Having your repair clients explain that they have ‘misplaced’ their Windows XP product key is not just a fact of life, it can be downright annoying. On the whole, this is not something that can really be prevented being you are not able to intervene on their behalf until they have already managed to straight up lose it. It becomes a tedious circle of pain quite quickly. ;o)

So rather than continuing to dwell on the negative, I thought it might pay off to start looking at some solutions that are available to us depending on what our needs happen to be.

ViewKeyXP: This is a utility that is designed to help you figure out what that mysterious product key is on your client’s machine through the magic of performing a reverse hash on that said key. On the flipside though, I have heard reports that this utility no longer works if you are using SP2. Sometimes this happens, folks. I think that it is pretty obvious that this is basically nothing more than a piracy deterrent.

KeyFinder: another option from the realm of ‘where the @*%!& is that key?’ called KeyFinder. This tool is much like the other software options out there with the exception that this one is not totally free. That’s right, people, they do ask you to invest a small fee of US$4.95, which, to be honest, I think is totally reasonable. This program is designed to work well with Windows 98 through Windows XP, Office 97, Office XP, and Office 2003. At this point, I am unclear if it has any challenges with SP2.

AIDA32: Even though this program is officially not being supported any longer from what I have heard through the grapevine, it is the best hardware/software information about your system program that I have ever used. Best of all, it does appear to give you the product key for Windows XP even with SP2 installed.

OK, that about covers it. If you have other suggestions that you feel I should be aware of, please feel free to let me know by e-mailing me at matt@lockergnome.com.