That’s because Microsoft stores a “snapshot” of the specific hardware you’re running that particular installation of Windows on. Windows 10 Home, Windows 11 Pro, etc.) that you originally installed on it. When you reinstall Windows 10 or Windows 11 you’ll never have to enter a Windows Product Key for that machine as long as you install the same edition of Windows (i.e. Thankfully, Microsoft has changed the way they handle Windows Product Keys (and made it a lot better in my opinion). I have always considered having to re-enter the Product Key to reactivate a machine’s Windows installation to be an irritating waste of time.Īnd even worse, if you couldn’t find the Product Key when you needed it you were simply out of luck.

If so, you probably remember having to type in your Windows Product Key so Microsoft could reactivate your Windows installation. Have you ever had to reinstall Windows from scratch after replacing a bad hard drive, being hit with a severe malware attack or some other digital disaster?

Windows digital key