Will windows 10 update provide a product key for clean install?

Hi Guys

A few questions....
Could someone please clarify, Will windows 10 update provide a product key for clean install?
If so how/where?
If not when performing a clean install, will skipping the product key prompt, then activating once desktop appears automatically activate and inject a product key?
Lastly rather than extract the esd file, does anyone know where to get a genuine Microsoft iso's on release date?

Any help appreciated.

Kind Regards

You can't do a clean install without a key -- and the keys provided in the past were generic keys -- for the Insider program.

Those keys have all been disabled by MS. New keys will be made available when the Insider program is turned on again, presumably, after the 29th.

In the past, the keys were displayed on the MS Download page; that is likely to be what they will be doing again in the future.

It's unlikely you will be able to skip the product key prompt, as MS stopped providing the 30-day grace period a long time ago.

That mean we can't do the clean install in this free windows 10 upgrade without buying new once ?

its not even the 29th yet, so how is anyone supposed to answer that question?
Jeeshh...

Got my Install.esd file from C:$Windows.~BT Sources subfolder and created an ISO file from it. I installed it on a new partition. It asked (in 2 areas) for a product key, and I tried my Win8 key, but it failed. Installed without a key (you can skip if you read the fine print) and now it says it's activated, although I didn't specifically activate it. I checked in the registry and found a product key exists, but it's a new one to me!
I'm in Australia so I got the download 4 hours ago.

This is quote from this site on using the Windows 10 ISO.

I have just now installed Win 10 clean install.
Pro version if it matters.
And apart from some hicups that i got sorted everything went smooth.
When it comes to the windows 10 instalation key. You do not need one.
When i loged in with my microsoft account, windows activated.
So the key is with your microsoft account.

Hey Guys

Thanks for the replies....looks like it was as I guessed.

Makes sense

Thank you.

For RTM activating, This is what I found:
First, do the upgrade with min efforts. After upgrade is done and activated, then do the reinstall. this is just for the sake of MS having the record of your PC (hardware id) on the win 10 activation database.

Second, For reinstall, no product key is needed, once connected to internet, your Windows 10 will be activated regardless if you are signing into Microsoft account or not. one laptop using ms account and another laptop using local account only, i see the same behaviour of how win10 was activated. when you use Aida tool to see the product key, it will be a generic key assigned to your Win10. and you can not enter that key if you plan do the reinstall on the same machine again. the OS will do that for u.

so, the conclusion is, once you have activated the Win10 on the same hardware, the hardware ID is send to MS, and in the future, that hd id is used to determine if you can be activated or not.

For RTM activating, This is what I found:
First, do the upgrade with min efforts. After upgrade is done and activated, then do the reinstall. this is just for the sake of MS having the record of your PC (hardware id) on the win 10 activation database.

Second, For reinstall, no product key is needed, once connected to internet, your Windows 10 will be activated regardless if you are signing into Microsoft account or not. one laptop using ms account and another laptop using local account only, i see the same behaviour of how win10 was activated. when you use Aida tool to see the product key, it will be a generic key assigned to your Win10. and you can not enter that key if you plan do the reinstall on the same machine again. the OS will do that for u.

so, the conclusion is, once you have activated the Win10 on the same hardware, the hardware ID is send to MS, and in the future, that hd id is used to determine if you can be activated or not.

For short term, using the hardware as Unique Identifier is ok. For long term, it's going to fall flat on it's face as people upgrade their rigs with new hdds/gpus/mobos/cpus etc. I believe that the windows key is more than likely tied to the MS account and when someone logs in to W10, it verifies/updates the hardware ID accordingly as a second verification measure.