Hi, I work for a pc repair shop and a few months ago one of my colleagues installed ubuntu 12 for a gentlemen and we were happy to do the service. The other day the gentlemen ran into an issue where he needed windows so he brought it back in to have windows loaded again.

Typically we would install windows and use the key on the laptop. This laptop did not come with a key as the information is stored in the UEFI from what I understand for the licensing. So we installed windows 8 off the network server in the shop but there was no key or activation information entered automatically like we were hoping.

For now I have returned the laptop back to the customer with Ubuntu loaded on it again. I found out that my colleague had completely obliterated all the original partitions on the laptop on his first go around so built in recovery is not an option. I know for fact that the shop is going to run into a lot more of this and what I really need to know is WHAT version of windows will this secure boot integrated bios licensing work with and where can I buy a copy for the shop?

We rarely nuke recovery partitions, it was an oversight by my colleagues part. Maybe he hadn't had a coffee yet that day but I promised the customer that I would do some research and after many hours of googling I can't get a handle on what exactly will fix this issue. I know this is a windows licensing issue and not a ubuntu issue but I feel that I'm more likely to find an answer here than all the other microsoft forums Ive been searching due to user experience with newer eufi laptops.