It facilitated changing the product key to a new one, which was sometimes necessary when dealing with OEM vs. Retail license conflicts.
| Tool Name | Description | Platform & Cost | | :--- | :--- | :--- | | | A classic, free tool that quickly retrieves the CD key of Windows and Microsoft Office from the registry. | Windows / Freeware | | ProduKey | A small utility from NirSoft that displays the ProductID and CD-Key of Microsoft Office, Windows, and SQL Server. | Windows / Freeware | | RockXP | A tool designed specifically for Windows XP that can retrieve and change your product key and save your activation file. | Windows XP / Freeware | | Lazesoft Windows Key Finder | A more modern tool that can recover lost keys for Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 7, 8, 10, and Microsoft Office. | Windows / Freeware | | ShowKeyPlus | A modern, open-source tool available in the Microsoft Store that displays the current Windows key, original key (if upgraded), and OEM key. | Windows (Store app) / Free |
Many gamers run XP in VirtualBox or VMware to play classics like Half-Life 2 or Age of Empires II . If they lost their old key, version 5.12 can retrieve it from a backup or old hard drive.
