Simple and easy, or is it? Those that have followed so far will realise there is one small piece of detail missing – how do you get the Windows 10 Pro licence key if it is in digital form locked into the system board? The process sees the user installing Windows 7 with a generic licence key from the install media and when activation is refused they need to call Microsoft, claim they are “exercising their downgrade rights from Windows 10”, offer up the Windows 10 licence key and in return be given an activation key to enter. This wasn’t too difficult until recently as PC OEM vendors such as Toshiba could often provide Windows 7 pre-installed with Windows 10 recovery media in the box – the downgrade had, in effect, already been done.įrom November 2016 it has become more difficult and costly to provide Windows 7 pre-installed and all vendors generally now provide units with Windows 10 Pro installed leaving it to users to perform the downgrade themselves. This means two generations back from the licence provided, so with Windows 10 Pro licenced units the user can actually install Windows 7 Pro. There is however one drawback to all of this: the user who wants to exercise their downgrade rights and install an earlier version of Windows.įrom Windows 10 Pro the user (that’s you constant reader) has the right granted from Microsoft to install an OS that is N-2 in revision.

The DPK also has benefits as it makes auditing licences easier via the KMS (Key Management Server), especially in Volume Licenced organisations – if there is no DPK with corresponding SLIC tables for Windows 8/8.1/10 Pro then no activation of the volume media. So, we now have a secure OEM licencing system and the user cannot see or lose their licence key when a new system board is fitted the DPK is supplied already in the new board. The CoA sticker became a thing of the past, relegated to the dustbin and was replaced by a Windows Logo on the base on the notebook instead. As a result the OEM Operating System was intrinsically linked to the product it came with and no more could any CoA to hand be used when installing Windows 7, or could we deploy a modified version of OEM Window 7 via Sysprep. Use of a DPK was introduced by Microsoft with the launch of Windows 8 and saw the 25-character key injected into the PC system board. The introduction a number of years ago of the Digital Product Key (DPK) saw the removal of the Certificate of Authority (CoA) Licence Key sticker we had all grown to know and love since the days of Windows 95.

Windows 10 oem coa