> Ever since Windows 8, PCs and laptops no longer ship with the Windows Certificate of Authenticity (COA) that we’ve all become accustomed to seeing:
And thanks god for that. Nothings kill a premium look more than an cheap ugly unaligned sticker. Now only if intel and nvidia and whoever made that crappy sound card in my laptop would follow...
On most of the laptops I've purchased, the COA is usually placed within the battery case. At worst, the bottom of the unit. Who even notices a sticker there?
And actually, I just purchased from Dell Outlet an older (but new) e7440 Latitude. It did not contain a COA sticker - the key is absolutely tied to the Bios. When I went to downgrade (I had rights, supposedly) to Windows 7, guess what: no serial number and Windows wouldn't activate off the BIOS key.
So now I'm stuck with either Windows 8 (absolutely not) or 10.
From a few weeks of using Windows 10, I'm pretty sure it is the worst OS I've ever had to use. No I do not want Cortana, Windows Defender, Candy Crush, etc. Thanks for reinstalling them Microsoft, with an update I can't even turn off.
Anyway, back to the topic on hand, this seems like it might be exactly what I need to grab my serial number from the BIOS and try Windows 7 once again. If that doesn't work, I'll probably sell it and buy a Mac. Won't be buying a Windows PC again (from Dell, Lenovo, or anyone else) 'till MS learns that MY PC is not a phone, and my private information is not their product to sell.
- If they key is a BIOS key, it means it's a Windows 8 or 10 key. (Based on the age, 8.) Pretty sure Windows 7 won't install with it. If you had downgrade rights, you'd likely have a Windows 7 key that worked come with it as well. (Downgrade rights are not a given.)
- COA stickers under the battery are terrible when your computer is on and you want to look at them to type the key. Shutting off the computer to pull the battery to take a photo of the sticker is a pain in the rear and a waste of time.
- A lot of laptops have embedded batteries now, and hence you can't put COA stickers under them.
The little-sung secret technique for removing dinky laptop stickers is to use a piece of adhesive tape to pull up the remaining gunk. For whatever reason, the stickers seem to be affixed with the most tenacious glue available.
I once tried to buy some windows embedded licences in NZ for some Chinese industrial touchscreens which came with dodgy licences, we were put off by having to work with their "certified partners" and the eventual US$149 price tag we got quoted for each licence (January 2016).
I Really couldn't work out where Microsoft were going with this product, as I see I can now buy a Latte Panda embedded x86 board with windows 10 embedded licence for 2/3 this cost!
The client took the hit at the time and purchased full Windows 7 licences for them but for me it was the kick I needed to make me Learn Linux properly and I have now re-compiled the touchscreen program for linux and got it running in Ubuntu guest/Kiosk mode so this wont be a problem for me going forward.
And thanks god for that. Nothings kill a premium look more than an cheap ugly unaligned sticker. Now only if intel and nvidia and whoever made that crappy sound card in my laptop would follow...