Office 97 cd key

Hi - Been a while and ... I think the key is available if you system is still up and running. Something/Somewhere Help, but I don't remember from where.

I think you can contact MS, prove to them that you are legally licensed (helps a lot if youregistered MS Office with them) and they will re-issue a license (not sure if it is the original or a new one). I have same/similar problem with Visual Studio, but haven't followed up on that yet.

Probably in a registry key somewhere but I don'tknow where or how to find.

I usually write the CD key inside the front cover of whatever hardcopy came with the software or put it on a piece of paper and tape it to the inside of the cd case (didn't do it for Visual Studio it seems or have lost case since that).

If you open any of the office apps and go to HELP then ABOUT, you will see the number.

Good luck.

But, of course, if the program won't open and that's the reason you want to re-install it then you can't go to the Help Menu...

Try opening the regedit application. (On the Start menu go to Run... At the prompt type REGEDIT then hit the return key)

Once regedit is open go to the EDIT menu and select FIND...

Type "ProductID" without the quotes at the prompt. Deselect the values check box and hit enter. Select the option for search full strings only.

This will start a search of all the registry keys with the name ProductID. There may be quite a few so just hit the F3 key until the program finds the one for MS Office.

MS puts all the serial numbers for their in a registry key named ProductID in the section of registry which corresponds to each application. Since there are many versions of Office and each has its own key the surest method is to just sift through all of the ProductIDs.

NOTE: Windows sometimes doesn't erase the registry keys when you delete a program so there may be different serial numbers on your machine. Look for the Key in the left hand pane which most closely matches you version of Office. My machine has keys for MS Office Professional 95, Office 97, and Office... In my case the last one is thecorrect one for Office 2000.

Good Luck,
Al Franco, II