How to get the product key of Windows 8.1 preinstalled in Dell Pro Venue Tab?

Question

I want to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 in my Dell pro venue tab. When upgrading, it was asking for the product key. How to find the product key for Windows as well as Office in tab?

Answer 1

I always use Nirsoft's Produkey for this. Most reliable toolset for all sorts of such simple things. Highly recommended.

ProduKey is a small utility that displays the ProductID and the CD-Key of Microsoft Office (Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft Office 2007), Windows (Including Windows 7 and Windows Vista), Exchange Server, and SQL Server installed on your computer. You can view this information for your current running operating system, or for another operating system/computer - by using command-line options. This utility can be useful if you lost the product key of your Windows/Office, and you want to reinstall it on your computer.

Supported Products List

Microsoft Windows 98/ME Microsoft Windows 2000 Microsoft Windows NT Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows Vista Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Microsoft - Windows 7 (Doesn't work with Microsoft Volume Licensing) - Microsoft Windows 8 (Doesn't work with Microsoft Volume Licensing)

This is the answer you needed. For things beyond the original question, the following may help in addition to Fleet Commands's answer.

Regarding upgrading to or installing Windows 10, you might be better served with Fleet Command's answer and digging into this in more detail on Windows 10 upgrade specific forums like MSFN and MyDigitalLife.

Without assuming what licenses you are using legit or not, and I am not sure SuperUser will allow/ or support your licensing upgrade path, if it is not kosher in the eyes of Microsoft. I've found every forum has their own rules regarding 'licensing' tips/ hacks to prevent conflicts with Microsoft Corp.

The answer can vary a lot depending on the original license and version you have and the Windows 10 you are upgrading to and also variation between how OEM licenses from Windows 7 will give you Windows 10 but it may be for that machine only.

Answer 2

Updated answer

Windows 10 installation has got much easier since its original release. If it is asking for a product key, simply skip the prompt. The next time you connect to the Internet, if you are eligible, it will activate itself with a digital license instead of a product key. This occurred on a clean installation of Windows 10 Pro version 1703 (Redstone 2) on a Sony Vaio VPCEG laptop. (The laptop had a Windows 7 Professional before.)

If you have a Microsoft account, sign into Windows with it at least once, even if you don't like the idea of using your Microsoft account as your user account. (You can return to the traditional user accounts later.) Doing so attaches your digital license to the Microsoft account and enables you to re-use this Windows license later.

Old answer

This old answer is just kept for the record.

Your title and message body ask different questions. So, I'll try a good answer:

• If Windows 8.1 indeed came preinstalled on your Dell Pro Venue, instead of a product key, it is using Windows Activation Technology 3.0, a Microsoft certificate of authenticity embedded onto your device. Windows 10 installer simply looks at that and never asks a product key question. Even if you extract a product key from Windows, it would be garbage.
• Windows 10 installer does not accept a Windows 8.1 product key.

So, if Windows 10 is indeed asking for a product key, the problem can be either:

1. You chose the wrong edition of Windows 10; e.g you are using Windows 8.1 Pro and you tried installing Windows 10 Core or Enterprise edition.
2. The Windows 8.1 instance that you are trying to upgrade isn't the one that came with the device.

Answer 3

I'd give KeyFinder a shot. I've had good success with it.

Answer 4

Here is a cool free Product Key retrieval script that only requires PowerShell from Microsoft Technet: Get-ProductKey

Not sure if this will grab an OEM key that is often stored in a protected volume on the computer but its worth a try.

Answer 5

You need to upgrade your Windows manually through Media Creation Tool. Its an MS tool that lets you force Windows 10 update instead of waiting for the icon in tray to never let you know that you can update.