Have you purchased a new Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 PC and want to reinstall the operating system now? Do you want to legally download Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 ISO from Microsoft but can’t find the product key on your PC?
Those of you have purchased a PC pre-installed with Windows 8 or later version of Windows probably have noticed that OEMs have stopped pasting “Proof of license. Certificate of Authenticity” sticker at the back of the PC which usually includes Windows product key. OEMs are now embedding the product key into the BIOS/UEFI instead and isn’t easily visible.
Even though this is a good way to combat piracy, and in most cases, Windows 8/8.1 setup automatically reads the product key while reinstalling the operating system, PC users who need the product key to download Windows ISO from Microsoft to reinstall the OS or for other reasons need to recover the product key from the firmware first.
Luckily, there are a couple of free tools out there to help you recover Windows product key from the BIOS/UEFI.
Windows 8 Product Key Viewer is a little tool developed to recover Windows 8/8.1 product key from BIOS/UEFI as well as hard drive. In short, you can use this tool to retrieve Windows product key on a PC preinstalled with Windows 8/8.1, and also, if you have installed Windows 8/8.1 on a newly assembled computer.
Method 1:
View Windows 8/8.1 product key saved in BIOS/UEFI
Step 1: Head over to this page and download Windows 8 Product Key Viewer.
Step 2: Run the program and check the option labelled MSDM key to view your genuine program key.
And if Windows 8/8.1 wasn’t bundled with your PC and you manually installed it later, you can view the product key by unchecking MSDM Key box. That’s it!
Method 2:
If Windows 8/8.1 was preinstalled on your PC, you can try out a free script named Get_Win8Key as well. It reads the product key from the device firmware and is easy to use as well.
Step 1: Visit this page and download the script. Extract the zip file package to get the script file.
Step 2: Double-click on the file to execute it and view the license key.
Method 3:
And if you want to recover the product key from Windows Registry, try out ProduKey from NirSoft. Just like Windows 8 Product Key Viewer, Nirsoft’s ProduKey is a portable tool designed to recover Windows product key.
How to recover Windows 7/8 product key from unbootable PC and how to backup data from unbootable hard drive guides might also interest you.
Nives says
Good job Nick
Nick says
Windows is far too hard to deal with.
I get sick of having to phone in all the time.
Daddy (microsoft)? May I please activate my own PC that I bought with my $$$ this time?
Uhhhh!!!!
Linux Mint just gained a new customer!
By the way, I have been steadily converting family & friends over to Linux, to avoid the hassle of Windows.
Linux is safer, faster, easier, & just works.
Between Xubuntu & Linux Mint, I reckon I have converted around 8,000 or so people from Windows to Linux during the past 5 years or so.
I don’t play around!
Addinall says
Boot a Linux USB stick
sudo hexdump -s 56 -e ‘”MSDM key: ” /29 “%s\n”‘ /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM
Cleber says
You might have used a different Windows version than the original one.
Microsoft just launched this website, that might fix you up:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery
SteveJohnson says
Hi, I extracted my BIOS W8 key, but when I reinstall W8 from USB (fresh boot), that extracted key cannot work, any comment?