# Lost Product Key after OS Upgrade?



## Makoto0729 (Dec 4, 2008)

When I bought my laptop, it had a copy of Office 2007 preinstalled. I never had a CD or anything like that, and the OS was Windows Vista.

After upgrading to Windows 7, all my files are still in the Windows.old folder, but... I can't find any way to get my old product key to use on my laptop again.

I've looked up key recovery programs, such as "Magical Jelly Bean Key Finder" (strange name, but apparently reputable) and thus far none have been able to find it. This is a major problem, since a college student who can't read/write .doc files and the like is severely limited...

My question is this: Has anyone been able to find a program that is able to actually accurately recover the keys? And if the answer is no, is there some file I can copy from my Windows.old version of Office to a new copy of the same type (Home and Student 2007)? Could there be some random DLL containing the keys or something that I may not be able to read myself, but Office will and I can just copypaste?

Thanks in advance. I apologize as well if this is in the wrong forum area.


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

http://social.answers.microsoft.com...r/thread/a27a6ed4-b464-40eb-b7bc-177bc36adb5e

I don't know if that's your post but the advice given sounds hopeful.


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## sobeit (Nov 11, 2007)

if office came with your computer, then the key should be on a sticker on the computer case somewheres. Just look for an oem office sticker.


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## Makoto0729 (Dec 4, 2008)

My laptop has a sticker with a product key on it for a copy of Windows, but there's no sticker for Office, sobeit. Just a sticker for Windows, and a sticker with a serial number and p/n (whatever that means) from HP.

And unfortunately, ebackhus, I don't have my receipt either for my laptop, unlike the guy in the link you provided, since my laptop was given to me as a graduation present... That's why I was unable to use HP's special Windows 7 Upgrade promotion, despite my laptop being in the time frame; I didn't have a valid "proof of purchase". I actually went and bought a retail copy, and I'd prefer not to have to re-buy Office too...


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## sobeit (Nov 11, 2007)

Makoto0729 said:


> When I bought my laptop,





Makoto0729 said:


> , since my laptop was given to me as a graduation present... .


huh?!?!??!


if it came with your system you must have a coa for office to be legal. You should have either received a piece of paper that says Certificate of Authenticity or a coa sticker on your system - no exceptions. Are you sure it was not just a trial version that you have been using?

http://www.microsoft.com/howtotell/content.aspx?displaylang=en&pg=coa

without a receipt and without a coa, there really is nothing you can do except purchase another copy or start using openoffice.


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## tax man tech (Oct 14, 2010)

If the laptop was given as a present I am sure whoever purchased it for you has retained proof of purchase. I do not wish to over-step, but you can always go back to whomever you were gifted by and ask.

Should they have proof then use the links provided above.


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## Vampy99 (Oct 23, 2008)

Run the The Magic Jellybean Keyfinder, go to Tools, Load Hive. Highlight the Windows folder that the Office was installed on. That should pick up her key rather than yours.


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## Makoto0729 (Dec 4, 2008)

I guess I slipped up; I may have said I bought it before, in my first post, but that was just for ease of explanation before I ended up needing to go into detail later. My bad. It was a present, though.

My grandma (the one who bought it) says she gave me the receipt when she gave me the laptop, but I swear I don't remember ever seeing one and have gone through everything that came with it (all the little booklets and such) and haven't found it anywhere. One of us lost it. I'm not sure which, but I also don't think it's really relevant after looking for hours and it's possible it was just thrown away at one point after all this time by one of us by mistake...

EDIT: I just figured out I needed to point Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder to the "Windows" folder IN the Windows.old folder. Oops. 

The Office Key doesn't seem to be there, though. It has:


> Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium
> Windows Information


 on the side, and those are it.

I know I must have had Office keyed in, though, since after all this time, I never got error messages saying I needed to register it, or was locked out, or anything like that.

Would the information there be useful? It has mentioned:


> Product Part No. (not saying unless useful)
> Installed from 'OEM' media.
> Product ID: (see before) match to CD Key Data
> CD Key: (surprisingly, different key than Product ID)
> ...


Is any of that in any way tied to my Office key somehow? Does HP tie them into the same key or something?


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## djaburg (May 15, 2008)

At this point, you might be beating your head against a rock, but you could always download and install OpenOffice which will allow you to create and edit MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.


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## Makoto0729 (Dec 4, 2008)

I considered that, but isn't OpenOffice severely gimped compared to the real deal? It has to be missing a lot of features or some problem in order for Microsoft to not pretty much destroy them legally, don't they? Besides that, unless the layout is almost the exact same too, a lot of the step-by-step walkthroughs on how to do something in particular wouldn't work, will they?

I downloaded the trial of regular Office, temporarily, since I have papers to type as assignments and the like. I suppose I should check around too and see if I can find a way to get Office for cheaper with a student discount of sorts from my school; who knows? It might even be free, though I extremely doubt it.

I'm pretty much screwed as far as retrieving my old key now, huh?


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## sobeit (Nov 11, 2007)

give openoffice a try and see if it is severely gimped for your usage. I have both office and open office and tend to use openoffice all the time. For general usage, papers and such, you should not have any issues, its when you start getting into macros and xml and some of the other fancy stuff normal, general users dont use that microsoft puts into their office is when you start having issues.


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## djaburg (May 15, 2008)

The nice thing about open office is that you can easily have both on your computer and you can try them side by side. I'd suggest that "most" users only take advantage of about 10% of the capabilities of the applications in the office suite. I mean how taxing could it be to create a document with embedded tables (even OLE links), images, columns, or anything else that most people use. Openoffice can do all that easily. You don't know unless you try it. I've had several clients move to openoffice and thunderbird from ms office and have never looked back. Heck openoffice even lets you create PDF's without the addition of third party applications...and it just works.


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