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I have had several problems trying to install Ubuntu alongside my Windows 8.1 so as it was booting in UEFI mode, as I'm not that into PC games, I decided to format the hard drive and just install Ubuntu. Now I find I need Windows, but I need the product key to download it which is supposed to be in the BIOS.

  • How can I find out my windows key from the BIOS?
  • As I will install Windows in some free space I reserved in the hard drive, is it going to erase my Ubuntu bootloader? Can I recover that later?
Kaz Wolfe
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Tabare
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    The Windows product key is not in the BIOS. It's on a sticker on the bottom of your PC. – Fabby Aug 01 '15 at 12:40
  • @Fabby: This changed in more recent versions of Windows. The 8 PC I bought a couple years back has no key on the holographic sticker, rather the OEM key is encoded in the BIOS. Another (ineffective) anti-piracy method by Microsoft. – Kaz Wolfe Aug 22 '15 at 08:03
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    @Whaaaaaat: O_o – Fabby Aug 22 '15 at 09:14
  • I don't really see this a off-topic--the techniques are mostly Ubuntu-specific, and it's like extracting any other firmware or--though not shown here--Windows registry data. (Registry hives are just another part of the NTFS filesystem; accessing NTFS is generally considered on-topic. Perhaps others disagree and I am not representing this as any kind of accepted policy, but that's my view.) In any case, if this were reopened it could be made a duplicate of Retrieve Windows 8 Product Key from mainboard – Eliah Kagan Sep 06 '17 at 02:20

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sudo hexdump -s 56 -e '"MSDM key: " /29 "%s\n"'  /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM
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Martin Bull
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