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Product activation is a license validation procedure required by some proprietary software programs. Product activation prevents unlimited free use of copied or replicated software. Unactivated software refuses to fully function until it determines whether it is authorized to fully function. Activation allows the software to stop blocking its use.
On Windows 10 and Windows 11, the activation process can also generate a "digital entitlement", which allows the operating system's hardware and license status to be saved to the activation servers, so that the operating system's license can automatically be restored after a clean installation without the need to enter a product key.
At the time of launch, Microsoft deemed Windows 7 (with Service Pack 1) and Windows 8.1 users eligible to upgrade to Windows 10 free of charge, so long as the upgrade took place within one year of Windows 10's initial release date. Windows RT and the respective Enterprise editions of Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 were excluded from this offer. [89]
System Locked Pre-installation (SLP), also referred to as OEM Activation, is a product activation procedure for Microsoft Windows used by major OEMs of laptops and pre-built PCs wherein a Windows product key is added and locked to the machine's firmware before mass distribution. SLP product keys cannot be moved to other machines.
This build treated Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 product keys as Windows 10 product keys, meaning they could be entered during installation to activate the free license, without the need to upgrade first to "activate" the hardware with Microsoft's activation servers. [99]
This table lists for each license what organizations from the FOSS community have approved it – be it as a "free software" or as an "open source" license – , how those organizations categorize it, and the license compatibility between them for a combined or mixed derivative work. Organizations usually approve specific versions of software ...
This is a list of free-content licences not specifically intended for software. For information on software-related licences, see Comparison of free and open-source software licenses . A variety of free-content licences exist, some of them tailored to a specific purpose.
Product key on a Proof of License Certificate of Authenticity for Windows Vista Home Premium. A product key, also known as a software key, serial key or activation key, is a specific software-based key for a computer program. It certifies that the copy of the program is original. Product keys consist of a series of numbers and/or letters.