Productkey for XP and 2000 is WHERE??!!??

I've just been trying to find out what the product key is on one of our computers that has XP on it so I use the other product key when reinstalling the other one (forgot which one goes with which computer) - no point risking the pirate key problem! But I can't figure out where it's kept. So I checked our 2000 machine - no joy there either. 98 was dead easy to turn up but I've now used Winkey Lite and pulled up the key off the 2000 machine so I could figure out where they hide it in the registry but can't find the first 5 characters of the string, let alone the entire string.

Where the heck do they put it these days???

P.S. Should be pulling off the key on the XP machine with Winkey Lite as well - just about to transfer it with a flash disk and then we'll see.

Update: Yep, no problem getting the key. Now to install the other machine.

 

Hmm, obviously didn't make myself quite clear enough!!

The question wasn't meant to be asking for help to find the key; I knew I could do that with WinKey. The question was meant to be asking where do you look for the key in XP and 2000 when you don't have something like WinKey handy.

So now that people know what the question actually is...

 

Still wondering...

 

should be plastered on the side (underneath) of the tower!

If its a rigdy didge bought one.....

 

Yeah- in XP it's encrypted or encoded or scrambled (whatever word makes you happy) and listed as Digital Product ID. Without a 'key finder' type of tool, there's really no way to get the key; unscrambling the ID is not for the timid, that's why there's programs that do it for you. If the key finder app won't run for some reason on a PC, you can sometimes export the reg key to a working PC, save the working reg, import the reg key temporarily and run the key finder. But if you're not really confident and astute, the PC can end up totally hosed. Some key finders read the registry, others read the file:
"%systemroot%\system32\config\software". If that file is opened in an editor (Notepad for example) it's mainly garbled nonsense (to us anyway) but if you look carefully, you'll see Digital Product ID in there, followed by a LONG string of hex values..... If anyone is interested, I have a link (somewhere) to a site that goes thru all the math and algorithims (spelling?) involved in creating and validating product keys.....

hopperdave2000

 

Definitely interested in the link, Hopperdave - I've been going over the program in the link Halo posted but I'm afraid my coding and hex aren't quite up to scratch although it's given me some clues.

I'd definitely be interested in giving it a go at learning to extract the key by head knowledge for the times when I'm helping someone with their computer and they can't find their disk or can find the disk but not the case. Friends are a case in point - they moved a few times over a fairly short period and the disks were continually going missing - no problem with their 98SE machine because I just extracted the key and used my own disk to wipe and reinstall their machine but a nuisance if the person you're helping doesn't live close by, has no internet access and you forget to bring a key finder with you for NT machines. And I'm a genius at forgetting the one important item...

 

OK- I have the link somewhere on a CD full of such stuff.... I haven't needed the CD in quite some time, so be patient If I can't find the disc, I'll Google myself silly 'til I find it. Now that I'm thinking about it, I think it was a text file- either Word or Notepad opened it... but I must have downloaded it from somewhere... I'll find it... gimme a day or two....

hopperdave2000

 

As promised, here are 2 links to some info, and a technical .txt file that I referred to above is attached (it's zipped)..... have fun!!!!
The links:
http://www.webtree.ca/newlife/WindowsXP_WPA_details.htm
http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.php

hd2k

 

Hmmmm... the attachment didn't take. Let's try it again....
The zipped version kept erroring out upon attaching/uploading, so here's the unzipped file....