How to find an Microsoft License Key with Magical JellyBean Keyfinder

If you’re an IT Consultant and have got into the exceedingly good habit of keeping up-to date Network Documentation for all your clients (go read Karl Palachuk’s blog if you need convincing why this is a good idea) then you’ll no doubt keep records of all license keys you use to install software as part of this documentation. But if you’re anything like me, you often think you’ve made a record of the license keys used during roll-outs, but then find you actually haven’t. Tsk!

So what to do if you’ve not made a note of the license keys and can’t find them anywhere?

If your clients have a Volume Licensing agreement with Microsoft, then the eOpen web-site is supposed to be a good place to store most of this information. I say supposed to, because in my experience 50% of the time the Volume License Summary section of the site is simply unavailable. Grr…

That’s where the Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder comes in handy. Despite it’s bizarre name, it’s a freeware Open Source piece of software that works on Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2008, Office XP, Office 2003, and the Office 2007 family of products. Simply run the stand-alone executable (no installation required, so you could carry it around on your USB key-disk) and seconds later you have that elusive License/CD Key for adding to your documentation.

Keyfinder has been around for a few years now, is well trusted and simply works.

Now there’s no excuse for you not to keep you or your clients licensing records up-to date!