Extracting Windows 7 Product Key
My friend's laptop motherboard died and he needs his Windows 7 product key from the hard drive (which is still working).
I connected the old drive as a secondary drive to my own computer and tried using a key finder utility, but it just keeps showing my own product key and not his.
Is there a way to retrieve the product key from the old drive using my computer?
Extract qualifying windows 7 product key after W10 clean install. Installing 10 Home Single language when it was 10 Home, or vice versa, will cause activation to fail. To install 10 Home, you want the ISO simply labeled Windows 10 from the Media Creation Tool. It's multi edition and can install Home or Pro. A common mistake is downloading the Home SL ISO when you want 10 Home. The Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder is a freeware utility that retrieves your Product Key (cd key) used to install windows from your registry. It also has a community-updated configuration file that retrieves product keys for many other applications. Another feature is the ability to retrieve product keys from unbootable Windows installations. It’s a portable utility designed to help you recover Windows product key and more importantly, is a free software. Step 2: Extract ShowKeyPlus.zip file to get ShowKeyPlus executable. Double-click on the same to run it. Click Yes button if you see the User Account Control box.
Jason1 Answer
It’s possible, but a little tricky. You need to extract the product key from the Windows registry hive files from the target drive.
There’s different ways to do it, but probably the quickest and easiest way is with Nirsoft’s ProduKey:
- Download, extract, and run the program (it will show your own key by default)
- Press F9 to bring up the Select Source dialog
- Select Load the product keys from external Software Registry hive
- Browse to the
SOFTWAREregistry hive. For example, if you have the drive from the other system mounted as driveZ:, then you would probably selectZ:WindowsSystem32ConfigSOFTWARE - Click
[OK]
It should read the hive file from the other copy of Windows and display the appropriate product key.
In this screenshot, I ran ProduKey in Windows XP (installed in C:) and then extracted the key from Windows 7 (mounted as T:). Note how it still says C:Windows since Windows 7 was indeed installed in C:, even though it’s files are currently accessible from T:.
protected by Community♦Aug 20 '14 at 19:04
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When you enter, register and activate your copy of Windows, using a Retail key, the information is stored in the Windows Registry. Users of OEM computers may have noticed that, since a couple of years, the manufacturers have stopped pasting their COA or Certificate of Authenticity sticker, which displayed the Windows product key to the machine anymore. Now this key is embedded in the BIOS/UEFI.
Find Windows Product Key
It is to be noted that a Retail product license is tied to the person whereas the OEM product key is tied to the machine, as per Microsoft Windows Desktop licensing terms. In this post, we will see how to find the original Windows Product Key using Command Prompt or PowerShell, from BIOS or Registry. It works for Retail & OEM licenses too.
Recover Windows product key using Command Prompt
From the WinX Menu in Windows 10 / 8.1, open an elevated command prompt window, type the following command and hit Enter:
Your Windows product key will be displayed.
Get Windows License Key using PowerShell
To find your Windows 10 Product Key, open a PowerShell window with administrative privileges, type the following command and hit Enter:
Pull Windows 7 Product Key From Registry
Your Windows license key will appear! This will work on Windows 10/ 8.1/7/Vista.
In Windows 10, the product key will probably be encrypted, tied to your Microsoft Account and stored by Microsoft in the cloud too.
You can also find Windows 10 product key using VB Script.
Pull Windows 7 Product Key
If you are looking for an easier way, you can also use some free Software Key Finders to recover and save, not just Windows, but even Office, Software, Games serials and license keys.
This post will help you if you want to uninstall the Windows Product Key.
Show Product Key Windows 7
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