Method Two
This second method uses the wildly popular Hirens Boot CD and an included utility from Nirsoft called Produkey which can retrieve Windows and also Office keys from a an offline Windows system.
1. Download Hirens Boot CD if you don’t already have it and burn to a CD, or if you want to,put Hiren on a USB stick.
2. Boot the CD or USB, choose the Mini XP option and wait for the Windows desktop to load.
3. Click on the Hiren menu in the system tray and navigate to Passwords / Keys -> Product Keys -> ProduKey (Windows Key Viewer).
4. When Produkey loads press F9 to open the Select Source window. Click on the second option down “Load the product keys of external Windows installations from all disks currently plugged to your computer” and then click OK.
The Windows and Office keys will then be displayed for you to write down or save to a text file.
Joshua’s Key Reader is also present in the menu as “XP Key Reader / Changer” and can also read Vista and 7 keys. Refer to section 5b below on how to use it.
There’s another method to retrieve your Windows product key on the next page.