Is there any way to recover MS Office Product Keys from a Windows.old folder?

[Turbonium]

I recently did a fresh Windows 7 install on a Dell laptop (I couldn't get the recovery partition to work, despite it still being there). As a result, a lot of the original apps are missing, including MS Office apps (sidenote: Dell's website sucks, as you can't even seem to download some original apps, like Roxio or any webcam apps).

Anyway, there is a Windows.old folder in the new install, and I'm wondering if there's any way to recover the MS Office Product Key(s) from it, using a utility of some sort (I'm assuming the actual install files for the apps are attainable off of MS, so the issue is the Product Keys).

 

[nsafreak]

That depends, if the registry hive is in the windows.old folder then you might be able to recover the keys with something like Magical Jelly Bean. You're looking for the ntuser.dat file specifically as that is the registry hive file.

 

[Turbonium]

Alright, so I should be looking for the ntuser.dat file in the Office directory, right?

Just clarifying before I connect remotely to said laptop. Trying to save time/trouble.

 

[Turbonium]

Just tried navigating to the directory where ntuser.dat is via Magical Jelly Bean, but it couldn't find the file for some reason.

The directory (iirc) was:

windows.old/Windows/System32/config/

Any ideas?

 

[nsafreak]

Actually it should be in windows.old\Users\<Username>\ntuser.dat . The <username> is the user that installed the Office programs. It may not have been saved when you did the install over the old operating system, I can't remember if it did or not when I last did it myself.

 

[atguy10]

It should be in: windows.old/Windows/System32/config/

Also, make sure to run Magical Jelly Bean in administrator mode.

You can also try Produkey.
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html