[GTALUG] You may already have a Windows licence and not know it …

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Stewart Russell via talk <talk at gtalug.org>

[I started this message days ago.  I delayed, hoping to do some more 
research.  I'm just too busy so I'm sending it without completing it]

| If the file /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM exists (it's read-only to root),
| there's probably a key embedded in there you can pull out with strings

I knew it was in there somewhere, but I didn't know where.

Over the years, Microsoft has changed how they distributed OEM keys.

For a long time, it was on a fancy sticker on the computer itself 
(holograms etc.).  There were separate stickers for other bundled MS 
products like MS Works and MS Office.

(I had a system where the sticker was in a little pull-out tray.)

Eventually, they put the Windows product key in the "BIOS" (firmware).  
For a while, I think that they still put the sticker on the box.

Datapoints:

- my 2013 desktop came with Windows (8.0?) has the embedded key

- my 2020 Precision 3440 SFF came with Ubuntu (no Windows license) and
  does not have that file

- my Dell Inspiron 530 (BIOS date 2009; Core 2 Duo E6550) came bundled
  with Windows and doesn't have that file, at least under CentOS 6.

- Chris Johnson's Dell laptop came bundled with Windows but does not
  have the embedded key.  I assume that the file is missing.
  Unknown: the vintage of the laptop

Unknown:

There was a limited time where you could update pre Win 10 systems to Win 
10 without buying a new license.  If you did that, Microsoft recorded this 
fact in their central system.

That period is over.  What happens now if you take a pre Win 10 system, 
with a firmware OS key, and install Win 10?  Does it work?  My 
superstitious belief is that it does, even though it isn't MS's stated 
policy.