Reset Windows 10 from USB

I have a Windows machine (laptop) that needs fixing. The current installation is really badly broken (e.g. the taskbar is unresponsive, but the Explorer windows work, booting takes literally half an hour) and when I try to access the settings app and click on the tile to access the reset settings it instantly crashes. The same happens in Safe Mode.

I have created a USB install medium using the tool offered by Windows on my own Windows desktop machine. I've ensured that both the laptop and the USB tool have the same version of Windows (Home, 64-bit, NL). When I want to reinstall Windows on the laptop with this stick I am asked to enter a serial number which I obviously don't have. I don't want to try and see if I can phone activate it, because if it fails the install is gone.

I need to reinstall this Windows machine from a USB stick. There are a few problems I can't find an immediate solution for on the Windows pages.

1. If I use a tool such as ProduKey to extract the serial number, will this work?
2. If the above does not work, how can I reinstall this Windows machine?

Solution 1:

If you utilized ProduKey to determine the machine's local product key, it would simply find the generic, post-upgrade key and that won't actually work. In reality, your activation on that device is a digital license. As a result, when/if you need to perform a full wipe and reload on that machine, you can skip the screens that request a product key input and it will still automatically activate. Here is a good reference from Microsoft themselves:

Activation in Windows 10

Solution 2:

You may have noted that since Windows 8 there are no more (ugly and hard to remove) Windows stickers (containing keys) on laptops. This is because nowadays the BIOS firmware may contain "Microsoft Software Licensing Tables" named SLIC and MSDM that contain your key. It is quite easy to extract the Windows key of the Windows installation that came with your computer. Boot Ubuntu Live from a USB stick, open the terminal and run:

sudo cat /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM

You will find your key at the end of the "file".

(source)