After you install or reinstall Windows 10, it will ask you to activate Windows 10. If your Windows 10 system has not been activated, it will appear a watermark at the lower-right screen saying “Activate Windows. Go to Settings to activate Windows”. It would be annoying to have the watermark on screen.
Besides, if you don’t activate Windows 10, you can’t change the Windows Personalization settings like lock screen, wallpaper, theme, etc.
Before we learn how to activate Windows 10 with CMD, you can firstly check the edition of your installed Windows 10 system.
You can press Windows logo key and Pause/Break key on the keyboard at the same time to quickly check the Windows 10 edition of your computer.
How to Permanently Activate Windows 10 with CMD
Without third-party Windows 10 activation tools, you can activate Windows 10 with CMD for free. Here we’ll introduce how to activate Windows Enterprise edition with CMD.
Step 1. You can press Windows + R key on the keyboard to open Windows Run box. Type cmd, and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open and run Windows Command Prompt as administrator.
Step 2. After you enter into Windows 10 Command Prompt, you can copy and paste this command line: slmgr.vbs /upk, in the Command Prompt window. Hit Enter to execute the command.
Step 3. Next you can copy and paste this command line and hit Enter to install the Windows 10 product key: slmgr /ipk <Windows 10 activation key>. Replace “Windows 10 activation key” with the real license key that you buy or find online for Windows 10 OS.
Note: It’s advised that you support and buy the original Windows 10 license key from Microsoft and use this way to permanently activate Windows 10. You may find some free available Windows 10 product keys online and use them to activate Windows 10 permanently, but be careful since it may violate Microsoft copyright policies.
Step 4. Then you can type slmgr /skms zh.us.to command line and hit Enter.
Step 5. At last, copy and paste slmgr /ato and hit Enter to activate Windows 10 for free with CMD.
How to Activate Windows 10 Pro with CMD
Step 1. Click Start and type cmd, right-click Command Prompt app and choose Run as administrator.
Step 2. Copy and paste the following command line in Command Prompt window and hit Enter. If you buy or find the activation key for Windows 10 Pro, you can replace “Windows 10 license key” in the command line after slmgr /ipk.
slmgr /ipk <Windows 10 license key>
Step 3. Type the following command lines and remember to hit Enter after you type each line.
slmgr /skms kms.xspace.in
slmgr /ato
How to Check If Your Windows 10 Is Activated or Not
If you want to check whether your Windows 10 computer is activated or not, you can press Windows + R keys on the keyboard to open Run box, type slmgr.vbs -xpr in Run box and hit Enter.
Bottom Line
By following the steps above, you can easily activate Windows 10 for free with CMD.
If your Windows 10 computer has other problems, you can repair Windows 10 with 6 ways. If you lost some data in your Windows 10 computer, you can use MiniTool Power Data Recovery to easily recover lost data or mistakenly deleted files in 3 simple steps.