Comments on: FREE: Product Key Finder – Export license keys from multiple Windows computers

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 08:16:14 +0000

Hi Michael,

The new version (2.1.0) has been released. I’ve added support for what I believe is all the possible office localizations and a handful of Adobe CS3 products. Any users of Adobe products who have problems need just let me know and I should be able to get their license key back.

This version has been largely rewritten to improve reliability.

Hopefully, your German office should get picked up now – let me know.

Thanks,

Dave

By: Michael Pietroforte

Michael Pietroforte — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:27:03 +0000

Dave, I am using the German version of Office 2007 Plus SP2. If you post a comment here once the new version is out, I will mention it in my daily news wrap up.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 10:46:23 +0000

Thanks for the review!

I’m about to release 2.1.0 which will recover Adobe CS3 (something the other similar apps out there don’t do). It’ll also fix up some x64 detection methods.

The way a lot of the detection methods (currently about 200) get added is based on user feedback. So feel free to drop me an e-mail with the particular edition of office you’re using and I’ll see if i can help.

As for why they get picked up as malware / hack-tools, It’s usually because they’re UPX packed. (At least ProducyKeyFinder is). If you decompress them with UPX the message will likely go away. I’ve tried contacting McAffee about this but the page where you can contact them for removal is broken.

By: Michael Pietroforte

Michael Pietroforte — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:27:45 +0000

But thanks for the tip!. One can never be cautious enough.

By: Michael Pietroforte

Michael Pietroforte — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:26:26 +0000

I think it is McAfee's heuristics module that triggers the alarm. Most of the other antivirus engines at Virustotal classify the tool as harmless.

By: PatatjeNL

PatatjeNL — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:43:42 +0000

Found 2 virusses inside the download. Use McAfee to trace them. In: “FREE: Product Key Finder – Export software license keys from multiple Windows computers”.

By: Michael Pietroforte

Michael Pietroforte — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:58:27 +0000

Thanks a lot for the tips. Both tools are now on my to-do-list.

By: Claus Valca

Claus Valca — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:37:02 +0000

I personally like ProduKey v1.36 from Nir Sofer.

In addition to pulling the product keys for the local system/account, you can also do remote-system access as well. One of the handiest features in a recent version update is the ability to “…load the product keys of external Windows installations from all disks currently plugged to your computer. When using this option, ProduKey automatically scan all your hard-drives, find the Windows installation folder in them, and extract all product keys stored in these Windows installations.”

That’s super-handy when you are doing recovery-work on a system via an image-file of the off-line system (or mounted WIM file).

Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder is another freeware goodie that is Open Source now as well.

Unfortunately, many enterprise and home-user anti-virus/anti-malware apps now treat these (maybe rightly so) as potential “hack-tools” and often will nuke them when used on a system. You either have to un-quarantine them (if allowed) or find an alternative that passes the AV test sigs.

To be clear I’m not suggesting these tools are virus/trojan in content in any way, shape, or form. Just that their nature seems to get them blacklisted.

I’m eager to see if this one passes our own Symantec AV scan test. That would make it a handy addition

Thanks for sharing!

–Claus V.