Download Microsoft License Keys

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Touse KMS, you need to have a KMS host available on your local network. Computers that activate with a KMS host need to have a specific product key. This key is sometimes referred to as the KMS client key, but it's formally known as a Microsoft Generic Volume License Key (GVLK). Computers that are running volume licensing editions of Windows Server and Windows client are, by default, KMS clients with no extra configuration needed as the relevant GVLK is already there.

If you want to activate Windows without a KMS host available and outside of a volume-activation scenario (for example, you're trying to activate a retail version of Windows client), these keys won't work. You will need to use another method of activating Windows, such as using a MAK, or purchasing a retail license. Get help to find your Windows product key and learn about genuine versions of Windows.

If you're converting a computer from a KMS host, MAK, or retail edition of Windows to a KMS client, install the applicable product key (GVLK) from the list in this article. To install a client product key, open an administrative command prompt on the client, and run the following command and then press Enter:

Windows Server, version 20H2 reached end of service on August 9, 2022 and is no longer receiving security updates. This includes the retirement of Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel (SAC) with no future releases.

What about Windows 10? You can still download its installer from Microsoft.com, but the software giant is no longer selling retail licenses for it. You can still use other methods to activate Windows 10 or use it , but since the OS is reaching its end of life in October 2025, it's probably wiser to install Windows 11 on any PC you're building today.

No matter how or whether you pay for it, you can download Windows 10 or download Windows 11 for free from Microsoft.com. And, in fact, you should only download it from Microsoft, as grabbing it from any other site or from a P2P network could give you malware. Microsoft offers a free media creation tool, which grabs the latest code from the Internet and then burns itself to a USB Flash drive or outputs a Windows 10 or Windows 11 ISO file you can write to a drive yourself.

If you can upgrade from Windows 10 to 11, Windows itself will let you know quite prominently when you go to Settings -> Update & Security. It may be on the top of the screen or on the side.

Kinguin, a popular key marketplace we've used a few times, was, at the time of publication, selling Windows 11 Home for $21.19 and Windows 11 Pro for $25.10. You might be able to get them for less with a Kinguin discount code though. These are all OEM keys and likely can't be used on another computer after you activate them on the first one.

We recommend paying a little extra to get a key that has "online activation," which means that it should activate automatically over the Internet. Keys that aren't marked for "online activation" may force you to call Microsoft, wait on hold and ask a phone representative for help activating. The representative may even ask for your Microsoft account, which is not great for your privacy.

"It's not a gray market. It would be like buying Adidas or Puma or Nike from a discounter, from TJ Maxx," Jordan said. "There are no legal issues with buying it from us. It's just another marketplace."

If you have an old, retail (non-OEM) copy of 10 you are no longer using on another PC, you can likely use the product key when you do a fresh install of Windows on your new PC. However, you must first make sure it's deactivated on the old PC it came from. See our article on how to transfer a Windows 10 or 11 license to a new PC for step-by-step information on how to retrieve and move your key.

The process of transferring a Windows license varies, depending upon whether you have digital or non-digital license. With a the former, you'll need to log into your Microsoft account to deactivate the old PC. And with the latter, you'll want to use a command line command to terminate the activation.

Note that if the product key comes from a prebuilt computer that came from the factory with Windows on it, it has an OEM key that may not work on a different new PC. Feel free to try it, though, because if it works you have Windows 10 or 11 for free.

Windows 11 Education is actually more full-featured than Windows 11 Home and has most of the same features as Windows 11 Pro, including BitLocker encryption, Remote Desktop and Hyper-V virtualization.

Both sites sell OEM copies of Windows at very marginally-discounted prices. For example, you can get a DVD of Windows 11 Home for $124 on Amazon or Newegg right now. But it's a DVD so it's unclear if they product key that comes with it would work with a downloaded copy of Windows. So you'd need an optical drive. Also, you have to wait for it in the mail and, for all that, you're saving $15 off of the retail price of Windows 11 Home on Microsoft.com

The easiest but most expensive way to get Windows is to buy your key directly from Microsoft.com. You can get Windows 11 Home for $139. And you can get Windows Windows 11 Pro for $199. You can get these either as downloads or on USB drives.

The one true advantage of this method is that your copy of Windows is considered a retail copy, which means that you can use the license again on another PC in the future. It can't be used on two computers at once, but if you rebuild your computer with new parts, you can use the retail license on it while an OEM key may not work.

If you have an old Windows key you can carry over from a previous build, that's your best option and effectively gives you Windows 10 or Windows 11 for free. If you don't have a key on hand, you need to decide whether you're comfortable using an unactivated version of Windows 11, which limits your customization options, has an ugly watermark and leaves you ineligible for Microsoft support.

This question is old but the problem still persists. I was trying to install MSSQL 2022 on Ubuntu 20.04 and ran into this issue. For whatever reason sudo wget sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/microsoft.asc did not copy the file to the specified destination but to the current folder. Target file was empty so I just copied it to where it's supposed to be and repository was added successfully.

Installing the .deb package will automatically install the apt repository and signing key to enable auto-updating using the system's package manager. Alternatively, the repository and key can also be installed manually with the following script:

TL;DR: Try sudo apt install apt-transport-https and https support will work out of the box, allowing apt to install from https sources, as I see in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list it does indeed list " stable main" as a source.

Note that if you installed Github desktop, you do not need to setup SSH keys on the Windows side, and the .ssh folder will not be present. Make sure you follow the Github instructions above to generate the SSH keys on Windows.

Thanks for article but is hard to say that copying could be called sharing. Maybe instead of cp command, ln could be used to bring real sharing experience? But then, probably, we need to solve issue with permissions most probably.

I found a way to avoid to prompt ssh passphrase after each boot. It is based on windows credential. Please give a look here: @glsorre/windows-subsystem-for-linux-never-prompt-your-ssh-passphrase-again-353db7c931ab

The first thing that came to my mind was "Oh well, I must have enabled Mouse Keys inadvertently". But Mouse Keys use the numpad and even then, it's not enabled. Rebooting doesn't help, but I've noticed it doesn't happen if the current window is ran as another user (Administrator) or if it's the Task Manager, which suggests the event filter that's catching the key press events is only active on my UID.

Apparently it's got a feature that allows moving the mouse pointer using arrow keys, and for some reason sometimes it doesn't stop listening when the window loses focus, so Paint was running in the background since I often use it and it was still doing its job of moving the mouse.

The system will now generate the key pair and display the key fingerprint and a randomart image. These fingerprints are not needed in day-to-day use of your keys but can be saved to your notes to identify your keys later if needed.

Public keys are in text format and copying them to a remote host can be done with cut and paste commands. The public key file you created can be opened with a text editor and it will look something like this *:

For more security your authorized_keys file can also be set up to only accept connections from certain IP addresses or hostnames. Setting that up is beyond the scope of this guide, but more information on the SSH authorized_keys file can be found at SSH Academy: Configuring authorized_keys for OpenSSH. Many other how to files are available through Google Search.

Other remote computer systems might require you to add your public key in a different way. Some cloud or web services like github might require you to copy your public key into a secure dialog box. Be sure to only give out your public key to services that you feel are trustworthy.

Secure Boot is a security feature found in the UEFI standard, designed to add a layer of protection to the pre-boot process: by maintaining a cryptographically signed list of binaries authorized or forbidden to run at boot, it helps in improving the confidence that the machine core boot components (boot manager, kernel, initramfs) have not been tampered with.

As such it can be seen as a continuation or complement to the efforts in securing one's computing environment, reducing the attack surface that other software security solutions such as system encryption cannot easily cover, while being totally distinct and not dependent on them. Secure Boot just stands on its own as a component of current security practices, with its own set of pros and cons.

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