Hey guys, long time no harass. Here's the low down! Several years ago I bought into the Windows 7 student upgrade deal through my mums university. Worked fine for aches and aches till the machine died, I lost interest and the problem faded into obscurity. Now I've got the machine working and I've got a problem with Windows activation. I wrote the product key on the CD and to be blunt, my hand writing is pretty pish. However I've tried every realistic permutation of what could be considered wrong and I'm having no luck. Embarrassing, but hey... I've tried to access the Microsoft digital river to try find my product key but it's claiming that the account no longer exists. (I am going to contact them, but I'm assuming this will come to nothing.) Since leaving uni as well, I am unable to access her emails and recover the confirmation email or order ID. Now, my next most realistic option seems as so: I am able to recover a great deal of information from my previous Windows installation on the SSD with File Scavenger. Is it possible to use a program such as MagicJellyBean to scour these recovered files for my product key from the previous installation? It's a totally ridiculous situation and makes me boke a bit with cringe, but I'm desperate enough to ask on here! Cheers folks.
It's very unlikely you'll be able to get it really. However - you have bought the software legally, so you are legally allowed to activate it by normally illegal means. Doubt I can link them or anything but there are programs that fully activate windows without putting in a product key. I was in a similar situation as you, bought the disks legally, then while cleaning out my room, my mum threw away the box with the activation in it, and of course microsoft werent just going to send me another one. Because of this I do know from experience that these such programs do work perfectly as if it had been activated by legitimate means. Obviously that's up to you, but it is perfectly legal now you have bought the software to do it
Yes there is. Produkey by nirsoft http://www.howtogeek.com/64600/how-to-recover-windows-and-software-keys-from-a-broken-computer/ There is a how too above. I'm too tired to paraphrase it. Basically copy system32/config from old disc to usb file windows/system32/config open nirsoft Produkey open the settings open the file on usb key and voila. Got me out of a scrape more than once
Cheers for that! Sadly no joy as I imagine old config files have probably already been overwritten by the new install. Do you know which files specifically Produkey looks at? Might be able to recover them from some of the 'unknown' directories with some joy.
Would it not be easier to phone up the microsoft activation line and do it that way ( enter the number into the phone that the activation window gives you, write down the new one, type that in, job done in less than ~10 minutes )?
The files you need are in C:/windows/system32/config it contains the registry (I think), you could try running it and seeing what happened? Sorry I assumed that when you said you had some files you meant that you had a backup, or you had used a new hdd and still had access to the old one.
Problem solved! The guys at digital river were surprisingly helpful and all I had to do was confirm billing address, email etc and they were happy to resend me the confirmation email. (Even to another email address!) Impressed for once with Microsoft customer service.
