Win 10 Licence in Bios AND one in Windows setup? Why 2?

Brian_Pamo

Hi all

I have recently been given some PC’s from a friend. I cleaned them all up and built 5 new PC’s. On these 5 good ones I reinstalled windows and was amazed to find that there are TWO Windows Licences. I discovered this when I used a piece of software to find the windows licence number. I tried inputting the licence code exactly but it wasn’t valid and Win 10 rejected the key EVEN THOUGH I INPUTTED PERFECTLY. I then used a boot CD with Lazesoft on it and discovered that there was ANOTHER Win 10 Licence that was in the BIOS.  I wrote this Key down and restarted windows. Went to windows activation and input this Licence. This worked! 

So, when did this method come about? Why? I remember back to Win 95 when every Tom, Richard and Harry used to lend each other OS installation disks. Admittedly it is a long time since I’ve been messing about with BIOS’s (from the days of the American Megatrends etc) but I have to say I was very surprised to find out there was a Windows license key somehow hardwired into the BIOS. 

Browntoa

Dell machines had their license in the bios from memory. Meant you could use a generic dell install cd and it would validate with no problems

Uptown_Boy

Windows 10 licences are stored on MS servers and are keyed to hardware items (e.g. mobo). Often the licence key recovered is a generic key but MS servers allow the activation because it recognises the hardware spec.

Neil_Jones

The "product key in the BIOS" thing first appeared with Windows 8.  The installation CD would pick it up automatically, and you could always tell if the machine came with 8 or 8.1 as you wouldn't get any trace of "enter a product key" during setup if you had the right disk.

Same principle applies with Windows 10, but if you upgraded to it from 7/8 you get a digital licence, and if you buy a new device with 10 already on it, you have the key in the BIOS, but it should reactivate automatically.