Yes...another key finder to recover your Windows XP, Windows 2000,
Office XP, and Office 2003 product keys!
This one is different! Besides being able to scan the Registry you can
also scan the \system32\config\SOFTWARE file.
Yes this file contains your product key. It's actually one of the main
files that forms your registry.
The file must not be in use when you try to scan it. Hook the drive
that contains the SOFTWARE file as a slave drive to an existing working
system or use Bart's PE Builder
for create a bootable Windows XP that runs off just the CD.
I work for a computer company that does alot of work on PC's. It's not
uncommon for us to receive a PC from a customer that has a non bootable
OS but data files are still intact and can be recovered. In many of
these cases the customer did not put the XP/2000 sticker on the
computer. The sticker was somehow scratched or peeled off. There
are a number ways that a valid key was lost. We ask the customer to
provide us with their original media and key. Sometimes we get lucky
and the customer finds all this...sometimes they don't. We quote a
price for XP and our installation rates and it's usually a not so happy
customers who ends up buying another DELL for that price!
I'm sure there are alot of PC Technicians that have run into this
situation. This small program is just a small part of the solution but
alot better than nothing.
If you need some additional features. Maybe a DOS version that you can
use with your NTFSDOS boot disk I can probably write a version. I can
also do a linux version as well. It can be used on bootable Linux Live
Distros that can mount NTFS partitions.