Retrieving Microsoft Office 2007 product key from non-functioning computer
I have a client whose Windows 7 Home Premium installation went belly up. She's bought a new PC, and we cannot locate the OEM product key for her installation. We can find the cardboard sleeve that holds the product key plastic card that has the key on it, but not the plastic card.
Retrieving the product key from a working Windows system is easy. Is there any way to get the product key if I plug her HD into my own system temporarily as a second drive?
Dave
Retrieving the product key from a working Windows system is easy. Is there any way to get the product key if I plug her HD into my own system temporarily as a second drive?
Dave
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a lot of the new systems don't even come with a sticker on them with the key. Instead they are held in bios or a tiny partition. If you do a reinstall with the manufactures oem disk it probably won't even ask you for the code.
BTW, I just realized your title says Office 2007, but description implies Win 7. A quick google yields lots of possibly free applications for either of these.
If the hard drive is still good, you could also most likely just plug it in as the boot drive into a new computer and run with that.
If the hard drive is still good, you could also most likely just plug it in as the boot drive into a new computer and run with that.
if the office installation from the old machine was OEM, you can't legally install on a different machine
OEM Software Licensing: Rules & Restrictions - Microsoft
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/A/1/6A1647EE-3FC7-47F2-9AFE-470AD5E5D856/OEMSoftwareLicensingRulesandRestrictions.pdf
OEM Software Licensing: Rules & Restrictions - Microsoft
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/A/1/6A1647EE-3FC7-47F2-9AFE-470AD5E5D856/OEMSoftwareLicensingRulesandRestrictions.pdf
You can try BelArc
I believe, getting the key from a non-functioning computer is unfeasible. Sorry.
The MagicalJellybean product suggested by MrBullwinkle can load the registry from a non-booting system as long as the hard drive still works. From that, it can extract the CD key for Office 2007. According to the FAQ, however, this trick requires Windows 2000, XP or Vista on both the hard drive and the computer doing the retrieving. I have used this trick when I ran Windows XP, but do not know if it will still work in Windows 7. http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder-faq/
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That worked great! Thanks.