There comes a time in the life of every Windows PC user, when they have to make a decision to format the hard disk and reinstall Windows all over again. This can be done in many different ways – using the factory reset disks given to by your computers manufacturer, using Windows DVD or through the Windows Refresh function in Windows 8. But no matter which path you take, you end up losing your installed third party software and perhaps their license keys too. Before you reinstall Windows, it is essential that you note down the license keys for all the installed software in Windows. This prevents you from losing the software license keys for which you have paid through your hard earned money. If you want to find and save the license keys of installed software, then you can use the free SterJo Key Finder.
StreJo Key Finder is a portable and free program for Windows that scans your PC for license keys for many different software programs including but not limited to Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Visual Studio, ACDSee, Autocad, Corel Draw and many more.
Using StreJo Key Finder does not require you to be a computer wizard. All you have to do is download it, extract it to a folder and run it from there. It will soon detect all the software license keys on your computer and display them to you in a list format. On my Windows 8 Professional PC, it detected only two programs – Windows 8 itself and Techsmith SnagIt.
StreJo Key Finder can also be used to detect the license keys of a computer where you cannot boot into Windows for some reason (for example, malware infection, boot sector corruption, memory failure etc.). What you can do is take out the hard disk of non-booting computer, attach it to a working computer as a secondary hard disk, boot into working Windows and then run StreJo Key Finder. In StreJo Key Finder, select File → Recover Keys From → External Windows Directory from the menubar and then select the Windows folder from the non-booting hard disk.
StreJo Key Finder will read the registry data from that computer and will try to salvage whatever it can and then display the found licensed keys to you. You can save the list of found licensed keys to a text file and then print it on paper for future reference.
Verdict:
StreJo Key Finder is a useful program that can find license keys for many of the well known software. It can be used to detect the license keys not only from the computer on which it is running but also from a dead unbootable computer.
You can download StreJo Key Finder from http://www.sterjosoft.com/key-finder.html.