How to get Windows 10 to ask the end user for a product key after a Sysprep

[ZXY Matt]

Hello, I have customised a windows 10 image for customers for CAM machinery. So the programs, performance settings, and desktop setup, start menu etc. are all customized. In windows 1607 I was able to create an unattend.xml answer file in the sysprep folder that, after sysprepped, would allow the system to be imaged, and on first run of deployment and it would ask the end user for the windows key - That would be typed in, and automatically log in to a pre-established administrator account and activate once established on internet.

I have been trying since 2016 to update this 'golden image' without success.
typically the number 1 thing I can not get it to do is to ask for a product key.

I have tried "Microsoft-Windows-Setup" <WillShowUI>Always on the 1 windows PE pass, on the OOBE pass, etc. it never incites the UI to prompt the user to enter a product key.

please hint me to what I am doing wrong.

Originally I had installed windows and set it up as a new local user and sysprepped that in 1607,
but when that failed on the next version I have also been trying to do it in audit mode. Neither seem to prompt for product keys on sysprep deployment.

Even without any unattend file, it still does not do it.

This image is being deployed on new hardware that has never had a windows installation before. I do not have a volume license, but individual OEM licenses for each machine.

thanks-