25
Jun
Find Windows XP Product Key From Your Installation CD [How To]
Have you lost your Windows CD Key and are desperately looking for it? No backups, nothing. What do you do now? Well till you have your Original installation you can easily find the Product key without breaking a sweat.
Here are the simple steps you need to perform in order to get your Product Key from the installation CD.
(Note: This may only work for certain OEM CDs, if it does not work for you, you can check out our earlier post on how you can find your Windows XP Product key.)
- Insert the Installation CD into your CD / Drive Drive.
- Explore the CD and navigate to the i386 folder.
- Open the file UNATTEND.txt and scroll down to the last line.
- You will find your Windows XP Product key there.
We were able to find the CD key on a Windows XP Corporate Edition installation CD and would love to know if you were able to find it on your own installation CDs. Do let us know through your comments on how it went for you.
Via: [Cool Tech Tips]
Moldova
June 25th, 2008 at 10:00 am #
This is very nice. I didn’t knew it.
Techblissonline Dot Com
June 26th, 2008 at 1:00 am #
Keith, For me the CD is also not needed.This tool works well - http://techblissonline.com/find-product-key-cd-ley-windows-vista-xp-office-2007-sql-server-produkey/
Magie
June 26th, 2008 at 2:40 am #
I use to write the key prouct in the back f the CD cover. It’s conventional way, but it helps me a lot. Thanks anyway for your tip.
Paul
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:12 am #
Thats brilliant. Not sure how I never knew this before. Just saved my arse as well as we have a ton of legit XP disks but no CD keys anywhere!
Brad
October 4th, 2008 at 6:21 am #
I tried this and there were simply “” where the key should be. I wonder if x64 is different? It also says in the text document that it is a sample. How else can I find it?
Allon Maxwell
October 9th, 2008 at 2:40 pm #
ALAS!!!! …… On my Win XP home OEM CD it does find a key. However it doesn’t seem to be the actual key for the disk. I think it is a sample. When I try bto use it to install a message pops up to say it is an invalid key.
I checked on a second OEM disk. It has the identical key to the first disk in the unattend.txt file.
Back to the drawing board!
Allon
Murugan
October 10th, 2008 at 2:03 am #
This google is very good, helps us to find out each and everything.
Michael
October 27th, 2008 at 4:43 pm #
This Tip does NOT work, while the there appears to be a key listed in the i386\unattend.txt file it is NOT a valid one.
If anyone knows if it possible to get a valid KEY from file on the installation CD please post. I have a an installation disk but CD KEY, the former IT guy never wrote it down anywhere.
Jeff
November 18th, 2008 at 3:01 pm #
if u still have the ISO do this: open the folder i386 and then open the file winnt.sif . There is located the Serial of any un-attended XP