Get Windows Serial Key From Registry

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  1. Pull Product Key From Registry
  2. Product Key Location In Registry
  3. How To Get Windows Serial Key
  4. Get Windows 7 Product Key From Registry

There are many utilities that can find the lost Product Key of your live Windows installation, but what if the computer is completely dead and unbootable?

This post introduces some third-party utilities that can get the product keys offline (for Windows, Office and other products), by loading the SOFTWAREregistry hive on a mounted hard disk or other sources.

How to Recover Product Keys from the hard disk of an unbootable Windows computer

This key is saved in the Windows registry. The product license is saved in the registry and evaluated each time you load a Windows update. If the product key is incorrect, you may have problems using some functions of the operating system and updates may not be allowed to proceed. How to Find Windows 10 Lost Product Key. You will get two effective methods to find Windows 10 product key in system registry after installation. How to Find Windows 10 Lost Product Key How to Get a Serial Number for Photoshop CS5/CS6 How to Recover Windows Server 2012 Product Key.

Before proceeding, please note that this article assumes you have a copy of your SOFTWARE registry hive from your dead Windows installation. You may either connect the old hard disk drive as a slave to another computer or copy only the SOFTWARE hive to a USB drive.

You need to run the following utilities as administrator. Otherwise, you’ll get the error A required privilege is not held by the client or similar when loading the hive.

Using KeyFinder

Keyfinder retrieves product keys from unbootable Windows installations. It also has a community-updated configuration file that retrieves product keys for many other applications.

From the Tools menu, click Load Hive… and select your offline Windows directory. The directory structure must be intact (WindowsSystem32config) as KeyFinder doesn’t allow you to choose the SOFTWARE (registry hive) file directly.

That lists your Product keys from the SOFTWARE registry hive.

Using ProduKey

ProduKey is a utility from Nirsoft that displays Product Keys of MS-Office, Windows, Exchange Server, and SQL Server installed on your computer. You can view this information for your current running operating system, or another operating system/computer – by using command-line options.

How
  1. Launch ProduKey.
  2. From the File menu, click Select Source
  3. Select Load the product keys from external Software Registry hive
  4. Click the Browse button and locate the SOFTWARE registry hive (of your unbootable Windows installation), which is present in the WindowsSystem32Config folder. Note that unlike KeyFinder, ProduKey allows you to select the SOFTWARE (registry hive) file directly, and you don’t need to have the WindowsSystem32Config folder structure.
  5. Click OK. The product keys that are available in the Software registry hive should be listed.

Using ShowKeyPlus

ShowKeyPlus (via Microsoft Store) finds your Windows product key. With ShowKeyPlus, you can also load a SOFTWAREregistry hive to retrieve the product key from it.

  • If you bought Windows from an authorized retailer, the product key would only show as the Installed key. This applies to OEM System Builder keys as well.
  • If you upgraded Windows, the Original key would be the key installed before the upgrade. NB if you upgrade to Windows 10 for free, you’ll receive a unique ‘digital entitlement’ instead of a product key. The key displayed will be a generic key in that case.
  • If you bought a new PC running Windows, the product key would be pre-installed on your PC and the key will be included in the firmware in the case of Windows 8 or 10 – or as an OEM marker, in the case of previous versions. The OEM key will display the key in the case of the former, or whether your PC was built for Windows Vista or Windows 7.

To retrieve the key offline, click on the Check Edition and browse to select the SOFTWARE registry hive.

The above utilities can be especially helpful after you upgrade to Windows 10 and need the Product key of your Windows 7 or Windows 8 installation to activate Windows under the free upgrade or digital entitlement scheme. In such cases, you can load the registry hive from the C:Windows.oldWindowsSystem32config directory.

Note that Windows.old folder would automatically deleted by Windows after 28-30 days after upgrading to Windows 10. You should get the Product keys well in advance from the Windows.old directory.

Hope the above tools helped you retrieve your Windows product keys from the hard drive of your unbootable Windows installation.

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About the author

Ramesh Srinivasan founded Winhelponline.com back in 2005. He is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for 10 consecutive years from 2003 to 2012.

Even though you can get Windows 10 free upgrade now if you are Windows computer user, and are able to successfully upgrade official Windows 7 or Windows 8 to Windows 10, Windows 10 product key seems to be not important for you because you don't need to activate windows 10 manually. However, if you get a new computer preinstalled with Windows 10, and now you want to reinstall it to solve some system problems, Windows 10 product key will be necessary during reinstallation.

Now follow the article, you will get two effective methods to find Windows 10 product key in system registry after installation.

Method 1: Find Windows 10 Product Key with Product Key Finder

The following are 3 steps to find Windows 10 lost product key with iSunshare Product Key Finder, which could effectively help to recover product keys for Windows/Office/Adobe/IE/SQL Server/VMware/Exchange Server and Visual Studio etc.

Step 1: Download and install iSunshare Product Key Finder on computer Windows 10 installed.

Step 2: Run it and click Start Recovery button on bottom menu.

Note: If you are using Product Key Finder trial version, now you would get a message on pop-up dialog, prompting you to Order Full Version or Enter Registration Code in order to find all Windows 10 product key codes.

Step 3: Preview and save Windows 10 product key and other software product keys.

In the middle part of Product Key Finder, you can see Windows 10 product key and product ID. Just click Save To File button, and browse a location to save Windows 10 product key. Now you can reinstall Windows 10 on computer with this product key.

Tips: If that is not Product Key Finder full version, users only could preview Windows 10 partial product key codes in this part.

Even if Windows 10 is running normally on your computer, Windows 10 users could also run iSunshare Product Key Finder to get Windows 10 product key and make a backup. So you can take it no matter you want.

Method 2: Find Windows 10 Product Key with VB Script

If you don't want other software to find Windows 10 lost product key, try VB Script please. VB script can read the value out of the registry and then translate it into the format that you need for reinstalling.

Step 1: Copy and paste the following scripts in Notepad.

Set WshShell = CreateObject('WScript.Shell')
MsgBox ConvertToKey(WshShell.RegRead('HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionDigitalProductId'))

Pull Product Key From Registry

Function ConvertToKey(Key)
Const KeyOffset = 52
i = 28
Chars = 'BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789'
Do
Cur = 0
x = 14
Do
Cur = Cur * 256
Cur = Key(x + KeyOffset) + Cur
Key(x + KeyOffset) = (Cur 24) And 255
Cur = Cur Mod 24
x = x -1
Loop While x >= 0
i = i -1
KeyOutput = Mid(Chars, Cur + 1, 1) & KeyOutput
If (((29 - i) Mod 6) = 0) And (i <> -1) Then
i = i -1
KeyOutput = '-' & KeyOutput
End If
Loop While i >= 0
ConvertToKey = KeyOutput
End Function

Step 2: Save the notepad as 'windowsproudctkey.vbs'.

1. Click File > Save As in Notepad.

Product Key Location In Registry

2. Choose 'Save as type' All Files in Save As window, and name it windowsproductkey.vbs. Then save it to the desktop for easy access.

Step 3: Double-click 'windowsproductkey.vbs' and pop-up window shows Windows 10 product key.

Compared to first method, you would find it is more difficult for computer newbies to recover Windows 10 product key with second method. With product key finder tool, just one click could find out Windows product key. But with VBscript, nothing is allowed to be wrong in script, otherwise it would not successfully read Windows 10 product key stored in system registry.

How To Get Windows Serial Key

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