17T-CB000-CTO Need to reinstall OS, where is my windows product key?

[CIOANGEL]

The only thing I have not tried on this laptop is complete format and re-install of windows. Computers used to have key on bottom of laptop, with this one it's not there. Where is the key I paid for when I purchased this computer with Windows 10 Pro x64?

[PLEASE HELP, support hours are reduced to almost non-existence and apparently a Custom Computer has limited support anyway, something they do not tell you until AFTER you purchase it.]

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Starting with W8, Microsoft requires all PC manufacturers to put the product key in the BIOS.

You don't need it to reinstall W10.

You should be able to make a bootable USB recovery drive to reinstall W10.

Here is an info link for how to use that utility...

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06162205

[CIOANGEL]

Yeah. Downloaded disk key, got my Win10Pro prod key, wiped the hacked drive, re-installed properly, made a freaking spreadsheet of all the hp driver names to hp downloaded file name, waited for a whole day to download all of them because the website was so slow, tested different versions of win10 with different drivers, and found out that for this brand new laptop to work properly, I have to use an almost two year old version of win10, 1809.

Now that tells me HP is NOT properly supporting this product.