How to extract your Windows product/serial key

Posted by Winston

Tuesday, 09 October 2012 21:56

It's a long story, but basically the hard drive on my friend's computer ran out of space the other day. So in the end, we decided to buy a larger internal hard drive to replace the old one. Simple. So what's next?

Well, after we installed the hard drive, we decided to use it as the main C: drive instead, and use the old one as a backup. That's all good until we realize we can't find my friend's restore DVD. Fear not ... as we still have his Windows Vista disc which came with the system (it's a genuine copy may I add). However, the problem is ... he upgraded his copy of Vista to Windows 7 Ultimate some time ago. And what's worse, is that he upgraded it online and does not have the Windows 7 disc or the product/serial key.

So what do we do? Well, you can contact/phone the friendly people at Microsoft and the explain your situation, and hopefully they will be able to help (chances are you'll be fobbed off).

Luckily for my friend, I was kind enough to lend him my Windows 7 disc ...

But wait ... isn't that illegal? Well, the answer is NO. If I was to give my product/serial key to him to register and activate the Windows ... then yeah, that would be illegal (I do not condone piracy).

Using someone else's Windows disc to install Windows but using your own product/serial key, that to me is fine.

Now, we still have a problem ... my friend does not have his Windows 7 product/serial key. He was never given one during the online upgrade by Microsoft.

So even if we use my Windows 7 disc to install Windows, he'll be prevented to activate or run Windows properly after 30 days. He will be locked out until he enters a legitimate product/serial key and activate Windows online.

The Solution

After pondering over this issue, I realize that the old hard drive is running on Windows 7, and that product/serial key must still be on the system. After some research, I found a great way to extract his Windows 7 product/serial key from his old hard drive.

Follow these 3 simple steps!

Download Produkey software here
Install and run the application
Extract the Windows product/serial key

Seriously, it couldn't be simiplier than that ... Get your product/serial key now by using ProduKey, and save it for future use ... especially when you upgrade or re-install your Windows.