If you’re selling your PC, it’s important to remove the product key before you do so. Doing so will help protect your PC from being sold or used without your permission. To remove the product key, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Start menu and type “cmd” (without the quotes).
  2. Type “netstat -an” and press Enter.
  3. Look for a line that says “Ports: [port number]” and change it to “Listeners: [number].” For example, if the port number was 3389, then the line would say “Ports: 3389 Listeners: 10.”
  4. Close netstat and open regedit.exe.
  5. In regedit, find the following registry entry: \Device\Harddisk0\DR0\Partition1 (type HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon) -> {F8B7EBA4-D6B9-11CF-B8C5-00AA00CFF7D9} -> Remove key

Do you have an old PC you want to sell, but also want to use your Windows license on your new PC ? There is a hidden command in Windows that allows you to do just that. Read on to find out more.

Note: Between Microsoft and your OEM there are a number of different laws that determine whether you are allowed to use your license on another PC, so follow this tutorial at your own risk. Additionally before you go through the tutorial you will want to check that your product key is still attached to your PC/Installation CD, if it is not , do a quick Google search on how to recover it.

Uninstalling Your Product Key

The first thing we need to do is get our activation ID, to do this fire up an administrative command prompt and run:

Windows will open a message box and tell you a bunch of information about the license status of your PC, take note of your activation ID.

To uninstall your product key you need to use the /upk switch, along with your activation ID:

If you do it correctly you will be told that your product key has been uninstalled.

Installing Your Product Key

Installing your product key on your new PC is just as easy, all you need to do is fire up an administrative command prompt and use the /ipk switch.

If your key is valid you will be told that your key was installed.

That’s all there is to it.