Abstract: Technologies are described herein for software product license management. Following a click to run paradigm, manual user entry of product keys and manual user involvement in product activation may be avoided. A software product key can be associated with a user ID. The product key and associated user ID can be stored on a remote application server. The product key can be retrieved from the application server using the user ID or related user credentials. An application retrieving its own product key from the application server can be supported. The user-centric approach to product key management can be useful for software license models based on subscriptions, trial software, virtual software, downloadable software, or purely web based solutions as well as traditional software license purchases. The software product can also be autonomously activated. This activation can occur as a background operation within the application client portion of the software.