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Product Key

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by ksjhajaria2007

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I used jelly beans to find my Windows Xp prof 2003 product key. I wanted to use the program to find if the key they find from the system matches with the one on the Windows Tag pasted to the bottom of the laptop. AND...the product key that i discovered using Jelly Beans DOES NOT match the one on the tag at the bottom of my laptop. Am i doing something wrong here?
My real problem is i dont have the product key of my Office XP hence need to find the Product key in case something happens to my laptop and i need to reinstall.

7 replies

by older mycroft

So you don't necessarily have to be doing anything wrong.

Initially they [i]MIGHT[/i] match up, but if the system has ever been Repaired, or if a component has been changed/replaced necessitating a Re-Install, when the install routine reached the point for the Product Key to be entered, the installer would come up with a different set of numbers due to the history of the machine.

You may well have Magical Jellybean finding a revised install key sequence.

by ksjhajaria2007

So if any software has been reinstalled the product key will change? So does it mean that whenever i try to reinstall the same software a second time, i cant actually use the product key that one of "key Finder" programs throws up? if that the case how to i find the product key which will be accepted by the software i reinstall?

by older mycroft

The last time I fell foul of the M$ validation system, I had a gaming tower that was behaving extremely problematically. This became so bad that I reinstalled 5 times in the space of one month.

Unknown to me, Windows XP Pro can only [b]BE[/b] installed a certain number of times in a given number of days (28 I think) so when I reinstalled for the 4th time, the install routine would not accept the Product Key AT ALL!

I then had to phone the Freephone Telephone Number on the installation screen, then FEED each bank of alpha-numeric characters into the touchpad on my phone - then have an answering-machine-voice read back my new numbers to me - [i]"Press * to hear again, Press # to continue to next set of numbers!"[/i]

So, when I ran Magical Jellybean for this thread, lo and behold the number sequence it came back with didn't match with the Product Key on the printed label.

THAT is all I meant. Unless you know the provenance of the unit you are dealing with, you [b]CAN'T[/b] assume that the number [b][i]WILL[/b][/i] match - but you [b]CAN[/b] be assured that it [b][i]IS[/b][/i] valid. ;)

by seanferd

you are looking at the key for Office XP, not Windows XP. Two different animals.

by ksjhajaria2007

as i said, i wanted to verify whether the jelly bean software will give me the right key. since i had the product key for Windows Xp printed at the bottom, i used that as a check.

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