lost serial number

[Guest]

i need to find the serial number for my Windows XP system, but i currently cant boot into it. Is there any way to find the serial number by digging through system files on a different PC?

[SansVarnic]

See if this helps;

 

Find the serial number by typing a command into Windows.

1. Use a key press combination to open a system information window: ...
2. Search Windows for CMD.EXE, and open Command Prompt from the search results. ...
3. At the command prompt, type wmic bios get serialnumber , and then press Enter.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

See if this helps;

 

Find the serial number by typing a command into Windows.

1. Use a key press combination to open a system information window: ...
2. Search Windows for CMD.EXE, and open Command Prompt from the search results. ...
3. At the command prompt, type wmic bios get serialnumber , and then press Enter.

it says "default string"

[r4tch3t]

https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.howtogeek.com/206329/how-to-find-your-lost-windows-or-office-product-keys/amp/

[Guest]

1 minute ago, r4tch3t said:

https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.howtogeek.com/206329/how-to-find-your-lost-windows-or-office-product-keys/amp/

this is for the current running copy of windows, not for a different copy on a different drive that is not booting

[SansVarnic]

8 minutes ago, r4tch3t said:

https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.howtogeek.com/206329/how-to-find-your-lost-windows-or-office-product-keys/amp/

6 minutes ago, NovaMan01 said:

this is for the current running copy of windows, not for a different copy on a different drive that is not booting

Those instructions might still work. Windows XP, 7 and 8 all use the same Kernal so the registry search ought to to be similar and you can do it from another pc you will just have to dig manually.

 

[r4tch3t]

On 27/09/2017 at 1:16 PM, NovaMan01 said:

this is for the current running copy of windows, not for a different copy on a different drive that is not booting

Read further down. As long as the drive can be accessed it should work

 

Use NirSoft’s ProduKey to Recover Product Keys (Even if You Can’t Boot the PC)

The easiest way to get access to your product key is with a third-party utility, and there’s nobody better at those than NirSoft. Their utilities are always crapware-free, and are always really useful. The only issue with this particular utility is that some antivirus will detect it as a false positive, because some malware might try to steal your product key.

Note: the NirSoft keyfinder won’t always work for OEM computers, depending on how they decided to activate the licenses. If your OEM installed your computer and used a single key for all their PCs, this won’t work. It also doesn’t work for Office 2013.

All you have to do is download ProduKey, unzip it, and then run it to immediately see all of your product keys. It’s as simple as that.

If you want to recover a key from a dead computer, you can hook up the hard drive to a working PC, and then run ProduKey and use File > Select Source to point to the external Windows directory. You can then grab the keys from that computer easily.

You can also use a Linux live CD to pull the Windows directory off the other computer and onto a thumb drive, or just grab the registry files if you prefer. If you need help, we’ve got a guide to pulling data off a dead computer.