How to Activate Windows 10

 

 

Our Support Department get calls from time to time asking us why we cannot activate Windows 10 before we ship out their systems or for assistance for people that are having trouble validating it. For those of you that are having difficulties activating your Windows 10 operating system, here are some good pointers and a step-by-step guide to help assist you during the process.

Once a new system is booted up for the first time, you will have 3 days to auto activate your operating system-the only way this will happen is if you are connected to the network. If you get online, your system will activate Windows 10 automatically.

If Windows is unable to auto activate within the first 3 days, you will have to follow these steps to manually activate;  

You can either type in ‘activation’ in your search bar near your start menu to get to your Settings or you can click on the start menu to get to Settings 

From there, go to Update & Security. Click on Activation. At the top of that screen, to the right of ‘Activation’ if it says that Windows is not activated, then you will need to enter your Windows 10 Product Key once you click on Activate. 

The product key can be found either on a sticker on the back of your system, on a line item on your Puget Systems invoice or you can call us at (888) 784.3872 and we can get that to you. Click on Change product key and click yes to enter your 25-digit key manually.  Click next and follow the prompts to activate. Once your screen says “Windows is activated” you can close settings.

If it says that your product key is invalid or already in use, close out Settings and right-click on the Windows start menu icon. Click on Windows PowerShell (Admin). A Windows User Account Control box may appear that will ask you "Do you want to allow the following program to make changes to this computer?". When this occurs, you will want to click yes to allow the command prompt to open. In the PowerShell window, you will see text similar to the following: C:\WINDOWS\system32>

Immediately following the > symbol, you will want to type "slui 4" (just as it appears but without the quotation marks). 

A blue box like the one above will appear. Follow the prompts and enter your country.

It will give you a number to call and a series of numbers to enter via your telephone keypad. 

 

*This is just an example, please do not use the numbers pictured above, as the numbers provided are unique to each installation.

Once you enter the installation ID numbers provided, the automated phone system will provide you with a confirmation ID. Make sure you have something to write down the numbers they relay back to you because you will have to enter those next. Once you have the confirmation ID jotted down, click Enter confirmation ID. Your next screen will look like this; 

    

               Enter the series of numbers given for letters A-H and click Activate Windows.

If needed, you can also reach Microsoft's support department by calling 1 (800) 642-7676 If you are still having issues, or would like us to assist you in the process, please give our Support Department a call.

We are unable to validate your Windows during the build process here at Puget Systems because it is against Microsoft’s policy to activate operating systems that are not for our own use. If we were to activate every system we sold, it would  flag our IP address at the Microsoft Activation Center and we would get blocked.  

If you are getting error codes when trying to activate Windows 10 and do not know what the code means, please give us a call and we will be more than happy to help.

*SLUI 4 stands for “Software Licensing User Interface”