If you buy PC's and laptops in retail, they are sometimes sold so that you do not have to activate Windows 10 anymore. The keys are stored in the BIOS (?)?
Is it the BIOS or where are they stored?
Can I, if I no longer use the PC, read the key from the PC and it is e.g. For another PC use / activate there? Or are these keys permanently stored for the respective PC and usable?
If yes, which component of the PC or notebook should I format if I want to destroy the data? Respectively. Where is the key stored? In the hard disk? In the CPU?
If you have an OEM version and you change the PC you need a new one. The theater is superfluous. At Rakuten you get for 4.05 euro a legal OEM version of Windows 10 Pro.
https://www.rakuten.de/produkt/microsoft-windows-10-professional-pro-oem-64-bit-multilanguage-key-1815507735
As far as I know, Windows adjusts the MAC address or the hardware information of the motherboard from to see if it is legitimate hhomework. The stored key is in any case useless for any installation if it is entered manually. The key is stored in the registery and can be easily read out via a small tool.
But as Mike1074 spelled correctly, there are plenty of bad guys selling the volume licenses for under 10 euro on ebay and what else do I know where else. What these guys do is not legal, but the copies are and are also supported by Microsoft. Usually it is the prof Editions that are hacked in this way. By the way, this also applies to ms Office. Also there's a part of a VL for under 10 euro to get.
Only downside, the keys can be used only a few days, a new installation after a few weeks requires a new key. But be it if you get 20 keys for new keys, after all, you get software that costs as a single user license otherwise many hundred euro.
That's why you should always make sure that you get an OEM license. However, this is no longer usable even with a system change. But at 4.05 euro, that's probably painful.
Unfortunately, your comment is very negative. At least when it comes to cheap licenses. It's just that not everyone on this planet wants to help make Mr. Gates make $ 15bn out of his $ 15bn faster than he already does. From me, if it were granted him, I will only support it. And apparently, in the year 2000, the Federal Court of Justice, saw exactly the same. Thank the justice.
You can't buy an ms OEM license for less than 100 euro and for that matter, there's no difference to the volume license except in the commercial background.
Incidentally, 15 billion corresponds to the assets of the Aldi brothers, Bill Gates is already at just over 100 billion. Anyway, he has done everything right and you can see from his example as well as at Rockefeller, that you can get rich by giving, if you set it up so you have to buy the packaging. If Microsoft, which incidentally Bill Gates is no longer on the payroll, wanted to close this sales channel, then it would be easy to implement that.
And one more thing, do you think the Albrechts and the whole Gates and Rockefellers of this world have their fortune in the account? Certainly not and many are doing good things to increase their wealth and that includes Bill Gates. And stupid comparison, but I prefer someone like Gates has as much fortune as a crazy power mogul legitimized by the US presidency to deliberately destroy the world economy and not aiming he himself, the world and especially America so in decades irreparable, inflicting high explosive damage.
Everything is a matter of opinion. And that with the 15 billion was only an estimate. Why should I care how much money Mr Gates actually has? I only knew it was billions. And if the richest people in the world really do as much good as you think, then I doubt it very much. And I'm sure that not only I doubt it. You just have to make an invoice. How much money would be needed to make sure that at least one day on this earth, nobody has to starve. I think the fortune of the gracious Mr. Gates would be enough. It could also ensure that there's less need to starve in the future. But that's a completely different topic and does not belong here.
And as for the OEM version, you may also be right. But I do not care, as long as I continue to buy cheap and legal Windows. But quite right you have not synonymous because you write above that sometimes the Keys can only be used for days. Sorry, but a bigger nonsense, I have not heard for a long time. I've been using Windows 7, the volume licenses, as you call them, for me and my clients. But there was still no case where the license was suddenly invalid. Even a reinstallation is no problem. At least not on the same system. When a system change, the license is gone, however. Could not it be more the case that you are one of those who spent $ 120 and more on your Windows, and are now frustrated with other users who are just not ready for it? Well, could not it be like that? I think so. But anyway, I hope you can handle the pain and not spit venom and gall because of it.
