how to find your windows 7 product key

If you're planning on doing a reinstall of Windows merely can't find your product key, you're in luck because it's stored in the Windows Registry. It's just not piece of cake to find, and it's impossible to read without some help. Luckily, nosotros're here to assist.

As you can see in the screenshot above, the product ID is stored in the registry but is in a binary format that can't be read by humans unless y'all are some sort of Cylon. You aren't, are yous?

RELATED: Beginner Geek: How to Reinstall Windows on Your Computer

We're not really sure why Microsoft went to great lengths to make information technology difficult to meet the product keys for their software, peculiarly since they are stored right in there in the registry and can be read by software, if not past humans. Nosotros tin just presume that they don't want everyone to re-utilise a fundamental from an quondam figurer.

The great thing is that you can fifty-fifty recover a cardinal, fifty-fifty from a computer that won't boot anymore. All you need is access to the disk drive from a working estimator. Proceed reading for more.

Three Places Y'all Might Observe the Central

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The key you need will be in one of three places:

Stored in software on your PC: When you (or your PC manufacturer) installs Windows, Windows stores its product key in the registry. You can excerpt this product key, and–often–enter it when reinstalling Windows on your PC. Crucially, you'll demand to grab it from your operating system before you brainstorm reinstalling Windows or information technology could exist deleted if you format your hard bulldoze.
Printed on a sticker: Some PCs use a technology chosen "Arrangement Locked Pre-installation," or SLP. If your PC uses this, the product primal on your PC–the one stored in the registry, and the one key-viewer applications display–will be unlike from the bodily central your PC needs. The actual cardinal is on a certificate of actuality (COA) sticker on your PC or its power supply. The one in the registry and fundamental-viewer application is a red herring. This organization was mutual for Windows vii PCs.
Embedded in your PC's UEFI firmware: Many newer PCs that come up with Windows 8 or ten apply a new method. The key for the version of Windows the PC comes with is stored in the estimator'southward UEFI firmware or BIOS. Y'all don't even demand to know it–assuming you lot're installing the same edition of Windows the PC came with, it should automatically activate and piece of work without you needing to enter a central. It'll all happen automatically.

Be sure to use the same version and edition of Windows the computer came with. In other words, if it came with Windows 7 Home Premium, you can't install Windows 7 Professional.

If the Cardinal Is Stored in Your PC's Hardware

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Allow'south start with the simplest situation. On newer Windows viii and 10 computers, the cardinal isn't stored in software where information technology can exist wiped, or on a sticker where it could be smudged off or removed. No 1 can glance at your computer's sticker to steal its product key. Instead, the key is stored in the computer'southward UEFI firmware or BIOS past the manufacturer.

You don't have to do anything special if you have this. Y'all should just be able to reinstall the same edition of Windows the PC came with and it should just work without even asking y'all for a key. (Still, information technology may be best to discover the product key using 1 of the beneath methods and write it down before reinstalling Windows–only in example.)

If you want to find the UEFI-embedded key and write information technology down, you can exercise and so quite simply. But open the Outset carte, blazon "powershell", and run the Powershell application that comes up.

Then, enter the following control and press Enter:

(Get-WmiObject -query 'select * from SoftwareLicensingService').OA3xOriginalProductKey

You should be rewarded with your embedded license fundamental. Write it down and store it in a safety identify.

Read the Primal From the Certificate of Authenticity Sticker

If you have a Windows 7-era PC, there's a good take chances the PC's cardinal is a single key the manufacturer uses for all their PCs. Thanks to "Organization Locked Pre-installation," yous're non immune to apply that fundamental to install Windows. If you endeavor, yous'll get error messages almost the key being invalid.

To cheque, yous'll need to wait for a document of authenticity sticker on your computer. The COA sticker verifies that the estimator came with an authentic copy of Windows, and that sticker has a production key printed on it. Y'all'll need that product key to reinstall Windows–and, if the manufacturer used System Locked Pre-installation, that fundamental is different from the one your PC came with in software.

Examine your computer to find the key. On a laptop, it may be on the lesser of the laptop. If your laptop has a removable battery, it may be under the bombardment. If there's some sort of compartment you can open, information technology might be in in that location. It may even be stuck to the laptop's charger brick. If it's a desktop, look on the side of the desktop'southward instance. If it'due south not at that place, cheque the tiptop, back, bottom, and anywhere else it might exist.

If the key has rubbed off of the sticker, in that location'due south not much you tin exercise. You can try contacting your computer's manufacturer and explaining what happened, just nosotros can't guarantee they'll help. Microsoft would e'er be happy to sell you another key, though!

Employ NirSoft's ProduKey to Recover Product Keys (Fifty-fifty if You Can't Boot the PC)

The easiest fashion to get access to your product key is with a third-party utility, and there'southward nobody better at those than NirSoft. Their utilities are always crapware-free, and are always actually useful. The merely issue with this particular utility is that some antivirus will detect it as a imitation positive, because some malware might endeavour to steal your production central.

Note:the NirSoft keyfinder won't ever piece of work for OEM computers, depending on how they decided to actuate the licenses. If your OEM installed your computer and used a unmarried primal for all their PCs, this won't work. Information technology too doesn't work for Office 2013.

All you accept to do is download ProduKey, unzip it, and and so run it to immediately run across all of your product keys. Information technology'south as simple as that.

If you want to recover a central from a dead computer, yous can hook up the hard bulldoze to a working PC, and then run ProduKey and use File > Select Source to point to the external Windows directory. Y'all can then grab the keys from that figurer easily.

You lot can also utilise a Linux live CD to pull the Windows directory off the other computer and onto a thumb drive, or just grab the registry files if you lot adopt. If you lot need help, we've got a guide to pulling information off a expressionless computer.

RELATED: How to Recover Files From a Dead Computer

Discover the Windows Cardinal Without Any Software (Advanced Users Only)

Bold you can boot your computer without any problems, yous can easily create a simple VBscript that will read the value out of the registry and then interpret it into the format that y'all demand for reinstalling. We're not certain where this script came from, simply reader raphoenix posted it on our forum a long time ago, so we're sharing information technology hither for you.

Re-create and paste the following into a Notepad window:

Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Crush") MsgBox ConvertToKey(WshShell.RegRead("HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DigitalProductId"))  Function ConvertToKey(Key) Const KeyOffset = 52 i = 28 Chars = "BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789" Do Cur = 0 x = xiv Practise Cur = Cur * 256 Cur = Key(x + KeyOffset) + Cur Key(x + KeyOffset) = (Cur \ 24) And 255 Cur = Cur Mod 24 x = 10 -1 Loop While x >= 0 i = i -1 KeyOutput = Mid(Chars, Cur + one, 1) & KeyOutput If (((29 - i) Modern half-dozen) = 0) And (i <> -1) And so i = i -1 KeyOutput = "-" & KeyOutput End If Loop While i >= 0 ConvertToKey = KeyOutput Terminate Role

You'll need to utilize File -> Save As, change the "Save as type" to "All Files" and then proper noun it productkey.vbs or something similar ending with the vbs extension. We'd recommend saving to the desktop for easy access.

One time you've saved information technology, you can just double-click and the popup window will testify you lot your product key.

Pro tip: If y'all use CTRL+C when the popup window is agile, it will re-create the contents of the window to the clipboard, and then you can paste it into Notepad or somewhere else.

The product key system is complicated to understand because Microsoft doesn't really desire typical Windows users to reinstall Windows on their PCs. Instead, they'd rather you use your computer manufacturer's recovery media. But the recovery media is full of the bloatware you don't want on your PC–that'south why so many geeks often opt to reinstall Windows on their new PCs.

Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/206329/how-to-find-your-lost-windows-or-office-product-keys/

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