How to check if Windows 8.1 is licensed. How to check a Windows license in several ways

Hello friends. How to find out if Windows is licensed on your computer? The answer to this question is obvious to you if you bought a new PC, laptop or tablet with the Home edition activated at any reputable hardware store. Or if you purchased . But how can you check whether the license is real if it was purchased in an OEM, boxed version, or in the form of the same electronic key in some online store? Or if we purchased a computer device on the secondary market, and the buyer swore to us that he was selling it along with the most genuine Windows?Let's try to understand this issue and of course I will give you several examples from my practice when I was able to prove to my clients that the activated system installed on their computer was not licensed.

How to find out if Windows is licensed on your computer

Friends, I strongly recommend that you first read it. This is a complex and tortuous topic, Microsoft has created a lot of jungle in it, but we still tried to present it as simply and clearly as possible. Thus, deception may lie not only in the authenticity of the OS keys, but also in the type of licenses (in particular, free trial ones) to which these keys provide access. So it is necessary to have at least a basic understanding of the types of Windows licenses.

Non-activated, pirated and licensed Windows

OS from Microsoft in the context of its activation can be divided into three types:

• Not activated;
• Activated pirate;
• Activated license.

Unactivated Windows- This is an OS limited by certain capabilities. In Win7, this is a black desktop and psychologically pressing notifications that we have become a victim of software fraud. In Win8.1, this is the inability to choose a color for the start screen and the activation window that appears every 4 hours. In Win10, this is to block all personalization settings. A universal way for all versions to find out whether the system is activated or not is the control panel. Press Win+Pause on the keyboard and look at the “Windows Activation” column. If there is activation, we will see it.

If there is no activation, then this.

Or this, if Win7 is used within a monthly trial period.

An activated system will be listed as such regardless of the activation method - pirated or legal.

Activated pirated Windows externally and functionally no different from a legally activated system. If, of course, we are talking about a system installed with pure distribution, and a separate activation stage using, for example, a KMS activator.

If third party Windows assembly it is initially supplied activated, its functionality can be interfered with - something is cut out, something is disabled, something (including malicious) is additionally installed. About all the pros and cons of pirated assemblies. Disadvantages of pirated activation:

It may fly off periodically;

Activator files and processes are blocked by antiviruses;

Its detection by the competent authorities will result in prosecution - civil, administrative or even criminal. As well as, we read the practice of courts on the website of judicial decisions of the Russian Federation. We go to the website http://judicial decisions.rf. And in the “Document text” field we enter key query eg "Windows KMS".

• Note: I especially recommend reading the judicial practice on cases of copyright infringement of developers in your spare time to all those “smart guys” who, in the comments of the site, insult those who have chosen the path of using paid licensed software.

Activated licensed Windows is a legitimate way to use it that will allow us to sleep peacefully at night. And not to be afraid of any inspections by the competent authorities if we use the system for our individual entrepreneurs or head any structural unit of the company.

So, genuine and pirated Windows are indistinguishable in appearance and functionality. How to understand which one we are dealing with?

Windows Authenticity Stickers

You can find out whether Windows is licensed or not by looking at the authenticity stickers on the computer device. What are these stickers? This:

Certificate of Authenticity (COA) - a sticker on the PC case, on the bottom of the laptop or inside its battery compartment, and also inside the latter on Surface tablets;

The GML sticker is a hologram sticker with changing colors depending on the viewing angle, introduced in September 2017, the sticking locations are the same as for COA.

If license key purchased separately from the device, by purchasing a boxed Windows versions– installation DVDs or flash drives, authenticity stickers must be on their packaging, respectively. For boxed versions, the same types of stickers are used,

as for device cases - certificate of authenticity (COA) and holograms.

How to find out if Windows is licensed using the command line

If a seller of a used computer swears that he is selling it with licensed Windows, if a new device is purchased from a store with a reputation hitherto unknown to us, the authenticity of the OS can be verified by asking you to enter something into command line. We run it as administrator. And enter:

slmgr –ato

If the activation is pirated, we will see something like this message in the script window that appears.

Or something like this message.

But if the system is genuine, we will see in the script the inscription “Activation completed successfully.”

In addition to the direct activation message in the script window, it is also important to pay attention to Windows edition. If the title of the edition contains the addition “Eval”, for example, “EnterpriseSEval”, alas, such authenticity of activation is of little use.

How to find out if Windows is licensed using the task scheduler or how pirated activators work

It should be noted that the latest operating systems from Microsoft (Windows 8.1, 10) have a fairly strong mechanism for protecting against activation by pirated means and on at the moment There are only a few activators capable of activating the above-mentioned OS, the most famous is KMSAuto Net. But it works very simply and can be easily detected in the system. KMSAuto Net creates a folder at the address: C:\ProgramData\KMSAutoS and places its files in it.

To constantly reactivate the OS, he is also forced to create his own task in the scheduler.

One time, a friend brought me a laptop with installed and activated Windows 10

and asked if the system was licensed. I stupidly opened the command line and entered the command already familiar to you: slmgr –ato, the result was very eloquent.

Then I opened the planner and showed my friend the task I had createdKMSAuto Net. The questions disappeared by themselves.

How to check Windows 7 for authenticity

If you are faced with the task of determining the authenticity of Windows 7, then first of all look at the sticker with the license key on the PC case or on the bottom of the laptop; if there is none, then the task becomes many times more complicated, since this OS has a weak mechanism for protecting against activation by pirated tools . If you ask this question on the official Microsoft website, you will be advised to install update KB971033, created specifically for OS authentication, but for example, this update is installed on this PC,

and the system is activated by a pirate activator and I will prove this to you a little later.

You may also be advised to enter on the command line: slmgr.vbs /dli, but the message “License status: has a license” does not prove anything.

Also at the office. The Microsoft website will advise you to download the tool MGADiag.exe

In the "Licensing" window you can see the partial product key - 7TP9F and "License Status: Licensed".

But the key YKHFT-KW986-GK4PY-FDWYH-7TP9F can be on Win 7 installed on Acer laptops, But not on Win 7 installed on a regular desktop computer,

I always come across him on pirate sevens. This key installs the pirated program Windows activation 7 Loader by DaZ Activator or Windows7 ULoader 8.0.0.0.

A real license key will not be “Googled” at all, since information about it should not be on the Internet.

Trial Windows

Trial Windows - editions of Win10 Enterprise and offered on the Microsoft Evaluation Center website, which can be tested for free for 90 days - are completely legal systems. You can also add trial Win8.1 Enterprise to them; it is no longer available for download on the Evaluation Center website, but it can be found on the network, in particular. And, of course, the activation verification team will show that everything is fine with them. But this order will be temporary.

Evaluation builds are activated for 90 days with a temporary Evalution license activation key. If such an assembly will be installed on computers system administrators company, you don’t have to be afraid of any inspections by the competent authorities. Everything is legal here. It is also completely legal, because there is no direct prohibition, after 90 days you can cancel the Evalution license and use the system for another 90 days. And then another 90 days (activation is reset only three times). Well, then you can reinstall the system. Trial Evalution editions are optimal solution for those who still reinstall the OS at least once a year. It is illegal if we are not an IT employee of the company and will use such an Evaluation assembly for commerce or for leisure activities. But this solution is definitely better than pirated activation – both in terms of technical aspects and in terms of legal liability.

So, there is nothing wrong with trial Evalution editions if they are not trying to sell them to us as a full-fledged system with a perpetual license. In addition to the method shown in the previous paragraph of the article, you can also identify the Evalution edition by the watermark in the lower right corner of the screen with an inscription in the form of a countdown to the end of the 90-day period. But such inscriptions are very easily removed by software like . We can make sure that we are dealing with an Evalution license and see the number of days remaining until the end of the 90-day period using the same command line. We run it as administrator. Enter:

slmgr.vbs/dli

And look at the information.

Documents on Windows

What documents confirm the authenticity of the key? Windows product? Evidence of legal use of the OS is:

An email from the seller of the electronic key - Microsoft itself or an online store. This letter specifically states the key. The system should be activated by him;

Sales receipts, invoices, acceptance certificates and similar documents from OEM suppliers for OEM devices. Without these documents there will be a violation of order Microsoft licensing regarding failure to comply with the terms of use of the OEM license.

So, friends, buying OEM computers written off and stolen by company employees, as well as purchasing cheap OEM keys on eBay, is not best solution. It is undoubtedly better than KMS activators and Evalution builds of Windows, but it is not a panacea for problems with inspection bodies.

You might be interested in reading about this topic.

Hello admin. The question is this. My Windows 8 is two years old and I want to say that all this time I have been actively using and installing it large number various software and games, naturally, now it is in a terrible state and many errors appear, for example, when connecting the built-in eight Windows antivirus Defender an error appears, and when creating a recovery disk it says "We can't create a recovery disk on this computer."

Some required files are missing...".

Of course you will advise perform integrity check system files Windows using the command sfc /scannow, but I’ve already done it and I get the error again:

Protection program Windows resources discovered damaged files, but cannot restore some of them. For details, see the CBS.Log file, which is located in the following path: windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For example. C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. Please note that logging is not currently supported for offline maintenance.

What should I do, I really don’t want to reinstall Windows, can I somehow restore the system files?

And more questions, how to restore system Windows files what if it doesn't load?

And where does Windows even get it from? original files when restoring your integrity?

Checking the integrity of Windows 8 system files

Recovering damaged Windows files using the Dism utility.

Recovering damaged Windows files using installation disk Windows.

I think all three methods will be useful to you.

Note: sfc /scannow produceschecks the integrity of system files in Windows 7, 8. 8.1 and, if violations are detected, replaces damaged files from a folder specially designed for this WinSxS, this folder stores all the original components of the operating system.

Yes, this happens, for example, you decided to check the integrity of Windows 8. 8.1 system files and opened the command line as an administrator, then entered the command sfc /scannow, and you received this answer

Windows Resource Protection has detected damaged files, but is unable to repair some of them...

In this case, we use the Dism utility, specially designed to restore damaged operating system components Windows systems, but we will need the Internet, because in some severe cases missing files downloaded to us via Windows Update.

Recovering damaged Windows files using the Dism utility

Open the command line and enter the command

Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /ScanHealth

In my case, Dism detected damage - The component storage must be restored

Enter another command

Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /RestoreHealth

The restoration was completed successfully. The component store corruption has been resolved. That's it! Note: If you get errors when entering these commands, then

Regardless of your operating system (Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8), go to Computer (My Computer, This Computer) click on the drive you want to check right click mouse, select " Properties".

In the properties window, go to the " tab Service" and click the " button Run check".

Check both boxes

Automatically fix system errors.

Scan and repair system sectors.

and press " Launch".

If you check the system volume (the disk on which the operating system is installed, usually drive C), you will see the message " Windows cannot verify the hard drive that is currently in use", click " Disk check schedule".

Then restart your computer/laptop; during boot, the process of checking and correcting errors on the disk will begin. It will last from a few minutes to an hour (depending on the size of the section and physical characteristics hard drive). When finished, the operating system will boot.

Checking the hard drive using the chkdsk utility.

CHKDSK (short for check disk - disk check) - standard application in operating systems DOS and Microsoft Windows, which checks hard drive or floppy disk for errors file system(for example, the same sector is marked as belonging to two different files). CHKDSK can also fix file system errors it finds. (from Wikipedia)

In order to run the chkdsk utility, you need to run a command prompt with administrator rights, to do this:

IN Windows XP click - "Command line"

IN Windows 7 click "Start" - "All Programs" - "Accessories" "Command line" and select "Run as administrator".

IN Windows 8.1 right click on "Start" - "Command Prompt (Administrator)".

As a result, a command line console will open.

First of all, let's find out the syntax of the chkdsk utility:

CHKDSK [volume[[path]filename]] ]

Volume Specifies the mount point, volume name, or drive letter of the drive being checked, followed by a colon.
file name Files checked for fragmentation (FAT/FAT32 only).
/F Correcting disk errors.
/V For FAT/FAT32: output the full path and name of each file on the disk. For NTFS: display cleanup messages (if any).
/R Search bad sectors and restoring surviving content (requires /F).
/L:size For NTFS only: Set the log file size (in KB). If a size is not specified, the current size value is displayed.
/X Pre-dismount the volume (if necessary). All open handles to this volume will be invalidated (requires /F).
/I NTFS only: Less strict checking of index entries.
/C NTFS only: skip checking for loops within folder structures.
/B NTFS only: Re-evaluate bad clusters on disk (requires /R)
The /I or /C options reduce Chkdsk execution time by skipping some volume checks.

Of all the command attributes, the two most often used to check a disk for errors are /f and /r. The final command looks like this:

chkdsk C:/F/R

With this command we will check partition C, correct errors on the disk and restore information from damaged sectors (if any).

After entering this command, you will be prompted to check the volume the next time the system reboots, click Y and a key Enter.

Now you need to reboot the system, when loading you will see a window prompting a check, do not click anything, just wait 10 seconds.

Checking for hard drive errors using Victoria.

The Victoria program is designed to check for errors on hard drives with IDE and Serial ATA interfaces. The program is completely ready-made solution for a comprehensive, deep, and at the same time the fastest possible assessment of the real technical condition of the HDD.

First of all, download ISO image programs with official website . Unzip the downloaded archive and burn it to CD/ DVD disc how to do this is described in the article How to burn to CD/DVD . After this, boot from the burned disk, how to do this is described step by step in the article How to boot from a CD/DVD disk or USB flash drive .

After booting from the disk within 10 seconds, select the program for your device (Victoria for the computer will load by default).

The program interface will launch. Press the F2 key so that the program itself finds the disk; if this does not happen, you must do it manually. To do this, press the "P" key. The same will have to be done if the system has several hard drives and you need to select one of them. If you have hard drives with SATA interface, then in the menu that appears Select HDD port, select - " Ext. PCI ATA/SATA". Move using the cursor keys "up", "down", and select using the "Enter" key.

Next, to check the disk surface, press the F4 key. In the HDD scan menu window: select the necessary scan parameters. By default, it is proposed to scan the entire disk from the beginning of "Start LBA: 0" to the end of "End LBA: 20971520". I recommend leaving these default values. The next menu item – I recommend leaving “Linear reading”, since it is intended for the fastest and most accurate diagnosis of the surface condition. In the fourth point, I recommend choosing the mode BB = Advanced REMAP since this mode checks the disk most efficiently and corrects errors on it without deleting information.

After this, a check will start for hard mistakes disk with correction of bad areas. This procedure can take from several tens of minutes to several hours. Depends on the volume and spindle speed.

When finished, remove the disc from the drive and restart the computer.

Hello dear readers.

Today you can often buy a device with already installed software. And sometimes sellers of such equipment claim that an original product is installed on it, demanding additional money for this. Therefore, many people want to know how to check their Windows license so as not to be deceived. Later in the article I will tell you several ways to achieve your plan.

General information

Everyone today has the opportunity to buy a licensed Windows 10 OS or any other version offered by the IT giant for their computer. However, previously it was possible to do this only in official stores. At the moment, a variety of resellers are engaged in selling original software. Despite their status, even in such places there are sometimes products that require special attention from buyers, because for a lot of money you can buy simple pirated version. The following are the main points that help convince you that you are being offered a truly normal product.

Sticker

The first, easiest way Windows checks 7 and younger versions are inspected for the presence of a special sticker. If the seller states that the original software is installed on the computer, it means on the laptop (usually on the bottom cover) or on system unit relevant information must be available. This is what indicates the use of a legal program and not a pirated one.

The laminated paper indicates the key, version and assembly.

Portable device

If you intend to buy a new operating system separately, there should be no problems with verification at all. Windows 8.1 and other versions are offered on portable devices - plastic disks and flash drives. On legal versions, on the box you can find all the data mentioned at the end of the last heading. In general, the sticker indicates the same thing, only appearance a little different.

In addition, the manufacturer applies a lot of holographic icons. This can be seen not only on the box, but also on the portable memory itself. On flash drives, the corresponding drawings are on the covers. They can be found in different places on disc packages. In addition, Microsoft designers have provided protection for the plastic memory itself.

Check by key

Sometimes some become victims of scammers who themselves print the relevant elements confirming authenticity. To avoid falling into the trap, there is a simple way to check.

So, future users need to turn on the device and on the “ Computer» call « Properties" A window will open where the necessary data will be indicated. This is where you need to check the product code. If everything matches, the license is installed.

IN otherwise In place of the letters and numbers there will be an inscription about failed activation.

In addition, the service life of the key installed in the system is indicated here. If this is not the case, the remaining time for entering characters is written. Usually this is given a month. Afterwards, messages begin to appear indicating that you need to undergo the appropriate procedure.

At the same time, some services may cease to perform their functions.

Website

Another way to verify the authenticity of the operating system is to go to the manufacturer’s website. More precisely, you need to enter the appropriate combination of characters in the appropriate line on the web resource.

Important! This cannot be done for Windows XP, Windows Vista and the seventh version, since developer support is no longer available for them.

Pirate build

To identify non-original software, you can use several methods. So, first, go to computer properties. If nothing is indicated in the activation clause, most likely a low-quality product is being used. But usually there is always some kind of inscription here.

Many Windows users mobile users want to check their device to be sure that they are using the original image.

It is worth noting that today mobile phones with this operating system are produced only by Microsoft partner companies and therefore use only genuine software.

Command line

Another convenient way to check system activation is to enter a special combination of characters via the command line. To do this, go to " Start" and in the search bar specify " cmd" The corresponding icon will appear. We call on her context menu and open it with administrator rights.

A black window will appear in front of users. You need to enter the command in it: “ clmgr /xpr" Next, the operating system will display a message corresponding to the activation status.

If this does not help, you need to indicate in the line: “ cscript slmgr.vbs -xpr" The result should be the same.

In general, all methods are free and legal, so you can safely use one of them or even all of them at once.

I hope you will be able to implement your plans without problems.