What’s the best Windows 11 product key or how to find the product key for Windows 11? In this post, several ways will be introduced to help find the key to activate Windows 11.
“I just bought a new laptop and installed the latest version of Windows 11 on it without using the product key. Everything went well in the first few days that I could use all system features without any hassle. However, when I tried changing the wall paper or performing any operations related to personalization, those options were greyed out. Later, I learned the product key was required. So, where’s the Windows 11 product key? Is there any Windows 11 product key finder?”
A product key is a 25-character code that’s used to activate Windows to give you access to all the features without any limits and helps verify that Windows hasn’t been used on more computers than the Microsoft Software License Terms allow. If you don’t know or forgot the product key, then, Windows 11 won’t be activated and thus, you may not be able to use those Windows features related to personalization such as changing wall paper, customizing colors, and presetting themes.
First, let’s make sure whether we need to find the product key for Windows 11 because only when the OS it not activated, requirement for the product key is meaningful.
1. Open the start menu of Windows 11 and hit “Settings”.
2. Select “Update & Security”.
3. Click on “Activation”.
4. Check activation status. If what you see is the same as the following screenshot shows, Windows 11 has been successfully activated; or else, you need to input the 25-character code.
If you bought a computer where Windows 11 has been installed, you’re most likely to get the info from the computer’s packaging.
Laptop – Check the bottom of the device.
PC – Check the back of the monitor or panel.
If you purchase Windows online, you may receive an email where the Windows 11 product key may be contained.
How do I find my Windows product key Windows 11? Actually, it’s not a hard job because Windows has prepared 3 practical tools for you to locate the key effortlessly. Just read on to figure it out.
CMD, also called Command Prompt, is the default command-line interpreter for Microsoft Windows. It helps Windows users do many things such as managing disks/partitions and looking for Windows 11 product key. The following tutorial will guide you through the detailed process.
1. On Windows 11, hit “Windows + S” or select the search box to launch Windows Search.
2. Type “cmd” in the search box. Once the result appears, select “Run as administrator”.
3. Type the following command line and hit the “ENTER” key.
wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey
4. Then, Windows 11 product key will show the license number the next line.
VBScript is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It allows Microsoft Windows system administrator to generate powerful tools to manage PCs. This time, we’ll learn to use this tool to locate and find the Windows 11 product key.
1. In the search box on the desktop, type “notepad”.
2. Under “Best match”, right-click on “Notepad” and select “Run as administrator”.
3. Hit “Yes” to launch Notepad.
4. Copy the codes below to Notepad:
Option Explicit
Dim objshell,path,DigitalID, Result
Set objshell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
'Set registry key path
Path = "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\"
'Registry key value
DigitalID = objshell.RegRead(Path & "DigitalProductId")
Dim ProductName,ProductID,ProductKey,ProductData
'Get ProductName, ProductID, ProductKey
ProductName = "Product Name: " & objshell.RegRead(Path & "ProductName")
ProductID = "Product ID: " & objshell.RegRead(Path & "ProductID")
ProductKey = "Installed Key: " & ConvertToKey(DigitalID)
ProductData = ProductName & vbNewLine & ProductID & vbNewLine & ProductKey
'Show messbox if save to a file
If vbYes = MsgBox(ProductData & vblf & vblf & "Save to a file?", vbYesNo + vbQuestion, "BackUp Windows Key Information") then
Save ProductData
End If
'Convert binary to chars
Function ConvertToKey(Key)
Const KeyOffset = 52
Dim isWin8, Maps, i, j, Current, KeyOutput, Last, keypart1, insert
'Check if OS is Windows 8
isWin8 = (Key(66) \ 6) And 1
Key(66) = (Key(66) And &HF7) Or ((isWin8 And 2) * 4)
i = 24
Maps = "BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789"
Do
Current= 0
j = 14
Do
Current = Current* 256
Current = Key(j + KeyOffset) + Current
Key(j + KeyOffset) = (Current \ 24)
Current=Current Mod 24
j = j -1
Loop While j >= 0
i = i -1
KeyOutput = Mid(Maps,Current+ 1, 1) & KeyOutput
Last = Current
Loop While i >= 0
keypart1 = Mid(KeyOutput, 2, Last)
insert = "N"
KeyOutput = Replace(KeyOutput, keypart1, keypart1 & insert, 2, 1, 0)
If Last = 0 Then KeyOutput = insert & KeyOutput
ConvertToKey = Mid(KeyOutput, 1, 5) & "-" & Mid(KeyOutput, 6, 5) & "-" & Mid(KeyOutput, 11, 5) & "-" & Mid(KeyOutput, 16, 5) & "-" & Mid(KeyOutput, 21, 5)
End Function
'Save data to a file
Function Save(Data)
Dim fso, fName, txt,objshell,UserName
Set objshell = CreateObject("wscript.shell")
'Get current user name
UserName = objshell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%UserName%")
'Create a text file on desktop
fName = "C:\Users\" & UserName & "\Desktop\WindowsKeyInfo.txt"
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set txt = fso.CreateTextFile(fName)
txt.Writeline Data
txt.Close
End Function
5. Click on “File” and select “Save As”.
6. Select “Save as type” as “All Files”. Set Encoding as ANSI. Type the file name as “Non-OA3-ProductKey.vbs”. You’re recommended to save this file on the desktop so that you can have access to it with ease later. Hit the “Save” button to save this file.
7. Double-click on the VBS file on the desktop to open it.
8. Now, you can see the product key for Windows 11. Hit “Yes” to save to a file.
PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management program from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and associated scripting language. You can use PowerShell to locate the Windows 11 product key as follows.
1. Type “powershell” in the search box.
2. Run PowerShell as an administrator.
3. Hit “Yes” to proceed.
4. Type the command line below and hit “ENTER”.
powershell "Get-WmiObject - query ‘select * from SoftwareLicensingService’).OA3xOriginalProductKey"
Then, the key will appear.
After installation and activation of Windows 11, what to do next is managing hard disks and partitions. For example, many people find there’s only a C drive on their PC after Windows 11 installation. In this case, they have to create other partitions so that they can separate OS from programs; or sometimes, they find the system disk is too small/big and thus, they need to enlarge/shrink the disk.
So, how to manage hard drives and partitions on your Windows 11 PC? Here, I recommend AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, an easy-to-use and powerful software utility that helps perform operations including resizing partitions, creating partitions, and merging partitions in only a few clicks.
What’s the best Windows 11 product key finder and how to find the key? In this post, 3 different ways are introduced to help locate the product key. Hopefully, now, you can activate Windows 11 and enjoy its distinctive features without any limit. Meanwhile, in the final part of the post, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is recommended. It’s so versatile that it’s capable of doing almost everything about disk management. If you want to try other features including splitting partitions and free space allocation, you should upgrade this AOMEI product to the professional edition.