Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
Product keys are used to activate or enable a purchased application. You can often find product keys used on your machine with a special application.
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It's important to save that box, sleeve, or whatever else your product key was originally distributed on.
Under certain circumstances, you can retrieve it from the system that it's installed on, but unfortunately, under other circumstances, you cannot.
I'll look at a couple of tools that you can use to see if it's available for you.
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Keyfinder
Keyfinder from Magical Jelly Bean is a free utility that will display your Windows product key.
Be sure to say "no" to the additional toolbar that the Keyfinder install offers you.
Once run, Keyfinder gives you the information for the current system:
I've obscured my information, but you can see where your CD key would be displayed.
Keyfinder is free and works primarily only with Windows keys. On the download page, they do offer another product which is not free, which claims to display product keys from a wide variety of products.
Belarc Advisor
Belarc Advisor is a PC auditing/inventory tool that actually displays a lot of information about your computer.
Download, install, and run Belarc and it'll start by taking a few minutes to analyze your computer. When done, it displays its results in a local web page in your browser.
To the right is an example of the report generated for my machine. As you can see, it's quite lengthy and includes a lot of information about the machine, its hardware, and the software that's installed on it.
Included in the middle of all of that information are the product keys:
Once again, I've obfuscated my own keys, but you can see that Belarc displays keys for a wide variety of installed programs.
My advice
Write down all of your keys and keep them somewhere safe.
Now. Before you need them.
As an example, I have a spreadsheet that I keep of all of the products that I've purchased and their activation keys. Should I ever need to reinstall a program, I have that information readily available. (Naturally, I keep it secure and also back it up regularly.)
In many ways, product keys are the product. It's not uncommon for the software to be readily available, but without a product key, it either won't activate or will deactivate after a trial period.
Don't lose your keys.
Article C5089 - February 25, 2012 « »
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
February 29, 2012 11:01 AM
I use Gearbox KeyFinder PRO for 32-bit keys and MSKeyViewer Plus for 64-bit keys.
They're both free and they have worked every time for me.
That 32/64 demarcation isn't exactly right, but using both always seems to extract all the keys.
July 1, 2012 12:20 AM
How about instead of storing your keys and activations somewhere remote, like a spreadsheet, just write them in permanent marker on the media. That way it can always be handy where it should be handy. And while you're installing from a CD/DVD, you can open the drawer and look at the key, then close it. Seems a little more practical and useful than having it in a spreadsheet.
January 1, 2013 2:23 PM
I've tried both Belarc and JellyBean. They both give you the same keys. These keys will not allow you to register Windows XP. The keys they supply, according to Belarc, are the manufacturer's key, and not the key that came with the disc that you need to register.
February 14, 2013 11:06 AM
I'm really upset with these guys. I had an older version of Keyfinder that was awesome. Worked every time. I downloaded this version, after reading the article and the comments, and found that it wanted to install "California Fonts" toolbar. There was no way to opt out that I saw. What a HUGE mistake! It decided to download the toolbar, put the toolbar in all the browsers I use (IE, Firefox & Chrome) and change the homepage on all three browsers as well. It locked up my machine and I couldn't stop it through Task Manager. I could go on . . . . I should say I have downloaded many utilities from Ask-Leo. I've followed him for many many years and have found tons of great information. This was the first time I ever had a problem with a utility he suggested. Once again, be careful with KeyFinder.
February 15, 2013 3:23 AM
@Mark
That program wasn't suggested by Leo. It was an ad place there by Google AdSense. Leo doesn't have any control over the ads Google displays on the page.
What's the difference between an ad and your recommendation?