Description: This article will show you some tips and tricks to try and salvage your product key for Windows 10 if it was damaged while trying to reveal it.

1. If the product activation key was peeled away and it tears, scratch off the gray surface gently to reveal some of the product key.
2. Look at what is still intact for the product key - it will overall be five sets of five characters each separated by hyphens. Below is a simple example:
   
   AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA
   
   
3. If you can see parts of a character, try to narrow down what they can be based on how they look. Sometimes one character can be a B or an 8, other times one can either be a G or a 6 - in other words, look closely so as to not confuse certain characters, letters, or numbers. Some characters are not used at all in Windows product keys - the lists below can help narrow down the possibilities:
   
   Characters used: 2346789BCDFGHJKMNPQRTVWXY
   
   Characters not used: 015AEILOSUZ
   
   
4. If you can narrow things down enough, you can try to test it out with characters available for activation.
5. If you are unable to get Windows to activate, you may need to contact Microsoft support for further assistance.