A couple of months ago, I wiped Windows off my old laptop and installed Kubuntu instead. Now, I was thinking of dual booting Windows additionally for a certain game (definitely not League of Legends, for sure not) and will need to buy a new key. Am I fine getting a copy of Windows 10 despite Microsoft’s discontinuation, or should I get a Windows 11 key? I have a different laptop I use as a daily driver (11, Surface Go 3), so this would exclusively be for the game that shan’t be named.
Sorry if this post isn’t fit for this community - I’ll delete it if it isn’t.
Do you know off the top if it’s intact if I “fully wiped” it during the installation of a different OS?
The key is stored in the BIOS (UEFI flash chip) - you can install 10 or 11 from the downloaded installers MS offers; as long as the Home or Pro is correct it’ll activate just fine.
You can verify the key exists by running
hexdump -C /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM
Microsoft just lets you create install media now.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11
Like mentioned, if the machine was registered before you should be able to click that in a radio button during install and it should just workTM.
Edit: I see you mentioned 10 but I think same applies and the media tool is also available.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
Microsoft “fingerprints” your machine when you activate windows on it. You can completely replace the hard drive and reinstall windows from scratch, and they’ll figure out your activation on their end.
It depends on how you do the installation. Some OS allows you to modify the partition where the OS will be installed into. Some will just wipe up the whole disk.
It’s probably gone. But maybe you could have some luck looking for it in your BIOS like others suggested.