Windows – How to uninstall a license key

licensewindows 8

I bought Windows 8 Professional, updated to it from my Win 7 Pro and it's great. All in all, I wanna keep using Windows 8, but something went wrong with my Visual Studio 2012 Professional installation. Now there is no way I can install the target version for .NET 4.0, and I really need this to comply with old projects without affecting other developers.

I do have an official license key, bought when installing Windows 8, so my question is, now that I need to format, then reinstall Win 7 Pro, then reupgrade to Win 8 Pro, how do I make sure my next activation is successful?

In other words, how can I not change, but remove my license so I can use it again when everything is fresh and updated?

Best Answer

If you want to use your license on a clean install, you need to backup and restore your activation files.

  • Backup the store folder located here: %WinDir%\System32\spp\store\.
    • Make sure that your backup folder contains the three files: data.dat, tokens.dat, and cache\cache.dat.

  • To uninstall a key, right click on the Start corner > Command Prompt (Admin) > Yes > Type:

    slmgr -upk
    • Actually, there is no need to uninstall your key before clean install. You can just skip this step. After you format, your Windows 8 installation will be removed anyway.
    • However, in the clean installation, if you had used a default install key, you should uninstall that key.

  • After you clean install Windows 8, boot into safe mode > Right click on the Start corner > Command Prompt (Admin) > Yes > Type:

    net stop sppsvc

  • Restore the backed up store folder to its location in %WinDir%\System32\spp\.

  • Restart.

It is a good idea to make a backup of your OS drive before performing these steps and a clean install.

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