Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
2 Posts
1
16649
Lost recovery partition from Windows 10. Anyway to get back Windows 8 product key?
I'm currently on an Alienware 17 laptop which originally came with Windows 8 pre-installed. I had recently installed the Windows 10 technical preview. Frankly, it's pretty buggy so I wanted to restore to factory settings, but it seems that my laptop's factory state simply reverts back to when Windows 10 had just been installed, thus, I'm stuck with the same issues. I don't mind reinstalling everything from scratch, but is there a way to recover a product key from the original Windows 8 installation or am I left to simply buy a new Window 8 OS?
spaceengineer
118 Posts
1
May 15th, 2015 09:00
You can get a replacement Windows installation disk from Dell Customer Service if you don't have yours. The Alienware recovery DVD is a branded Windows installation that does not require a product key. To answer your other question, there is no way to retrieve the product activation key from an installed copy of Windows. This is because the activation key is not stored in it's raw form on the computer. Keep in mind that the Product ID listed in the System Properties is NOT the same thing as the Product Activation key.
prado16
2 Posts
0
May 15th, 2015 10:00
Unfortunately, my warranty has expired since I purchased this well over a year ago. Any chance I could order the recovery disk and pay a fee or something? All I want is a clean installation of windows and it's Alienware drivers n'stuff.