SIW 2008-04-02

SIW - Licenses

Notes:

The Product Key can't be retrieved from the Windows CD! Product keys are not stored on CDs themselves. When you enter your key while installing, it's checked against an algorithm to verify that the key is valid.
For those of you using this to retrieve serial numbers from a DELL, be aware that the key will be incorrect. DELL pre-activates all its versions of Windows with an identical serial and places the license key on the outside of your case. This saves them money because it's much more efficient for these large companies to install Windows once and then clone the drive.
Vista x64 is NOT SUPPORTED! It may work, but it wasn't tested.
With Office 2000, SIW retrieves the Product ID. You need to call Microsoft for customer service. You give the customer service agent the product ID and he or she will then give you your Office 2000 Product Key.
You can use Windows Product Key Update Tool to change your Product Key.
Only SIW Technician's or Business Version can save Licenses to a LOG file.

How to recover Product Keys from a non-booting Windows Installation.
First you will need some things:

then:

Boot the dead system from BartPE CD
Start SIW
Select Software --> Remote Licenses --> From Hive
Load the Hive File (C:\windows\system32\config\system for Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008) from the dead Windows directory