Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. Review: Magical Jelly Bean KeyFinder
Don Bradbury looks at a free program that can retrieve registration keys for Windows and MS Office applications.
| Product | KeyFinder |
|---|---|
| Company | Magical jellybean |
| Web | www.magicaljellybean.com |
| Price | £free |
| We like | Does the job |
| We don't like | Nothing |
| Rating | 10/10 |
| Requirements |
If you can't locate the Microsoft registration key for your copy of Windows, or any supported version of Microsoft Office, and you don't fancy rummaging around in the Registry to find it, a neat little download from www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder.shtml will quickly do the job of reading it for you.
Go to the Magical Jelly Bean website and download the latest version of KeyFinder as a Zip file to your Desktop. Either extract the executable file from the Zip, or let your Zip unpacker run KeyFinder.exe directly from that location, and you'll be presented with a display of the registration information you entered when you loaded Windows. If you operate a supported version of a Microsoft Office application, its registration information is also reported.
Select the Window you require and, hey presto, the key is presented.
You also have the option to modify your PC's Windows Registration information here.
The Options menu also lets you change the Windows key, should you have a need to do that.
In addition to these functions, KeyFinder presents the options of copying the data you extract to the Clipboard, or save it to a text file, or print it out for safe keeping.
The program works on Windows versions 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, Server 2000, and Vista, and on Office 97, Office XP, and Office 2003.
A FAQ section on the website tackles some potential questions, such as why the Office location tab may not appear (the version you are using isn't in the supported list), and why the option to modify the key information may be greyed out (it doesn't support key changes for 2000, NT, or Server 2003).
You may also wonder whether the product key can be pulled from the Windows CD with KeyFinder. FAQs explain that all such CDs are mass-produced from a master and are therefore identical, so the product key cannot be extracted from there.
In conclusion
The freebie KeyFinder does a simple job efficiently. It also avoids the possibility of you damaging the Registry while groping around with Regedit, the prospect of which will be sufficient for many to avoid trying to find the information by this less secure and more difficult route. Magical Jelly Bean KeyFinder is useful if you've lost your registration keys for a reinstall, say.
