I am trying to recover my mothers PC. Her drive has been formatted. I have the ability to reinstall the OS but don't know ecaxtly what OS came with it. Im pretty sure it was windows 8, then they upgraded to 10 and had a major issue, causing them to somehow format their drive. So now all I have is the serial#, and need to find which OS came preinstalled, and the key for it. The HP support website really had no answers for me. Is there a way to find out what OS and the key using only the serial number?
You can think of the Serial Number as a VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) if that helps. You can think of it as a person's name. You can think of it as the bar code on a can of tuna. The Serial Number is an identifier for that product or object. If there was an issue with your particular object, product, or OS installation media, tracing the serial number could result in revealing a problem during production... as that serial number can be used to identify when and where something was manufactured. That's down to the date, time, and location in a particular production facility.
Windows Product Key Serial Number
The Product Key... that's not a serial number. In this specific case (since cans of Tuna don't have Product Keys... unless you count the Can Opener) the Product Key is just that... a key. The installation (identified by the serial number) is locked, and must be unlocked to be used. To unlock (activate) it, you need the key.
my Laptop has just been repaired and it is asking for the product key. I cant access some of the apps here in my laptop because the windows needs to be activated. Please help me I badly need your help. this laptop is very important for me. thank you so much.
Note: For single-user subscriptions, you can usually sign in so that a serial number is not required. You may see a Stand-alone license type for 2017-2019 products, but a User License type for 2020 and later product versions.
If you purchased Adobe Student & Teacher edition product, you may have received a serial number or a redemption code. See Serial numbers, redemption codes, and product codes Student & Teacher editions.
The number of activations available for a product may not always match the number of licenses purchased. Usually you will receive a higher number of activations in case you need to reinstall and activate some of your products. Please check the Licensing Summary section of your agreement to see your number of licenses.
In many cases, commercial software requires that you enter a product key in order to activate it. This key confirms that you own a valid user license for the software. Microsoft has always made use of a product key for the activation of its operating system. If you want to reinstall Windows, you will need to enter your serial number again. But how do you find this product key?
Before downloads became the norm, software was sold on physical storage media, such as CDs or disks, from which the programs could be installed and launched. But since these media were often copied or lent out to friends or acquaintances, software manufacturers began assigning individual numbers to every copy sold. This ensured that software could only be used once the purchased product key had been entered.
Microsoft Product Activation Assisted Support can be contacted by leveraging the telephone numbers within the product you are trying to activate. To activate by phone, select the relevant product links below:
If you have SecurID Access Manager, SecurID Keon, or SecurID ClearTrust products, the license serial number is located on a paper license shipped with the product. Contract your System Administrator to obtain this information.
The serial number can be found on a label on the top of the appliance, as shown below. Please also refer to your Order Confirmation email to obtain other information required when your call SecurID Support. The email will include your serial number, contract number or site ID.
For an OS serial number, in many versions of Windows, it is stored in the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DigitalProductId, however it is in some encoded form and needs to be decoded to get the product key.
Alternatively, I found an open source c# project that supposedly can extract the product key for any version of windows: It uses the method given above and provides some additional information about the machine.
Above is an example of the Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition product key. Usually, it is on the side or bottom of an OEM desktop computer. On an OEM laptop, it may be on the bottom of the laptop, or underneath the laptop battery. In this example, the last four sets of letters and numbers are hidden to protect the unique key. After Windows is installed on a computer, it prompts you for an activation key to verify your computer has a legitimate copy of Windows. Below, are the formats of the Microsoft Windows product keys.
So, you certainly can build a CSV file with the needed tuple information once you know (or figure out) the right manufacturer and model details. If that sounds like too much trouble, then fall back to the serial number and Windows product ID. If the OEM can provide you with the hardware hash, that works too, but avoid capturing the hash yourself.
With the October 2018 update, versions of Creative Cloud and Document Cloud are only available if deployed via named user licensing. On November 30, 2019, many customers will also be affected by expiring serial numbers. To avoid interruption and to access the latest versions of the apps, customers must migrate to named user licensing. For more detail, see the announcement.
Serial numbers have a finite lifespan, and a number of serials are expiring through the end of 2019. While most customers can and should migrate from serial numbers to named user licensing, re-serialization is possible for those needing to remain with traditional serialization.
If you are using the Wizard to configure the application prior to deployment, enter the license information in the user interface as described in the user documentation. Doing so writes the serial number information to the abcpy.ini file. This file needs to be placed in the same directory as the MSI used at installation time.
Deployments that use EXE files require that the Setup.ini file contain the serial number information for the application. For example, during a bootstrapper Setup.exe deployment, the EXE file reads Setup.ini to get the needed information. You can set this up manually as follows:
You can't do without the serial number while you install, reinstall, or activate Adobe Acrobat (9/X/XI Pro) or other versions of Acrobat. If you are planning on reinstalling or transferring Adobe Acrobat to a new computer but can't find the serial number, this could be quite troublesome. But take it easy. As long as Adobe Acrobat has been installed on your computer, the serial number has been stored in your Windows Registry. You have some options to find serial number for Adobe Acrobat on your computer.
Step 4: Click on the Save button or the Save to File button to save the serial numbers into a Notepad. Then you can open the Notepad to view the serial number when Adobe Acrobat asks for a serial number.
At the beginning of this article, I mentioned that serial number has been stored in system Registry as long as the genuine Adobe Acrobat has been installed. So you can manually open Windows Registry to find the serial number.
Step 3: The Registry Editor opens. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> Adobe -> Adobe Acrobat -> 9.0 -> Registration. There in the right pane you can find the serial number.
Step 4: But the serial number you can see is a series of encrypted number instead of the real serial number you can use to install Adobe Acrobat. You have to use a product key generator to decrypt the serial number.
The methods mentioned in the article will help find it without digging through old emails or product boxes. However, if you are looking for a new Windows 10 key, you can _to_get_a_windows_10_key/, as this will allow you to install a genuine version of the system. Hope this helps you, good luck with your Windows adventures!
Or you can install the free utility Belarc Advisor which gives you product keys for Windows, Office, and all other licensed packages as well as all your hardware specifics, model, and serial numbers.
I had no idea you could get the product key right out of Windows, like most people I used to have a drawer full of product licenses, registration numbers, product keys, license keys, serial numbers. This sure would have been useful back in my days of being a heavy Windows 98, NT, 2000, and XP user! But if it works in Windows 10, Window 7, then I am not sure it would work in Windows XP, despite XP still being widely used.
hello, i'm a newbie here and i need help retrieving the original windows product key of this aspire V5-431p which was given to me as a gift from a friend..it was purchased in germany and so has german language..and so without thinking about the windows product key, i reformatted it only to realized i really do need it..when i contacted my friend and asked him about it he said he doesn't know anything about these stuffs..so can acer trace the original product key of this laptop if i provide the laptop's serial number? help would really be appreciated..
thank you ironfly for that prompt reply..my problem is i dont have a windows dvd installer and so i need to get it online from microsoft..but everytime i use their media creation tool i cannot move past the licensing part..i need to provide a valid product key..hope you understand my dilemma..
acer's drivers download page classified my laptop as having windows 8 64bit so i guess that's the pre-installed OS..that's why i needed to downgrade my present OS - which is windows 8.1 - to windows 8 and the only way i know to do that is with microsoft's windows 8 set up tool..that's when a product key is needed 2ff7e9595c
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