Pulling the Product Key from a WIN10 VM

[jaymemccolgan]

hey guys! I have a VM that's not booting anymore (probably because of my own fault.) I'm ready to delete that messed up VM and start over with a fresh install. is there a way I can find out what product key I used for windows? I would rather not pay for another one if I don't have to.

[bluefirestorm]

Last time i tried one of those scripts from the ZDNet, it already returned blank for the activation key (both virtual and physical machines).

However, so long as you simply re-install over the current VM, don't create a new VM, the digital licence activation process will see it as the same machine and won't ask for licence key for reactivation.

[jaymemccolgan]

mind linking me to an article on how to do that? I already have a WIN10 iso image.

[bluefirestorm]

Not sure which article you are referring to but here is the link to the one that used to retrieve the original product key https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-tip-find-your-pcs-original-product-key/

You don't need the original product key so long as you install over the existing VM. It is no different from physical machines that are reinstalled with an ISO or USB bootable created from Windows Media Creation tool. For your case, you just simply attach the Windows 10 iso image to the existing VM and boot off from the ISO image and you choose the install options as necessary. As you don't create a new VM with this process, the activation servers does not see it as new or different machine and thus will not ask for a product key.

[TECH198]

The problem is most of these tools for finding keys for even a non-bootable system, requires an installation in windows itself fore it becomes unbootable.. whoch won;t help you if its in this state already..

You don't need a product key to install windows, only to activate... but that won't be much good either.