Yesterday ZDNet reported about a strange Windows activation glitch and later Microsoft also confirmed that their Windows license validation servers had a problem. This resulted in thousands of people in some regions of the world (Japan, South Korea and North America) seeing their licensed Windows computers turn into unlicensed copies. Some of the people reported that their Windows Pro system turned into Windows Home edition. Some people were forced to re-activate their legally bought copy of Windows operating system but they were still getting invalid license key message.
Fortunately, Microsoft has announced that they have fixed everything. But if you want to know whether your Windows system has been finally activated like it should, then you can either check the Windows system properties window (by pressing Win+Pause) or through an advanced tool called Windows License Extractor. The benefit of using latter is that you can find product key and activation status for all the Windows computers on a local network.
Windows License Extractor is a PowerShell based GUI tool that can show you all the details of the Windows licensing along with the activation status. After launching this tool, you have to enter the computer name for which the details are to be fetched. You can also select a list of all the computers (computer names one per line in a TXT file) if you want to check a number of computers. These computer names can be determined from the system information window using the key combination Win+Pause.
After pressing the Get License (or Get Licenses) button it will take some time (PowerShell takes its time) and you will be shown a wealth of information about your system’s activation status as well as product keys. One important information you should check is the license type and license status which should be “Licensed” indicating that your Windows PC is fully activated.
You can download Windows License Extractor from https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Get-Windows-Product-6b5e6f6e.