I am currently working on a machine that had Windows 7 installed by default. Many years later, this instillation was upgraded to Windows 10 via the free official online upgrade program that happened shortly after Window 10's release. One day, the whole thing broke terribly and I was forced to remove Windows and change operating systems. Is it possible to retrieve my old license key? The following may be of relevance:
- No significant changes have been made to the machine's hardware, meaning that whatever Microsoft uses to check against license reuse will still be valid.
- The original Windows 7 recovery environment should still be on the machine, although I fear attempting to boot in to it.
- I have a backup (via copy and paste) of every file that was on the machine's main drive before I installed a new operating system. This includes files like the C:\Windows folder.
- I probably have the box that the machine came in somewhere. It also has all of its original labels.
