Will My OEM Windows License Be Gone???

[mizhy]

I want to install Ubuntu as the main OS on my laptop. This laptop came with an OEM Windows license. So my question is that by installing Ubuntu as a fresh OS, everything deleted, will the OEM key be still valid if I install Windows back on my laptop? This is very confusing and making me nervous about the OEM license key. 

 

So please explain this to me.

[Skipple]

Now-a-days Windows licence is tied to the hardware itself. You shouldn't have to know the licence, it will just activate.

 

Is there a reason you are wiping the drive rather than simply adding a new partition?

[TylerD321]

2 minutes ago, Skipple said:

Now-a-days Windows licence is tied to the hardware itself. You shouldn't have to know the licence, it will just activate.

This should be true. If it makes you more comfortable you can run a power shell command to retrieve windows key to save.

 

3 minutes ago, Skipple said:

Is there a reason you are wiping the drive rather than simply adding a new partition?

I prefer only having one os per drive as I have ran into complications when having different os on different partitions before.

[johnno23]

you will be fine as if you reinstall windows and login it will simply recognize the hardware. only time you need to actually be involved these days is if and when you make hardware changes and even then you can simply tick the box that hardware changes have been made.

[Kopesetic]

The OEM license is embedded into your BIOS.  Try this:

 

From an admin Powershell prompt

wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey

 

That should show you the key.

[mizhy]

I did a dual boot before with Windows 11 and Ubuntu but the startups were so bad, I have a 256 gb Samsung nvme ssd as a boot drive, before the dual boot startups were like 3-8 seconds long but after dual boot, they were like a minute long. I have some things to do on Ubuntu as a project in my university, and that's why I am doing this.

[NinJake]

You could always run a VM if that's sufficient enough for your university project.

[OhYou_]

just want to point out if your laptop is over 11 years old, you may not have an embedded product key. While this is very unlikely, it is something i feel should be mentioned.