyOutput = Mid(Chars, Cur + 1, 1) & KeyOutput
If (((29 – i) Mod 6) = 0) And (i <> -1) Then
i = i -1
KeyOutput = “-” & KeyOutput
End If
Loop While i= 0
ConvertToKey = KeyOutput
End Function
- Once you have pasted the above-given script, kindly use the save as function to save the notepad file and use the below-given file name with the extension.
windowsproudctkey.VBS
- After saving the file, kindly double click that command file, and it will pop up the product key of your windows.
- Kindly remember the script will only work if you already have a product key on your windows.
- If you are using a fire-rated version or your windows are not already activated, then the command won’t show anything on the popup.
- The above-given tutorial is not a hack to get the product key. It will only show you the product key already working on your windows computer or laptop.
Method four to recover your windows product key
Now let’s take a look at the 4th method to recover your windows product key. It will require third party software that will fetch the windows key already saved in your operating system.
Kindly remember we do not encourage anyone to use any third-party software to fetch sensitive information such as the product key of your windows. Use any third-party software at your own risk.
- First of all, open a web browser on your computer and go to any search engine you like, such as Google.
- Once you have opened the first change, kindly enter Isunshare product key finder and press enter.
- Now click on the official website of Isunshare and go to the product key Finder tool.
- Even though it is a paid software, you can get a free trial for a few days, and it can recover any product key, including windows, Microsoft Office, SQL Server, Adobe Photoshop and Visual Studio.
- Once you have downloaded the software, kindly install it using simple steps.
- After installing the software, kindly start the software and find the start recovery button at the bottom of the software dashboard.
- As soon as you click on the start recovery button, it will fetch every product key of every Microsoft product working on your computer, and you can save the product key.
Takeaways
The digital world is full of ups and downs. You might not know when you will fall in trouble and require certain things such as windows product keys.
Even though usually we don’t require a product key if our computer is working fine, in some cases due to viruses or other reasons you might have to reinstall your Windows operating system and that time you will require the product key to use all the functions.
There are multiple ways that you can use to secure your already working product key. For example, you can use the command prompt to fetch the Product key saved in your system.
Apart from that, you can use the vb script and third-party software in order to get the product key. Usually, we recommend everyone to use the command prompt method or VBScript method, but if you are not comfortable using anything like that, you can use third-party software also.
Which is the official method to recover your windows product key?
Apart from using third-party software, every method listed in our article is official. Every method is available on the official website of Microsoft and in the Windows forum. For the example above given first, second and third, all three methods are available on the forum of Microsoft, and we have gathered the information by cross verifying every method
Is there any other method to recover your Windows product key?
Even though the above-given methods are enough to recover your windows product key, there is one more method that you can use if the above-given method is not working. First of all, you have to search PowerShell using the search function of Windows 10 and 11. Kindly run the PowerShell application as an administrator and after opening the application, kindly enter the command (Get-WmiObject -query ‘select * from SoftwareLicensingService’).OA3xOriginalProductKey. After entering the command, as soon as you click enter, it will present you with your already working product key.
I have already reinstalled the windows. What should I do now to recover the product key?
If you already have reinstalled the windows, then you have to contact the customer care of Microsoft and tell them your problem. Apart from the Microsoft customer care, there is nothing anyone can do to recover the old product key, which was working before you reinstalled the operating system.