3 Ways To Check If Windows 10 Is Activated Properly

Windows Activation is Microsoft’s method of verifying that Windows is genuine and has been bought by the customer. While it is effective, it comes with its own problems. Generally speaking, Windows 10 can be activated using two ways:

1. Using a product key
2. Using a digital license

A digital license can be attached to your Microsoft ID or it can be specific to a device. In either case, you don’t need to enter a product key in order to activate Windows 10 license. It will be automatically activated.

There are times when users need to verify if their installation of Windows 10 is activated or not. In this article, we will go through three easy ways to verify that your Windows 10 license is activated properly.

So let’s begin!

Using Windows Settings (Windows 10 only)

Go to Start Menu → Settings (Windows key + X + N)

Now go to Update & Security → Activation

The right-hand pane will show you if Windows is activated. It will also tell you whether it has been activated with a product key or a digital license.

In case it is not activated, it will show up like this:

Using Control Panel (All Windows Versions)

This method can be useful if you are using older versions of Windows like Windows 8.1 or Windows 7. Since Windows 10 does not prefer the Control Panel, I will show you the shortcut steps to open the system properties instead of going through the Control Panel.

Go to Run → control system

This will open the system properties window. At the end of the window, you will see the Windows activation information. But it does not give any information about which license is activated.

Using command prompt (All Windows Versions)

1. Open command prompt (Run → cmd)
2. Run the following command: slmgr /xpr

This will open another dialog with Windows activation information. If Windows 10 is activated, it will show as “This machine is permanently activated”.

If it is not activated, it will show as “Windows is in notification mode”

Activating Windows 10

If your Windows 10 is not activated, this could be because of several reasons. Some of the reasons could be:

1. You bought a new computer which comes pre-installed with Windows 10. Windows will need to be activated after a few days of trial.
2. You reinstalled Windows 10 on the same device. If you have a digital Windows 10 license, it should get activated automatically without requiring a product key. Just connect to the Internet.
3. Your hardware configuration changed (like a change of motherboard, CPU, etc.). In this case, you will need to reactivate Windows license.

Whatever the case, you can activate Windows 10 using the following steps:

1. Go to Start Menu → Settings (Windows key + X + N)
2. Now go to Update & Security → Activation
3. On the right hand pane, click on “Change product key” under “Activate Windows now”
4. Enter the 25-character product key which you purchased from Microsoft and click on Next to proceed with the activation process.

These simple check can make sure that we are using an activated version of Windows and keep us safe from issues like Windows automatically restarting, signing out or the system locking itself again and again, etc. Do comment below about your thoughts about Windows activation and how you use it.