Looking to reinstall Windows on the same PC or move your copy of Windows from an older PC to a new one? Well, depending on what version of Windows you have installed, you may or may not need the product key.
If you have Windows 7 or earlier, your system is activated by a single product key that is stored in the Windows registry. Using third-party software or a simple script, you can extract this key quite easily. You can then use this key to install Windows again on the same machine or use it to install Windows on another machine as long as you first deactivate the key on the original machine.
If you have Windows 8.1 installed, you won’t have any product key unless you bought a retail version of the operating system. Otherwise, the product key is now stored in an encrypted format in the BIOS or UEFI firmware. This means a lot of Windows 8 machines bought from Dell, HP, etc. won’t even have a COA sticker on the side or back of the machine.
This is good and bad. It’s good because you can reinstall Windows and not have to worry about any product key. It will simply activate automatically since the key is stored in the BIOS or firmware. It’s bad because it doesn’t allow you to use the key on another machine if something happens to the first one.
Also, if you have to replace certain parts in your machine, it might cause Windows to deactivate. In this case where it’s the same PC, just with different parts, you can call Microsoft and they will activate it for you.
With Windows 10, everything changes again. Now there is no product key at all! Windows 10 introduces something new called a digital entitlement. This entitlement is based on off your computer’s hardware and is stored with Microsoft. This is true for any OEM machines or PCs that were upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7 or Windows 8. This means you can’t transfer your copy of Windows 10 to another computer. It also means your original Windows 7 or 8 product key will disappear.
If you buy a retail copy of Windows 10, however, you will get a product key, and the license can be transferred over to another PC. Now there is one exception to the above rules: if you upgraded Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10, then you can technically transfer Windows 10 to another computer until July 29th, 2016. On this date, Windows 10 is no longer going to be free and there will be no more free upgrades.
So you can technically install Windows 7 or 8 again on a different PC and then upgrade it to Windows 10 again. It’s definitely a lot of work, but possible. If you’re thinking about upgrading Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10, you should first use this post to find your product key and store it somewhere safely in case you need to reinstall Windows 7 or 8. Read my previous post on Windows 7, 8, and 10 licensing.
Note that you can also use the methods below to show your product key on Windows 10, but it’s just going to give you a generic key, not a real product key.
Find Windows Product Key – ProduKey
The first method to get your product key on Windows 8 and earlier is by using a third-party program from Nirsoft called ProduKey. It’s free and Nirsoft software is always clean, so you don’t have to worry about viruses or malware.
Scroll down towards the bottom of the page to get to the download links. If you have 64-bit Windows installed, download the x64 version of the program. Once you download it, unzip the files and run the ProduKey application.
It will instantly find all Microsoft applications installed on your system and give you the Product ID and Product Key. It’s a great program and you can just delete the program files once you are done. I also like using this program because I’ve ended up writing down the product keys for other products like Office that I hadn’t thought of looking up.
Find Windows Product Key – Script
If you don’t want to download any software, you can simply create a script that will return the value of the product key. In order to create the script, you need to first open Notepad. Then, copy and paste in the following code:
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
Now click File and then Save As. To save the file as a script, you need to add .vbs to the end of the file name and you need to choose All Files for the Save as type box.
Click Save and now go to the folder where you saved the script. Double-click to run it and you should get a small window with your Windows product key.
This script is short and doesn’t give you any other info about Windows. If you need to know what edition of Windows you have installed, just open the Control Panel and click on System. At the top, it’ll tell you the edition.
So those are two easy ways to get your product key for Windows. As mentioned earlier, Windows 10 no longer has a product key, so it’s a good idea to get your key before you upgrade Windows 7 or 8. If you’ve already upgraded your machine, you should be able to reinstall Windows 10 (the same edition) on that machine without needing to reactivate or enter any product key.
If you replace too many parts on your computer or your computer dies and you want to move it to another computer, you can either reinstall Windows 7 or 8 before July 29, 2016 and upgrade or you will have to call Microsoft and hopefully they’ll allow you to activate Windows. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!
As I mentioned earlier, running another copy of the operating system in a virtual machine can help you in two ways: protect your privacy and keep your safe from viruses/malware. Starting with OS X Lion (10.7), you can install the operating system as many times as you like into a virtual machine as long as it is on the same hardware.
So if you have a MacBook Pro with OS X El Capitan installed, you can install as many copies of El Capitan into virtual machines on that same machine. In this article, I’ll walk you through the steps to get OS X installed using VMware Fusion. There is a free program called VirtualBox, but it has some drawbacks.
VMware Fusion is not free, but has more features and is generally more powerful and easier to use than VirtualBox. VirtualBox requires using Terminal commands to get OS X installed. In addition, it doesn’t even work properly for the latest version of OS X.
Note that there are two ways to install OS X on VMware fusion: download OS X from the App Store and use that for installing or to use the recovery partition to reinstall OS X. I’ll explain both methods in this post.
Download OS X
You can install OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, or El Capitan into a virtual machine on your Mac computer. Before you get started with the download method, you need to grab a copy of the OS X installer from the App Store.
To do this, open the App Store and download your version of OS X. In my example, I am running El Capitan, so that is what I will download. It’s listed on the right hand side in the list of links.
Click the Download button and the install app will be downloaded to your Applications folder in OS X. The download will be several GBs in size, so it could take a while for the download to complete.
Install OS X in VMware Fusion
Note that you will need VMware Fusion 8 installed if you want to install El Capitan. You can always check the Compatibility Guide to see which operating systems are supported by different versions of VMware software. Simply scroll down the Product Release Version list box and choose your version of VMware Fusion.
Now open VMware Fusion and then click on File and New to start creating a new virtual machine.
A window will pop up where you can either install from a disc or image or you can choose from a couple of other options.
Here is where we can go either of two ways. If you downloaded OS X from the App Store, you’re going to choose Install from disc or image. If you simply want to use the recovery partition on your Mac, you’re going to choose Install OS X from the recovery partition.
Install from Disc or Image
Select this option and then click Continue. You’ll now need to choose the disc or image to continue the install. Go ahead and click on the Use another disc or disc image button at the bottom of the screen and browse to the location of the OS X install app, which should be located under the Applications folder.
Click Open and it should now show up in the list. You can now select it and click Continue to start the installation.
The last screen of the wizard will give you a summary of all the settings.
If everything looks good, go ahead and click Finish to start the virtual machine. You’ll be asked to save the virtual machine so give it a name and pick a location. Click Save and the virtual machine should start up after a few minutes. You’ll then see the Apple logo appear and the progress bar.
Once this finishes, you’ll get the screen where you choose your language. Click the arrow and you’ll see the OS X Utilities screen.
Choose Install OS X and click Continue. Now you’ll get the installation screen for your version of OS X. Click Continue to start the installation.
Agree to the license agreement and then choose the hard drive you want to install OS X to. It should say Macintosh HD and be the size you setup for the virtual machine.
Click Install and OS X will now be installed. The virtual machine will restart and you’ll get the Apple logo again with a progress bar. Once the installation is complete, OS X should load up and you should be able to log into the desktop. Whew! Kind of a long process, but pretty straight-forward.
Install from Recovery Partition
If you choose the Install from recovery partition option, the procedure is pretty much the same. First, it will load a screen where it will look for the recovery partition and if it finds it, it will bring up a dialog to save your virtual machine. Give the virtual machine a name and location and click Save.
Next, you’ll get the same Finish configuration screen like shown above where it gives you a summary of the virtual machine settings. Click Finish and the virtual machine window will load up.
Next, the Apple logo will appear with the progress bar. Again, you’ll get the screen where you have to choose your language and then the OS X Utilities screen. The only difference here is that you choose Reinstall OS X instead of Install OS X, which is the option in the previous method.
Now you’ll get the same OS X install screen, so click the Install button to continue. For this method, however, you have to download OS X off Apple’s servers. So you’ll get a message stating that your eligibility has to be verified. Click Continue.
Accept the license agreement and then choose the hard disk you want to install OS X onto. Click install and then you’ll get a screen where you have to sign into the Apple store.
At this point, OS X will be downloaded and it could take a while depending on your Internet connection.
After it finishes, the virtual machine will restart and the Apple logo and progress bar will appear. OS X will install and you’ll be able to login once the installation is complete. It does take quite a bit of time to setup OS X in a virtual machine, but it works well.
After you are done and your virtual machine is loaded, you need to click on Virtual Machine and then Install VMware Tools. This will install the OS X virtual machine tools, which allows you to increase the resolution to HD and allows the virtual machine to run more smoothly.
Hopefully, this article will help you get OS X running properly in a virtual machine on your Mac. It’s possible to install OS X on a PC, but it’s not legal and it’s much more difficult, especially with the latest versions of OS X. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!
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