Does anyone know how I can retrieve my windows product key from my BIOS? This for a 2 month old MSI Dominator GT72 PRO laptop which was purchased new with Windows 8.1 preloaded; no disc or product. How to retrieve or Extract OEM (pre installed)windows 8 Product key from BIOS Do it Fix it. Where is the license key of my windows 8 PC. Recover Windows Product Key(Serial) When System Won't.

1. Extracting My Windows Serial Key From My Toshiba Motherboards
2. Extracting My Windows Serial Key From My Toshiba Motherboard Key

My friend's laptop motherboard died and he needs his Windows 7 product key from the hard drive (which is still working).

I connected the old drive as a secondary drive to my own computer and tried using a key finder utility, but it just keeps showing my own product key and not his.

Is there a way to retrieve the product key from the old drive using my computer?

1 Answer

It’s possible, but a little tricky. You need to extract the product key from the Windows registry hive files from the target drive.

There’s different ways to do it, but probably the quickest and easiest way is with Nirsoft’s ProduKey:

1. Download, extract, and run the program (it will show your own key by default)
2. Press F9 to bring up the Select Source dialog
3. Select Load the product keys from external Software Registry hive
4. Browse to the SOFTWARE registry hive. For example, if you have the drive from the other system mounted as drive Z:, then you would probably select Z:WindowsSystem32ConfigSOFTWARE
5. Click [OK]

It should read the hive file from the other copy of Windows and display the appropriate product key.

Extracting My Windows Serial Key From My Toshiba Motherboards

In this screenshot, I ran ProduKey in Windows XP (installed in C:) and then extracted the key from Windows 7 (mounted as T:). Note how it still says C:Windows since Windows 7 was indeed installed in C:, even though it’s files are currently accessible from T:.

protected by Community♦Aug 20 '14 at 19:04

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Extracting My Windows Serial Key From My Toshiba Motherboard Key

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If you have purchased a laptop running Windows 8 recently you may have noticed that it may not contain a small label on the back side or battery compartment listing the operating system's product key. The question that should come up at this point is how you are going to reinstall the operating system without the product key.

The answer is however fairly simple. Device manufacturers are embedding the product key in the BIOS of the motherboard. What this means is that the installer will automatically recognize the product key and use it during installation and activation of the Windows 8 operating system.

This has several advantages, both for Microsoft and OEMs as it is no longer that easy to 'steal' product keys this way, and for users who do not have to worry about fading text or damaged labels on their laptops.

One of the improvements Microsoft is making to Activation 3.0 for newly built machines that come preloaded with Windows 8, you won’t have a COA (Certificate of Authenticity) sticker attached to the machine anymore. Instead, this will be embedded in the BIOS.

So far so good. There is a slight problem though in regards to installing a different version of the operating system on those devices. Say you have bought a laptop running Windows 8, and have an OEM copy of Windows 8 Pro lying around that you want to install on that laptop.

The installer will automatically use the BIOS key during installation giving you no option to enter the retail copy product key during installation. You do end up with an activated copy of the original version of Windows and not the one that you have purchased separately.

Is there a way to get past this? I honestly do not know and would like to ask each and everyone of you to chime in and post your thoughts on how to get the installer to not use the embedded BIOS key during installation of Windows 8. (via Deskmodder)