How do I unregister my windows 8 product key?

I might be wrong, but my idea of how things work with regards to the windows 8 product key is that if you use it once on one computer, you cannot use it again when installing win 8 on another computer before you somehow unregister the first copy of win 8 that you used the key on, otherwise you would be able to just install win 8 on as many PCs as you want but only pay once for it.

My first question is whether that idea is correct or not.

Now assuming that I've got the correct picture, here is the actual question I wanted to ask. I've got a copy of win 8 from dreamspark and I have installed it in a VM (running win 7) and used the product key that I was given. Now I want to wipe my HDD and install win 8 (I do have a reason to do the wipe and not just upgrade). So how do I now "unregister" the product key that I used on that win 8 in a VM, so that I can use it when installing win 8 on my PC.

It seems the Product Key for OEM installations of Win8/8.1 and 10TP are connected to the BIOS and there is no actual Product Key as seen on COA/Certificate Of Authenticity stickers seen on Win7 and earlier computers. That pretty much firmly ties the OEM installation to the computer, can't be moved.

In your situation your copy of Win8, or is it actually 8.1, may not be an OEM version and you may be able to do a clean install or upgrade over Win7 but you most likely have to talk with Microsoft about the Activation. Registering is not required, Activation is required. If it sounds like there's a few IFs, that would be correct as your situation and desire are a bit different from others.

If you don't have an OEM computer that came with Windows 8/8.1 preinstalled.

Take a look at this post.

How to transfer Windows 8/8.1 license to new computer. -> link

Berton said:

It seems the Product Key for OEM installations of Win8/8.1 and 10TP are connected to the BIOS and there is no actual Product Key as seen on COA/Certificate Of Authenticity stickers seen on Win7 and earlier computers. That pretty much firmly ties the OEM installation to the computer, can't be moved.

Click to expand...

As a matter of fact I initially had windows 8 installed on this laptop. Due to a bunch of reasons I decided to wipe my HDD and install windows 7 here. So if I were to try and install windows 8 on this laptop, should it detect the product key in the firmware and be fine?

Also there definitely exist product keys for windows 8.1. When I got my copy I was explicitly given a product key and I did have to enter it when I was installing it into my virtual machine.

If you have an embedded product key the setup media will read the embedded key - or you can manually add the key you received..
the embedded product key will activate - the key you where given may not, depending.. If it was an OEM product Key, you can not transfer the activation.. If it was a Retail product key, you can transfer the activation by using the phone activation option..

Create installation media for Windows 8.1 - Windows Help

KYHI said:

If you have an embedded product key the setup media will read the embedded key - or you can manually add the key you received..
the embedded product key will activate - the key you where given may not, depending.. If it was an OEM product Key, you can not transfer the activation.. If it was a Retail product key, you can transfer the activation by using the phone activation option..

Click to expand...

I checked it and the copy I got from dreamspark is indeed a retail version, not OEM.

Now the thing is that the key that I had in here was for windows 8, not 8.1. So if I try to use a windows 8.1 installer, will it yell at me? In that case I would have to install windows 8 first and then go through the trouble of updating it to 8.1, which is not something I want to do since I already have a key for the 8.1 version.

Also I should mention that when I wiped my drive previously I didn't do anything to "deactivate" or "unregister" the copy of windows I had on my laptop. So now if I try to install win 8 on it again and activate it, will it yell at me thinking that this key has already been used for activation?

Also there definitely exist product keys for windows 8.1. When I got my copy I was explicitly given a product key and I did have to enter it when I was installing it into my virtual machine.

Click to expand...

I agree but I was speaking about/mentioned OEM computers which the original poster seemed to be working with. I have a couple of Win8.1 OEM computers [Desktop and Notebook] and a Custom Win8.1 computer and both situations for the Win8.1 key do exist with them.

- How to download and clean install Windows 8.1 if you have an OEM computer with UEFI firmware (BIOS) embedded Windows 8/8.1 product key. -> link
- How to download and clean install Windows 8.1 if you don't have an OEM computer that came with Windows 8/8.1 preinstalled. -> link
- How to transfer Windows 8/8.1 license to new computer. -> link

edit:

You cannot remove the activation from the Microsoft activation server.

But before you install Windows 8.1 to a new computer, you will need to uninstall current installed product key from your old computer.

> OPTION ONE <

Delete the old Windows installation, for example:

- Boot the computer using the Windows 7/8/8.1 installation media.
- On the first screen, press SHIFT+F10 to bring up command prompt.
- Run the following commands at the command prompt.

diskpart
list disk (this will give you a listing of the disks on your system)
select disk # (select the disk you want to clean, for example select disk 0)
clean (running the clean command will delete all partitions on the disk)
exit

> OPTION TWO <

Uninstall product key (see screenshot below).

Open the command prompt as administrator and type (or copy and paste) the following command.

slmgr /upk

View attachment 53770

Click to expand...

Now the thing is that the key that I had in here was for windows 8, not 8.1. So if I try to use a windows 8.1 installer, will it yell at me?

Click to expand...

No, it will read the 8 key and install 8.1

Also I should mention that when I wiped my drive previously I didn't do anything to "deactivate" or "unregister" the copy of windows I had on my laptop.

Click to expand...

The embedded Key is activated to your laptop.. So no need to deactivate that Key.. Just reinstall windows 8.1

And I have never "deactivated" or "unregistered" a retail product - before transfer via phone activation..
Microsoft states the key can only be installed in one PC - thus the reason for this.. Although removing the Retail Version for the PC does also remove the retail product key..

If you download your 8.1 install media from here, Create installation media for Windows 8.1 - Windows Help it will accept Windows 8.0 and 8.1 keys. Retail and OEM and OEM embedded. You can move a Retail version from one PC to another as long as it is only installed/activated on one PC at any one time. The second time you try to activate on different hardware it will fail activation. Do the phone activation and when asked how many PC's is it installed on, say one. You'll get a code to type in and it will activate. You can't deactivate a key. Well you can but it won't change anything, the original activation is recorded on the Microsoft activation server anyway. As far as I can tell is all it will do is let you change keys on the original PC. If your going to wipe that install anyway why bother trying to deactivate the key. Just a waist of time IMHO.

Thank you guys for the help! Before I go crazy with formatting my hard drives though, I just want to check that I got it all correct.

So I've uninstalled the retail product key from the win 8.1 that I have installed in a virtual machine using the slmgr /upk command thingy, and I got a pop-up saying that the product key was uninstalled successfully.

Now I'll go and prepare myself a bootable USB drive with the 8.1 installation media and format my HDD and convert it back to the GPT partition style that it was originally at.

Then I'll boot up from the USB, if it recognises my OEM key, great, if not, I'll give it the product key of the retail version I have and all should be fine because I uninstalled the product key previously.

Am I correct or is there something else I should do?

Also, what is this phone activation thing that people seem to be going on about?

Once you activate with a key for the first time, Microsoft stores a hash of the hardware it was activated on. Any further activations with that key and the hash or the hardware is compared with what was stored originally. If they match, it activates with no issues. If the hashes don't match and Microsoft thinks you've installed it on a second PC, activation will fail. That's when you do the phone activation.

As Genet posted, You cannot remove the activation from the Microsoft activation server.
But before you install Windows 8.1 to a new computer, you will need to uninstall current installed product key from your old computer.

The only reason to do the second part is if your going to continue to use that VM. If your not, and its removed/erased, there is no need. The VM and your new install using the same product code would be an issue and cause activation issues. The slmgr /upk command just removed the product code from the VM, It doesn't erase the fact that it has already been used. The Microsoft activation server still thinks its in use. The phone activation transfers it to the new hardware. You might get lucky and not have to do the phone activation, I wouldn't count on it though. Just remember if your asked how many PC's its used on to say one. Or if asked if its only installed on one PC to say yes. I don't remember the exact question asked. It's been a while since I've done a phone activation in a while.

alphanumeric said:

Once you activate with a key for the first time, Microsoft stores a hash of the hardware it was activated on.

Click to expand...

Aaaah now that makes sense. I thought they just have some database of keys and it has some flag "currently in use", and then if you try to use a key more than once it will complain that it's already in use.

So since I installed the retail copy on win 8.1 on a VM, it will have already sent the hash of the hardware to MS and I will definitely need to do the phone activation should I want to install that retail copy anywhere else but that VM. Did I understand it correctly?

norsul said:

alphanumeric said:

Once you activate with a key for the first time, Microsoft stores a hash of the hardware it was activated on.

Click to expand...

Aaaah now that makes sense. I thought they just have some database of keys and it has some flag "currently in use", and then if you try to use a key more than once it will complain that it's already in use.

So since I installed the retail copy on win 8.1 on a VM, it will have already sent the hash of the hardware to MS and I will definitely need to do the phone activation should I want to install that retail copy anywhere else but that VM. Did I understand it correctly?

Click to expand...

Yes, that is correct.

I've done many many reinstalls of Windows 8 and 8.1 on my laptop and desktop PC and never had activation issues. I just keep track of what key was used on what PC. My laptop has an OEM Windows 8.0 embedded key but I have also used full Retail keys on it to install Pro. I'm reinstalling on the same hardware with the same key each time so it activates online automatically. You can even change hardware in a desktop PC and not have issues. If you swap only one or two components at a time, like your Video Card or hard drive etc, you'll also be fine. The only thing that will trigger it right away is a motherboard swap where its a different motherboard make or model.

alphanumeric said:

Yes, that is correct.

I've done many many reinstalls of Windows 8 and 8.1 on my laptop and desktop PC and never had activation issues. I just keep track of what key was used on what PC. My laptop has an OEM Windows 8.0 embedded key but I have also used full Retail keys on it to install Pro. I'm reinstalling on the same hardware with the same key each time so it activates online automatically. You can even change hardware in a desktop PC and not have issues. If you swap only one or two components at a time, like your Video Card or hard drive etc, you'll also be fine. The only thing that will trigger it right away is a motherboard swap where its a different motherboard make or model.

Click to expand...

Yeah it makes sense to use the motherboard as the input for the hash since that is the least replaceable bit of a computer. Guess I'll just hope that my OEM key still works and if not, guess I'll have to go through the phone activation, ugh.

norsul said:

alphanumeric said:

Yes, that is correct.

I've done many many reinstalls of Windows 8 and 8.1 on my laptop and desktop PC and never had activation issues. I just keep track of what key was used on what PC. My laptop has an OEM Windows 8.0 embedded key but I have also used full Retail keys on it to install Pro. I'm reinstalling on the same hardware with the same key each time so it activates online automatically. You can even change hardware in a desktop PC and not have issues. If you swap only one or two components at a time, like your Video Card or hard drive etc, you'll also be fine. The only thing that will trigger it right away is a motherboard swap where its a different motherboard make or model.

Click to expand...

Yeah it makes sense to use the motherboard as the input for the hash since that is the least replaceable bit of a computer. Guess I'll just hope that my OEM key still works and if not, guess I'll have to go through the phone activation, ugh.

Click to expand...

If you use the correct install media your OEM key should be read and used automatically during the install. If you download your 8.1 install media from here, Create installation media for Windows 8.1 - Windows Help it will accept Windows 8.0 and 8.1 keys, even OEM embedded keys. You just have to match the download to what was installed at the factory. If I install 8.1 from that link it uses the 8.0 key in my laptops BIOS automatically and activates online automatically with no issues. If I install 8.1 Pro it will ask me to type in a Pro key. I can then type in one of my MSDN Pro keys, 8.0 Pro or 8.1 Pro.