Skip Product Key When Sysprepping Win10
When creating a generic image for Windows deployment, it may be desirable to skip over the product key when preparing that image. This is usually handled through the agency of an unattend.xml file. This happens during the Specialize pass for Windows setup configuration, according to the Microsoft docs. And, as it turns out, one can’t actually skip product key when sysprepping Win10. Instead, one can supply a generic product key for the version of Win10 installed. The following table includes generic RTM keys for all major versions of Windows 10 except for Education. (There’s also a list of generic KMS [key management service] keys that does include education available online.)
When it comes to checking Win10 keys, ShowKeyPlus is a great tool to use.
Generic Keys Allow Skip Product Key When Sysprepping Win10
| Generic Win10 RTM Keys | |
| Edition | Key |
| Windows 10 Home | TX9XD-98N7V-6WMQ6-BX7FG-H8Q99 |
| Windows 10 Home (Single Language) | 7HNRX-D7KGG-3K4RQ-4WPJ4-YTDFH |
| Windows 10 Pro | VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T |
| Windows 10 Enterprise | NPPR9-FWDCX-D2C8J-H872K-2YT43 |
Feel free to use these keys, but understand they are good for one thing, and one thing only. They will get a Windows 10 installation through to completion. But the install won’t activate until a valid key is provided to replace a generic one. This is purely a “trick” to help IT pros and power users create customized Windows 10 images for deployment, so they can then either supply a valid key or use an existing digital entitlement on their target machine(s) to create a valid, licensed OS installation after the fact.
What About the KMS Keys?
Indeed, as I pointed out in the first paragraph of this post, one can find a larger set of generic KMS keys for Windows 10. These include entries for Windows N (no Internet Explorer, nor other add-ins users can opt out of in the EU and elsewhere) as well as Education. I haven’t tried them out myself, though, so I don’t know if they’ll work in environments where a KMS server is absent. You can find that full list at mmo-champion.com in the thread entitled “Windows 10 Generic Product Keys,” if you’d like to give them a try. If you do try them out, please post a comment here to let me (and others) know how it turned out.