How can I check if Windows is activated from the command prompt or powershell?

If I want to check whether Windows is activated, but I can’t be bothered to dive into the menu system or am on a version of Windows without Desktop Experience (such as Server Core), how can I check the activation status using only the command line?

4 Answers 4

A purely PowerShell solution would be:

This will give you an output like this:

if LicenseStatus is 1, it means that the system is permanently activated.

Good thing about this is, that you can easily check RemoteMachines, by specifying the -ComputerName Parameter.

Though I gotta say that slmgr /xpr is faster and also clearer.

On Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016/2019, to display the activation status using the command prompt (or powershell) open your preferred command line tool and enter the following command

a dialog is shown indicating the operating system’s activation status. If the operating system is not yet activated, the dialog will indicate it is in ‘Notification mode’

If Windows is succesfully activated, the dialog will indicate is is either ‘Permanently Activated’ as shown below, or if using a time-limited volume license activation the time the activation is due to expire will be shown.

On older versions of Windows (such as Windows 7) the message dialogs will be similar but may have slightly differing text.

This method could also be useful to check the activation status during the out-of-box experience (OOBE) wizard by using Shift + F10 to launch a command prompt, before completing the wizard.

How to Permanently Activate Windows 10 Free with CMD [MiniTool News]

By Alisa | Follow | Last Updated December 31, 2020

Summary :

This post provides step-by-step guide to help you activate Windows 10 by using CMD. Check how to activate Windows 10 with CMD but not with Windows 10 activation tool. If you need to recover lost data from Windows 10 computer, MiniTool data recovery software is a good choice.

After you install or reinstall Windows 10, it will ask you to activate Windows 10. If your Windows 10 system has not been activated, it will appear a watermark at the lower-right screen saying “Activate Windows. Go to Settings to activate Windows”. It would be annoying to have the watermark on screen.

Besides, if you don’t activate Windows 10, you can’t change the Windows Personalization settings like lock screen, wallpaper, theme, etc.

Before we learn how to activate Windows 10 with CMD, you can firstly check the edition of your installed Windows 10 system.

You can press Windows logo key and Pause/Break key on the keyboard at the same time to quickly check the Windows 10 edition of your computer.

How to Permanently Activate Windows 10 with CMD

Without third-party Windows 10 activation tools, you can activate Windows 10 with CMD for free. Here we’ll introduce how to activate Windows Enterprise edition with CMD.

Step 1. You can press Windows + R key on the keyboard to open Windows Run box. Type cmd, and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open and run Windows Command Prompt as administrator.

Best 2 ways to boot to Command Prompt Windows 10. Check how to open Command Prompt at boot in Windows 10, how to repair Windows 10 using Command Prompt.

Step 2. After you enter into Windows 10 Command Prompt, you can copy and paste this command line: slmgr.vbs /upk, in the Command Prompt window. Hit Enter to execute the command.

Step 3. Next you can copy and paste this command line and hit Enter to install the Windows 10 product key: slmgr /ipk . Replace «Windows 10 activiation key» with the real license key that you buy or find online for Windows 10 OS.

Note: It’s advised that you support and buy the original Windows 10 license key from Microsoft and use this way to permanently activate Windows 10. You may find some free available Windows 10 product keys online and use them to activate Windows 10 permanently, but be careful since it may violate Microsoft copyright policies.

Step 4. Then you can type slmgr /skms zh.us.to command line and hit Enter.

Step 5. At last, copy and paste slmgr /ato and hit Enter to activate Windows 10 for free with CMD.

How to Activate Windows 10 Pro with CMD

Step 1. Click Start and type cmd, right-click Command Prompt app and choose Run as administrator.

Step 2. Copy and paste the following command line in Command Prompt window and hit Enter. If you buy or find the activiation key for Windows 10 Pro, you can replace «Windows 10 license key» in the command line after slmgr /ipk.

slmgr /ipk

Step 3. Type the following command lines and remember to hit Enter after you type each line.

slmgr /skms kms.xspace.in

slmgr /ato

How to Check If Your Windows 10 Is Activated or Not

If you want to check whether your Windows 10 computer is activated or not, you can press Windows + R keys on the keyboard to open Run box, type slmgr.vbs -xpr in Run box and hit Enter.

Bottom Line

By following the steps above, you can easily activate Windows 10 for free with CMD.

If your Windows 10 computer has other problems, you can repair Windows 10 with 6 ways. If you lost some data in your Windows 10 computer, you can use MiniTool Power Data Recovery to easily recover lost data or mistakenly deleted files in 3 simple steps.

Learn how to use the 10 best free Windows 10 backup and recovery tools to backup and restore Windows 10, and recover lost/deleted data from Windows 10 PC.

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Linkedin
• Reddit

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Position: Columnist

Alisa is a professional English editor with 4-year experience. She loves writing and focuses on sharing detailed solutions and thoughts for computer problems, data recovery & backup, digital gadgets, tech news, etc. Through her articles, users can always easily get related problems solved and find what they want. In spare time, she likes basketball, badminton, tennis, cycling, running, and singing. She is very funny and energetic in life, and always brings friends lots of laughs.

[Still working] How to activate windows 10 using command line (CMD) free

Note: As of now (April 2021) This method is still working to activate windows 10 for free with CMD, so if it’s not working for you, then you must have not followed the steps carefully.

In today’s guide, you are going to learn how you can activate your windows 10 Computer just by using the command line, which is commonly known as CMD or command prompt.

Most PC users do not know that they can activate their windows for FREE as well, so you might want to bookmark this post for future purposes.

This post will give you a step-by-step easy guide, to teach you how you can activate Windows 10 on the command line.

it is by far the fasted method to activate the windows 10 product. (probably under a minute, if you do all the steps exactly as it is mentioned) because in here you don’t need to install any Windows 10 activation tool or watermark remover tool or something for activation. so it’ll be a pretty straightforward guide for non-techy folks.

After the installation of Windows 10 on your computer, it will ask you to activate your Windows 10 when you’ll try to personalize/customize windows 10. If your Windows 10 system has not been activated, Windows will not let you personalize your desktop (such as personalizing your lock screen, wallpaper, theme, etc.) and it will show a watermark at the bottom right screen saying “Activate Windows. Go to Settings to activate Windows”.

which looks very annoying on the screen

so let begin the process to activate window 10 with help of CMD.

How to Permanently Activate Windows 10 with command line

Step 1. press Windows and search cmd , right-click and run as administrator.

Step 2. Now type this command on cmd slmgr.vbs /upk (it will uninstall previous product key)

Step 3. Next, copy and paste this command line and hit Enter to install the Windows 10 product key: slmgr /ipk NPPR9-FWDCX-D2C8J-H872K-2YT43

or any of the keys below

Home: TX9XD-98N7V-6WMQ6-BX7FG-H8Q99
Home N: 3KHY7-WNT83-DGQKR-F7HPR-844BM
Home Single Language: 7HNRX-D7KGG-3K4RQ-4WPJ4-YTDFH
Home Country Specific: PVMJN-6DFY6-9CCP6-7BKTT-D3WVR
Professional: W269N-WFGWX-YVC9B-4J6C9-T83GX
Professional N: MH37W-N47XK-V7XM9-C7227-GCQG9
Education: NW6C2-QMPVW-D7KKK-3GKT6-VCFB2
Education N: 2WH4N-8QGBV-H22JP-CT43Q-MDWWJ
Enterprise: NPPR9-FWDCX-D2C8J-H872K-2YT43
Enterprise N: DPH2V-TTNVB-4X9Q3-TJR4H-KHJW4

Step 4. now type slmgr /skms kms8.msguides.com into the command line and press Enter .

Step 5. copy and paste slmgr /ato and hit Enter to activate Windows 10 with CMD.

that’s it now you’re done, now…

how to check windows 10 is activated or not?

another method to check windows 10 is activated or not:

type windows + run

type this command slmgr.vbs -xpr

you watch this video if you are still facing any problem

how to activate windows 10 with cmd without key

This is by far the best way to activate windows 10 with cmd without key and this is how by following the steps above, you can activate Windows 10 for free with the command line, and after activating Windows 10 you’ll be able to customize your home screen like lock screen, wallpaper, theme, etc., and the annoying watermark of windows won’t show anymore.

Activate using Key Management Service

Applies to

• Windows 10
• Windows 8.1
• Windows 8
• Windows 7
• Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows Server 2012
• Windows Server 2008 R2

Looking for retail activation?

There are three possible scenarios for volume activation of WindowsВ 10 or Windows ServerВ 2012В R2 by using a Key Management Service (KMS) host:

• Host KMS on a computer running WindowsВ 10
• Host KMS on a computer running Windows ServerВ 2012В R2
• Host KMS on a computer running an earlier version of Windows

Key Management Service in WindowsВ 10

Installing a KMS host key on a computer running WindowsВ 10 allows you to activate other computers running WindowsВ 10 against this KMS host and earlier versions of the client operating system, such as WindowsВ 8.1 or WindowsВ 7. Clients locate the KMS server by using resource records in DNS, so some configuration of DNS may be required. This scenario can be beneficial if your organization uses volume activation for clients and MAK-based activation for a smaller number of servers. To enable KMS functionality, a KMS key is installed on a KMS host; then, the host is activated over the Internet or by phone using Microsoft activation services.

Configure KMS in Windows 10

To activate, use the slmgr.vbs command. Open an elevated command prompt and run one of the following commands:

• To install the KMS key, type slmgr.vbs /ipk .
• To activate online, type slmgr.vbs /ato .
• To activate by telephone, follow these steps:
  1. Run slmgr.vbs /dti and confirm the installation ID.
  2. Call Microsoft Licensing Activation Centers worldwide telephone numbers and follow the voice prompts to enter the installation ID that you obtained in step 1 on your telephone.
  3. Follow the voice prompts and write down the responded 48-digit confirmation ID for OS activation.
  4. Run slmgr.vbs /atp \ .

For more information, see the information for WindowsВ 7 in Deploy KMS Activation.

Key Management Service in Windows ServerВ 2012В R2

Installing a KMS host key on a computer running Windows Server allows you to activate computers running Windows ServerВ 2012В R2, Windows ServerВ 2008В R2, Windows ServerВ 2008, Windows 10, WindowsВ 8.1, WindowsВ 7, and Windows Vista.

You cannot install a client KMS key into the KMS in Windows Server.

This scenario is commonly used in larger organizations that do not find the overhead of using a server a burden.

If you receive error 0xC004F015 when trying to activate WindowsВ 10 Enterprise, see KB 3086418.

Configure KMS in Windows ServerВ 2012В R2

Sign in to a computer running Windows Server 2012 R2 with an account that has local administrative credentials.

Launch Server Manager.

Add the Volume Activation Services role, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Adding the Volume Activation Services role in Server Manager

When the role installation is complete, click the link to launch the Volume Activation Tools (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Launching the Volume Activation Tools

Select the Key Management Service (KMS) option, and specify the computer that will act as the KMS host (Figure 6). This can be the same computer on which you installed the role or another computer. For example, it can be a client computer running Windows 10.

Figure 6. Configuring the computer as a KMS host

Install your KMS host key by typing it in the text box, and then click Commit (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Installing your KMS host key

If asked to confirm replacement of an existing key, click Yes.

After the product key is installed, you must activate it. Click Next (Figure 8).

Figure 8. Activating the software

The KMS key can be activated online or by phone. See Figure 9.

Figure 9. Choosing to activate online

Now that the KMS host is configured, it will begin to listen for activation requests. However, it will not activate clients successfully until the activation threshold is met.

Verifying the configuration of Key Management Service

You can verify KMS volume activation from the KMS host server or from the client computer. KMS volume activation requires a minimum threshold ofВ 25 computers before activation requests will be processed. The verification process described here will increment the activation count each time a client computer contacts the KMS host, but unless the activation threshold is reached, the verification will take the form of an error message rather than a confirmation message.

If you configured Active Directory-based activation before configuring KMS activation, you must use a client computer that will not first try to activate itself by using Active Directory-based activation. You could use a workgroup computer that is not joined to a domain or a computer running WindowsВ 7 or Windows ServerВ 2008В R2.

To verify that KMS volume activation works, complete the following steps:

On the KMS host, open the event log and confirm that DNS publishing is successful.

On a client computer, open a Command Prompt window, type Slmgr.vbs /ato, and then press ENTER.

The /ato command causes the operating system to attempt activation by using whichever key has been installed in the operating system. The response should show the license state and detailed Windows version information.

On a client computer or the KMS host, open an elevated Command Prompt window, type Slmgr.vbs /dlv, and then press ENTER.

The /dlv command displays the detailed licensing information. The response should return an error that states that the KMS activation count is too low. This confirms that KMS is functioning correctly, even though the client has not been activated.

For more information about the use and syntax of slmgr.vbs, see Slmgr.vbs Options.

Key Management Service in earlier versions of Windows

If you have already established a KMS infrastructure in your organization for an earlier version of Windows, you may want to continue using that infrastructure to activate computers running WindowsВ 10 or Windows ServerВ 2012В R2. Your existing KMS host must be running Windows 7 or later. To upgrade your KMS host, complete the following steps: