Visual Studio 2008 Product Key in Registry?

Question

I have a friend who needs to reinstall windows, but he can't find his VS2008 activation code/product key. Is there a way to look up which product key he entered when he last installed VS2008 in the registry? Any other method of finding the key is also welcome.

Answer 1

For 32 bit Windows:

Visual Studio 2003:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.0\Registration\PIDKEY

Visual Studio 2005:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\Registration\PIDKEY

Visual Studio 2008:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\Registration\PIDKEY

For 64 bit Windows:

Visual Studio 2003:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.0\Registration\PIDKEY

Visual Studio 2005:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\Registration\PIDKEY

Visual Studio 2008:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\Registration\PIDKEY

Notes:

• Data is a GUID without dashes. Put a dash ( – ) after every 5 characters to convert to product key.

• If PIDKEY value is empty try to look at the subfolders e.g.

  ...\Registration\1000.0x0000\PIDKEY

  or

  ...\Registration\2000.0x0000\PIDKEY