If you have bought a branded PC, then chances are high that it came with Windows pre-installed. It is also possible that the PC came with other bundled software like Microsoft Office and some sort of antivirus software. But these computers often do not come with the Windows installation disks. In the future, even if you get a Windows installation media and try to reinstall Windows on this PC, you will need the installation license key. You can use the free ShowKeyPlus software to find this Windows installation license key.
The ShowKeyPlus is a portable software and does not need to be installed. But it is designed using the .NET 4.5 framework and it must be installed in your Windows PC for the program to work. As soon as you launch ShowKeyPlus, it will scan the Windows registry and show you the Windows license key instantly. Among the information displayed is the product name (e.g., Windows 10 Pro), product ID, installed key, and the OEM key if available.
You can click on the license key to toggle the hiding of the key and turn everything into asterisks. In addition to scanning your Windows registry, you can also retrieve the license key from the backup you made earlier. The software also has the option to enter the license key to be checked for the edition or version of Windows to which it belongs.
ShowKeyPlus also presents the options to save the Windows installation keys to a text file. This can be done by clicking on the Save button and saving the text file to somewhere in your PC. The text file contains all the same information as shown in the ShowKeyPlus window namely the product name, product ID, license key and the OEM key if it is available.
You can download ShowKeyPlus from https://github.com/Superfly-Inc/ShowKeyPlus/releases.