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Hi!
The sticker on the underside of my nc10 has mostly rubbed away.
I want to reinstall the windows on my machine but the key is not totally legible.
I tried to run a program to extract the key from the registry but the value it comes back does not match the bits I can read on the sticker.
Is there a definitive way of getting the ‘proper’ key for my nc10?
Cheers
AFAIK, and I could be wrong, the key supplied is a generic one rolled out with all installs. This allows the manufacturer to use a single image to place onto all machines. Individual keys are then printed and stamped on the back.
This has come up once or twice before and we always suggest taking a quick photo of the sticker as soon as you buy. Someone else recommended placing some sticky tape over it. I think there is a post in the tips blog category but perhaps it’s worth making a sticky post on this, and adding it to the “getting started” wiki page too.
What can you do now? tbh I’m not sure. Is rolling back to an image created with Samsung Recovery instead of a new install going to help? Maybe you can use the extracted key – although will it register correctly?
Anyone else come across this problem, what did you do?
@TaDa 105252 wrote:
Hi!
I tried to run a program to extract the key from the registry but the value it comes back does not match the bits I can read on the sticker.
Is there a definitive way of getting the ‘proper’ key for my nc10?
Cheers
Hi TaDa,
Jez is right, They used a generic key for the preinstalled Windows on the drives and place the sticker on the bottom to show it’s legit. If it was me, I’d first back up the drive in case an ‘Oops’ happens.
Then do an clean install using the key that ‘Key Finder’ gave you. If it works, great! If not you have two options,
1) Restore the backup and try to clear up the problem, or
2) get a new copy of Windows with a new COA. One suggestion would be to contact Samsung and order a restore disk. That way if anything happens again you can again restore the drive. Sorry I can’t more helpful than that! 🙂 JohnPOk, so I went to the samsung website’s contact page:
http://www.samsung.com/uk/info/contactus.html#
And chose “General Questions”/”E-mail Samsung” – no obvious “Inquiry Field” so I chose “web site”.
I wrote that I didn’t need a quick response so e-mail was fine but that I coudn’t find a suitable e-mail contact so was using this one.
I went on to explain my problem.
This morning I got a reply back asking me to send a picture of the mostly rubbed out sticker back to them (with a reference number which was part of the e-mail)
(The e-mail address was uk.help@samsung.com – but you will probably need a reference)I will send it off today and, hopefully, I’ll get a response tomorrow or Monday
Here’s hoping!
Hi 🙂
Just use The Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder.
This is a freeware utility that retrieves your Product Key (cd key) used to install windows from your registry. It also has a community-updated configuration file that retrieves product keys for many other applications. Another feature is the ability to retrieve product keys from unbootable Windows installations.http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/
🙂
I’ve had to use the F4 restore function on 2 X NC10 netbooks and an R519 Laptop
I have NEVER had to Activate the Windows Install that results. So, Please stop worrying and bite the bullet – it is smooth and easy – the ‘hard’ part – is re-installing the 100+ Windows updates afterwards.
Brian/Sammyone.
Hi! Strange as it seems I don’t actually want to restore the xp installation (!!)
I’m trying to migrate to linux and currently have it setup as a dual boot.
What I would like to do it use the original XP key in a virtual machine on linux.
I know I can go buy myself a copy – but why should I when I already own one.
I’ve got time to push this slowly through the process and hopefully it’ll yield what I want.BTW I used magical jelly bean to identify the wrong license at the beginning 🙂
I’ll keep you updated as need be – today, for example, I sent a polite e-mail chaser.
Samsung’s email system is currently backed up a bit. May take a week or more to get a reply.
They do not have a list of license keys for each machine so there’s no way for them to recover it for you.
The OS’s are OEM’ed and preregistered for Samsung Hardware so I am quite confident that what you plan on doing night not work.
The VM will be seen as a completely different set of hardware and probably rejected in the same way as the CD and license is usually rejected or non-Samsung hardware during install.Having said this, if you can get the image to the VM directly then you may be able to use it after arguing with the driver setup.
Ghost the HDD, and use Ghost on the VM to reinsert it to the virtual HDD. Not sure if that’d work, but it’d pass a boring afternoon trying! :-p
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