How do I find my product key from windows.old?

From a different machine, although am still angcious to find out how exactly this is done.
Have emailed someone the registry from the "windows.old" hoping to get some results soon, apologies if not the answer you seek.

I used #13 from Tom, will try that one if I get a chance. Thanks!

Kaktussoft said:

Did #14 give you a win7 product key?

This is a thread going back a few years. I just wanted to chime in and say thanks, this thread helped me enormously. As somebody who had a similar thing happen to me. I had no sticker on my box, Win 7 pro installed and I used the free upgrade to win10 without remembering to use jellybean etc... to pull out the key before I upgraded.

I had used JB/produkey but couldn't open the hive. The command in post 13 and subsequent command line command in post 14 worked perfectly.

Thanks guys!!!!

Thank you so so much for posting the link to ProduKey!

I decided to do a clean install of win 10 pro on my win 7 pro machine, guess what? I wrote down the activation key not the product key! You can't use the activation key. I called Microsoft support to ask how to revert to "Windows.old", go back to my working win 7 install and the girl could not help me.

Specific details for people like us who need them:
IMPORTANT: Had to right click and run as administrator, in order to get the access to the listed place: C:\Windows.old\windows\system32\config\software.
IMPORTANT: enter that path in the "external registry hive".

Then I saw my office and win 7 pro keys listed.

You can activate from windows 10 by typing:
1. WinKey+R ( aka run ) or open a command prompt.
2. slui 3, press enter

This opens up a product key change window and now you can type in the win 7 pro key.

You guys just saved me TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS, thank you so god damn much.

After upgrading to Win 10 from Win 7, I needed my Product Key from Win 7 (OEM, no COA sticker). Here is what worked for me:

- Used Produkey by Nirsoft (see below)

- Choose File > Select Source > Load the product keys from an external Software Registry hive (see below)

- Browse to C:\Windows.old\Windows\system32\config\software (slight clarification from below)

HTH to clarify the path.

Fred
FCTC

tom982 said:

Hi thx1139,

I don't know how to do it in Jelly Bean, but I do with ProduKey:

Your Windows 7 product key is stored in the software registry hive, located here:

C:\Windows\system32\config\software

Please note, software is the file name, not a directory. It has no file extension. Your drive may have a different letter.

This is a little program that will tell you the product keys of the various software installed on your computer. What makes this different, is the ability to load keys from an external registry hive. Exactly what we want

So if you download and run ProduKey (by NirSoft):

http://www.nirsoft.n...key_viewer.html

Then press File > Select Source, you will be presented with a new menu. On this, select Load the product keys from an external Software Registry hive and you will be prompted to open a file. Navigate to the software hive on the external drive and open the hive. E.g. D:\Windows\system32\config\software. You should now have your product keys

Hope this helped.

Tom