WIndows activation

When a machine is reinstalled (see NickWorks Services), re-entering the product key should allow Windows to be activated. It requires that you install the right version of Windows to match the key - so before starting to reinstall, it is important to have these two pieces of information.

Every Windows PC should have a sticker on the case with this information on it - but it is sometimes missing or too faded to read (this happens a lot on laptops).

Luckily there are a few utilities that allow recovery of this information from the Windows registry. It's encrypted, so it can't be read directly.

I used ProduKey, which makes it quite easy. It can access the information on an external disk or USB key, so if Windows won't boot, you can still get the code, as long as the disk still functions.

If the code is barred by Microsoft, it could indicate that the installed version of Windows was from a suspect source.