Monday, May 23, 2016

UEFI - Windows Product Key retrieval in Lunux

Trying to install a fresh copy of windows 8.1 or newer? or Install a copy as a virtual machine in your linux? 

On newer (win 8.1 + ) versions you won't find a sticker with the product key to install a fresh copy of windows on your machine. So you either have to retrieve it beforehand from your firmware using windows tools, or gather it after installing Linux on the drive. 

You have paid for this license and the Product key is in your UEFI firmware. You can retrieve this and write it into a text-file by typing the following command in a terminal screen.



sudo hexdump -s 56 -e ' "MSDM key: " /29 "%s\n" ' /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM > /home/[username]/filename.txt



Note
Usually your copy of windows is pre-installed on your original hardware, in case of disk-failure or disk-swap, you might need to download a fresh copy (.iso-file) from Microsoft. (this will only work if you download the correct version = same as your original version. otherwise your product key will not work) 


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